Plane Tickets!

Just finalized the first legs of our trip. Real money on the line now. This was a big day for our family! We used miles for the first two legs, which saved us quite a bit and adds flexibility because I can change frequent flier tickets with no penalties. All the remaining legs were booked with Airtreks (www.airtreks.com). They are a great company specializing in these sorts of trips. Every time I compared one of their estimates to other multi-leg booking services they were cheaper. Their agents are knowledgable and have traveled extensively so they offered great advice.

So here are our first stops. We fly from Minneapolis to Guatemala (connecting through Atlanta) to Quito, Ecuador (connecting through Mexico City - yes, this is odd, but it was a free ticket) to Galapagos to Iquitos, Peru (connecting through Guayaquil, Ecuador) to Cusco, Peru (connecting through Lima) and then back to Los Angeles (connecting through Lima). PHEW!   That is a lot of flights and seat bookings but we are booked. We get back on October 2nd then and from there the plan will be to go to New Zealand but that will part of the next package so we have a little time to figure that out. 

While in Cusco, we friend will join us to do the Inca Trail which we had to book in a hurry because the permits are going fast. This government runs a website where you can see, real-time, how many are available on given days. If curious, you can access here.

While in Galapagos we will do a cruise sort of tour with a guide to learn as much as possible about that amazing part of the world. Real world science to say the least. We have put a down payment down on that portion as well.

Lastly, there is insurance to worry about. One of the great benefits of AirTreks is that they include 6 months of insurance with you package for free but in our case they would not have started until our first ticket booked though them. This left us in a pinch for the inital 6 weeks. In addition to that their coverage lacked a few things that I would like to have. So we took a safer route and purchased a one year plan through World Nomads. They have very comprehensive packages and are the go place for this sort of thing we have decided via our research.

Big day indeed!