Booked!

Well, I've been looking since May for a way to get us down to Mexico and our friends in Puerto Escondido. It all came together at once yesterday, so now we're booked!

I actually booked three separate flights yesterday, and each of them was a fantastic deal!

I love booking flights. It makes me excited about the upcoming travel. Especially when you wait forever for a great deal and then finally get to jump on it.

Originally, I was looking for a deal to Puerto Vallarta because that's where our motorhome is currently stored. But we know that we want to visit some friends further south and finally decided that we didn't really want to drive the motorhome all the way down (1,300 kms) to Puerto Escondido. We've done that drive quite a few times, plus gasoline has gone up in price quite a bit. I decided that it would actually be cheaper to fly.

But it's not easy to get to Puerto Escondido. It's just a small airport and it's not serviced by any international flights. The only regularly scheduled flights come from Mexico City or Oaxaca.

Puerto Escondido

Our return flight from Korea connects in Seattle so we're just going to get off the plane and stay there. We were thinking of making our way south exploring San Francisco and Los Angeles along the way, so I was looking for flight to Puerto Escondido from any of those cities. But they wanted between $350 and $400 per person.

So I started looking at local Mexican flights to go on sale. If I could get a deal from Mexico City to Puerto Escondido then it should (in theory) be fairly easy to get a deal to Mexico City from the western coast of the United States.

Yesterday, I found a deal. Mexico City to Puerto Escondido for 1,525 pesos ($130) return! Fantastic price on sale with a local Mexican carrier, VivaAerobus. So, $65 each way per person.

So I booked it! We arrive in Puerto Escondido November 11 for a two week visit. Our favorite Mexican beach town and we get to see our friends at the same time.

Then, I had to find a way to Mexico City. I had been watching a fare from Oakland, California (just outside of San Francisco) and had seen it drop the other day from $184 to $160. I had tried to book it at the time, but missed it by minutes and it had gone back to $184. Sure enough, yesterday around suppertime I checked and it was back to $160. A US Airways flight that connects in Phoenix.

Booked!

So we fly from Oakland, Calif to Mexico City November 9th. Two nights and one full day in "the big tamale" before our flight to Puerto Escondido on the 11th.

Hmm. But somehow we still have to get to Puerto Vallarta and the motorhome. So I looked for flights from Mexico City and they were all around $100. That's too much, I thought. So I checked to see if any flights leave from nearby Toluca and sure enough there was one from Interjet for $58 each. Ha! That works even better because now we can also visit our friends in Valle de Bravo!!

So we fly from Toluca to Puerto Vallarta on December 2nd. That gives us 6 days in Valle de Bravo.

Then, we will hop in the motorhome on December 2nd and slowly make our way north over the following five months. We have never properly explored Arizona and southern California and want to spend some time making our way to Utah in March and April.

So, our winter plans are taking shape!

Only one thing left. We have to find a way from Seattle to San Francisco around November 5th. That's a pretty popular flight route, so I'm totally confident I'll find a deal for that.

Our Amazon.com deal of the day?

One of readers recommended a book from our post about the elephants the other day. It's not really a great deal, but it looks like a great book and has some really great reviews...

Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived