), and I'm gonna spend the month from September 8th through October 8th flying around, and hopefully meeting up with a crapload of mefites in the process. Help me figure it all out.
I've put together a rough draft schedule for the month, see below. This is based on a few things:
- Jetblue's
route map, which is pretty decent given the circumstances but not exhaustive and very hub-driven
- Where I've been and not been before (most of these destinations are new to me or effectively so)
- Minimizing (until the last week or so, at least) the amount of back-and-forth overflying as much as I can
- Staying domestic (flights incorporate potentially 3-digit taxes/fees per flight for non-US destinations, unfortunately)
- Trying to put at least two days between flying days where possible, to keep me sane and allow for some flexibility in travel plans while still making meetups schedulable (so if I have to catch a later flight, etc, it hopefully won't bork anything up)
I've never flown on an aggressive schedule like this and don't know many of these airports or who/what is near them, so if there's anything not merely silly but actually stupid in the itinerary, please let me know so I can rethink that bit.
Key things:
- I'd love to have a meetup in each destination. Beyond that, I'd love to hang out with mefites and get to know these places a little bit, if folks are available for that.
- I'm going to bring camera, video cam, maybe a field recorder too; I'd like to document the heck out of this, and it'd be great to document some willing mefites while I'm at it, incorporate folks into some amateur travelogue type stuff maybe.
- I'm interested in local stuff, but not really in touristy stuff. I'd rather take in local flavor or the quiet charms and weirdnesses from a resident's perspective than hit a tour loop or eat at a national chain.
- I like good food! Food is awesome. Good cheap or good not-as-cheap. Keyword: good. Knowing where to eat would be great.
- I'm totally down with public transportation, and I don't drive. Knowing how to find out how to find my way around (and whether it's tricky to do so) in any given town is a definite plus.
- If folks can put me up, that's awesome. I can sleep pretty much anywhere. Where that won't work, I'll grab cheap motels, etc.
With all that in mind, here's a draft itinerary. I need to fine-tune it for flight times, etc, but I thought I'd throw it out here as a starting point so folks can sanity-check and so on.
Meetups the day after I'm scheduled to fly into town might make the most sense, since I don't know if I'll be flying in early or late on any given day of this yet (and if there are bumps, early might turn into late for a given flight anyway).
Meetups on the evening of for each of the Road Trip destinations, I figure.
1. Northeast and New Orleans
9/8: PDX-JFK
9/10: JFK-Boston
9/12: train Boston to Portland, ME -- Downeaster line
9/13: Portland-JFK-Burlington (or...train/bus Portland-Jessamyn's place? Road trip, any VT/NH/ME folks?)
9/15: Burlington-JFK-New Orleans
9/17: New Orleans-BOS
2. Road Trip of Brotherly Love
9/18: Road trip! to Philly with my brother
9/19: to Baltimore
9/20: to DC
9/21: to NYC, brother drives home to BOS
3. Southeast and Southwest
9/21: JFK-Raleigh
9/23: Raleigh-JFK/BOS-Vegas
9/25: Vegas-Long Beach
9/28: Long Beach-SFO
4. Cleanup
9/30: SFO-Long Beach-Salt Lake
10/2: Salt Lake-Long Beach-Chicago
10/4: Chicago-BOS
10/5: BOS-Denver
10/7: Denver-JFK
10/8: JFK-PDX
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:29 PM on August 20, 2009