Decision

So, after having had a long nice talk over the phone (okay, and after realizing we were going to Florida during hurricane season), we’ve decided to postpone our trip another six (or eight) months. Instead of going next fall, we’re going to the US in the spring of 2014. Exact time not yet decided, of course. But possibly end of April/early May… and then staying for six weeks (as planned from the beginning).
Not a super fun thing to decide, but that means that we’ll have more time to earn money and hopefully will be going there with a bigger budget and won’t need to save on everything…

Travel costs

It’s all about the money…

Update: All the flights (both to/from and inside of the US) will cost approx. 13 000 SEK ($1950) per person. If you add the costs for train and car rental(s), the total travel costs will be approx. 17 000 SEK ($2600) for six weeks and ten different destinations – per person. It’s not impossible, but I still haven’t saved any money. I’m starting to feel the pressure. Maybe this isn’t the right thing to do? Maybe it would be more sensible to postpone the trip another year and really save up the money needed, instead of pushing it and maybe not make it on time?

Route suggestion

I have a suggestion for a new route:

I’m not really sure Jenny will like it, but it’s a suggestion based on our budget (sadly, everything is depending on our budget), and availability to fly in to, or out of, certain cities.

Anyway, the new suggestion is as follows: New York, then train (light blue) to Buffalo/Niagara Falls. A plane ride to Seattle, and to San Francisco. Car between SF and Los Angeles (hopefully via some beautiful canyon, since I scrapped THE Grand Canyon, and hopefully a Redwood forest, too). Then another plane ride, to Orlando, where we’ll go to as many theme parks as possible in four days… Then we’ll fly to Key West and a snorkeling experience. From Key West we’ll take a car and drive to Miami (Beach?) – the road between Key West and Miami are supposed to be extremely beautiful. From Miami, we’ll take a bus to Fort Lauderdale (which has non-stop flights to D.C.) and fly to Washington, D.C. The bit between D.C. and NY, we’ll also go by plane, and… that’s it. That should be possible in 42 days, right? Even if people seem to think I’m crazy when I tell them our route…
/Teresa.

Bye, bye, steady income…

I handed in my resignation yesterday. That means I will work my final day in the end of August. It feels weird. But, more importantly, it means that I will have to struggle really hard (and probably won’t make it anyway) to save all the money necessary for the trip. But I’ll do my very best, at least I can promise you that.

/Teresa.

Or not.

No, I must have misunderstood something… Hertz’s price was triple that of Avis’s. That seems odd. I must have made a mistake. Well, nevermind. It’s a long time before we have to make such a reservation, anyway.

Rent-a-car

Since I should be working right now, I naturally browse the Internet for more important things: How much would it cost to rent a car between San Francisco and Los Angeles (one week) and Key West and Miami (one week)? The answer is: not much! The rates is between $218 (1500 SEK) and $270 (1900 SEK) per week. And that’s… really not very much. Not included gas, of course, but still. I’m slightly amazed that it’s that cheap, actually…

/Teresa.

Or maybe train?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we are going to get around while in the US, and I realized today that I’ve forgotten about trains. To rent a car is, admittedly, more flexible, but trains are cheaper. And I’m sorry to say this, but it is likely that this trip won’t be as extravagant as I’d wish it could be. (Seriously, I’d love to stay at 3-star hotels, or better, in NYC, but let’s face it, that costs way too much).

Not too expensive…

$120 is about 830 SEK, which is fine for two tickets. And we’ll save an entire day by not driving. If we would rent a car and drive, we would need to split the journey over two days and need to sleep over at a hotel. Which also costs money.

Everything is about money… It’s so depressing.

/Teresa.

Private accommodations?

But I may have the solution to our living accommodation problems: airbnb.com! I hope it works, because that would probably save us at least some money… Which could make us get to the US in time, and not having to postpone the trip for a whole year.

/Teresa.

Stuff to see

Yes, well, now I’ve found yet another thing I want to do in New York: Walk in The High Line Park. I’m not really sure how we’ll be able to have the time to do and see everything we want to do and see, since the plan is to “only” stay in NY for a week…

/Teresa.

Budget (concerning hostels/hotels)

After looking up places to stay in New York and Key West, I’ve realized that we probably have underestimated the prices of hostels and hotels. It might be possible to get away with $60-80 (ca 400-600 SEK) when staying in a less tourist-y place, but never in Key West. And since neither of us are very tolerant with… you know, roaches and the like, we probably want at least clean hostel/hotel rooms. I think we as a minimum must plan for $80-120 (550-850 SEK) a night. But we’ll see what happens. We will most likely need to reassess the budget several times before even the end of this year…

/Teresa.