Glad you decided to do it! So let’s get traveling

As I mentioned briefly, I did not really have a chance to start traveling until I hit the ripe old age of 42. At that point of my life, I had 3 kids, a house, a full time career , and child support to pay. As you can imagine, I had to be careful with my spending and plan my trip around work, school, and child care options. But I was determined!

Here I was sitting at my wife’s apartment( girlfriend at the time), nose packed full of gauze from a recent sinus surgery. Maybe it was the pain killers, may be it was the bourbon, thinking back it probably was both, but I made a decision that night that we were going to Costa Rica. It was a dream of mine for years- Volcanos, Rain Forests, Beaches, Mountains, and a land of endless Adventure! With some snakes and mosquitos, but let’s not dwell on that.

After I have made up my mind, even in a half drunk pain killer euphoria, I knew it was time to figure out how I was going to make this happen.

Now I have to admit, it helped I was dating my now lovely Wife Lorie, who is the world’s greatest planner. I mean I’m not talking about pick up a travel guide and circle some stops on a map kind of planner. I’m talking like D-Day Invasion kind of planning- spreadsheets, statistics, weather data, and flight data. I’m pretty sure she had a direct link a to a NASA satellite. It all started that February evening. Watching her work was almost head spinning(well again could have been my bourbon pain pill cocktail). Anyhow, next thing I know, we had lists of flights,hotels and rental cars. We didnt even know at the time what the plan was. Do we rent a car or not? Do we visit the Caribbean side or the Pacific side? What time of year should we visit? Should we just run down to the local AAA office let them tell us what to do?

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It was a lot of information to process and it was exciting!

Money and time was our 2 biggest hurdles and I am sure you are thinking the same thing. Right? It always comes down to can I get the time off? How much is this trip going to cost?

With all the info we had, we decided to look at flights first. What was the cheapest airline to Costa Rica from Washington DC? Finding a reasonable flight is knowing where to look. Getting a good price on a flight involves a lot of factors. If you’re not looking at the right place at the right time, you might miss the best deal. Google Flights, Expedia, and Skyscanner are helpful tools with flexible search parameters, and can send you different price alerts for the destinations in the which you’re interested. For us, we prefer direct flights and always look at the discount airlines first. I check Southwest and Spirit first before I start looking elseware. Both have a large presence in the Washington DC area with lots of flights to choose from.

A quick word about Spirit – I have to confess I am one of those people that say I will never fly Spirit again. Then I find myself back on a Spirit flight. So if money is more of a factor than comfort – Go for it. I also tend to find (despite what some critics say) looking directly at an airline’s website, especially Spirit and Southwest, I can often get a better price and flight time. So that’s what we did – found 2 direct flights from BWI to San Jose, the capital and largest city of Costa Rica. We chose May because of the weather and price – it was dry season and a moderately priced time to visit. I personally think once you have your time frame decided on, if you find a flight you can afford (preferably a direct flight or one with the shortest layovers)- Book it!

It will get you motivated to plan the rest of the trip.

If you jump on a flight deal quickly, you can always take advantage of most airlines’ 24-hour cancellation policies. According to the Department of Transportation, all major U.S. airlines must allow a grace period of 24 hours for travelers to make cancellations if needed. That means, if you can’t reach your travel partner quickly enough, or you find a better deal after the fact, cancel your flight later that day. Check out SkyScanner to get started http://www.skyscanner.com/ Just pick a favorite destination.

So now we have our flights, what’s next?

Well I can say on this day it was more pain pills and sleep. Sinus surgery is not fun. For this Blog Series it Hotels, baby! You have to sleep and shower somewhere, right? My next post will be on Adventures in Hotel picking. Stay tuned!