FLIGHT CHANGE

My flight times have been changed, and Friday 16th is now:

Depart Toronto 18:30 (6:30pm), arrive LA 20:45 (8:45pm). Depart LA for Australia 22:30 (10:30pm).

This is better than hanging around LA airport for 9 hours, but it's cutting my check-in really fine. The travel agent says it will be OK, but I like to worry about these things.

LINKITY LINK

I'm updating the side bar to the right with links. Do you have any particularly good travel-related websites that you use? Let me know!

FRUSTRATION

I had travel anxiety dreams last night – trying to book accommodation has clearly addled my mind! It was one of those dreams where people’s flights were delayed, and I had to start walking without them, and then the accommodation hadn’t been booked properly and we ended up having to walk half a day, then walk back to the place we’d stayed the night before and it was ALL SO FRUSTRATING.

Partly this is due to the fact that of the three places I emailed last Sunday to enquire about accommodation for the UK walk, only one wrote back (to say they weren’t around that week). I emailed another place last Thursday as an alternative to that one, but haven’t heard back from them, either. I think that 9 days is a bit crap, don’t you? I mean, if people don’t have an email address, that’s something I can work around, but if they do have an email address, they should bloody well use it. If you don’t check it, don’t offer it as a service. Sheesh!

Luckily, Dan’s mum is a legend and has agreed to ring these places and check things with them. It’s great having a lovely UK contact to do that so we’re not spending hundreds of dollars on phone bills.

FLITINERARY

Last tickets for the Canada trip have been booked.

Depart Melbourne 26th April (12:00)
(via Auckland)
Arrive LA 26th April (12:30)
Air New Zealand

Depart LA 30th April (09:45)
Arrive Vancouver 30th April (12:40)
Air Canada

Depart Vancouver 6th May (16:30)
Arrive Toronto 6th May (23:55)
West Jet

Depart Toronto 16th May (10:45)
Arrive LA 16th May (13:05)
American Airlines

Depart LA 16th May (22:30)
(via Auckland)
Arrive Melbourne 18th May (09:30)
Air New Zealand


We’ve also booked tickets to London.

Depart Melbourne 11th September (15:50)
(via Singapore)
Arrive London 12th September (05:55)
Singapore Airlines

Depart London 9th October (11:55)
(via Singapore)
Arrive Melbourne 10th October (20:15)
Singapore Airlines


I realise this is a boring post for most people, but it’s good to have a record of all this handy! And look! I can post to this blog using my other account, now. Brill.

WE'RE GOING TO THE UK!

Yay! We have tix to the UK, leaving here Thursday 11th September (ha!) and arriving 5:55am Friday 12th. Leaving the UK on the 9th of October, arriving Melbourne on the 10th at 8:15pm. Dan also has insurance, and I’m going to sign and send my forms tomorrow. Tickets were about $2500 each including taxes. Ouch!

I also have tickets from LA to Vancouver, and Toronto to LA. Now I just have to book Vancouver to Toronto, which my lovely Flight Centre person said I could probably get cheaper on the internet (and suggested an airline).

I am getting to be so broke! But I will be broke and TRAVELLING, which is so much more exciting than being broke at home!

INSURANCE AND MAPS

Today I got quote for travel insurance. I'm just going to go through my credit union (who use Allianz) for ease and convenience and because they're generally pretty awesome. It turns out that the best insurance for me is a Frequent Traveller one, which covers me for 12 months, worldwide. They're sending a quote out to me - it's a bit under $500 and there's no excess on things. And fabulously, they pay the excess on any rental vehicle insurance (up to $3000, which is . . . more than excess generally is anyway on these things).

Anyway! WE GOT WALKING BOOKS YESTERDAY! A speedy turnaround from amazon.co.uk



. . . and then I procrastinated for over an hour mapping our route on google maps. I LOVE GOOGLE MAPS! So why not take a peek?!


View Larger Map