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Vacation plan update
Still keeping an eye on the costs of travel to China, out of a sort of morbid curiosity. Sadly, no one is desperate enough to get people to fly there by dropping their airfares. It's around $1160 for a flight from my home airport to Beijing and then home from HK, which is $155 more than it cost the last time I seriously looked. I suppose the extra money is to convince the flight crew to stick around, given the trouble Air India's had recently with pilots not wanting to fly a plane that has someone recently arrived from a SARS-infected country on board. Not that my folks would be willing to pay for partial costs of a trip to SARS country - my mom's not even comfortable with the idea of someone from Toronto spending a week at my house at this point (sorry, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mountainspeak, I truly am) - but still.
However, round-trip airfare to Fairbanks, Alaska, costs $519 if I fly in on 3 September and return on 17 September. I've stopped looking at the costs to fly into Fairbanks and out of Anchorage, because for $199 I can get on a trip that takes me from Fairbanks up to Gates of the Arctic National Park and lets me get a photograph of myself at a marker saying 'hey, she crossed the Arctic Circle and you didn't, neener neener'. All right, no 'neener neener', but you get the idea... I know it's only an arbitrary designation on the map, but it's kind of a neat idea. I'm not a mountain climber, so I'm not likely to get the chance to set foot on Denali's own slopes; I might as well take this particular opportunity to have an experience I can't get anywhere else in the United States. I did briefly consider the $400 trip, which flies from Fairbanks to Point Barrow, but the few pictures I've seen of Barrow seem to indicate that it's not really all that interesting after the first hour or two. Might be the farthest point north in the United States, but... if I'm gonna fly up there I'd like it to be on a dinky little bush plane, maybe carrying the mail or something. That'd at least be part of the Old School Alaska Experience, not like flying on a 757 or whatever Air Alaska uses to ferry people up there. I might go for that, but the only bush flights to Barrow seem to be cargo only, so I'll just stick with 'heeeey, arctic circle' and leave it at that.
I changed the allocation of my vacation account money slightly. Previously, I had my office put $180 into my savings account and the bank would spin off $25 a week to the vacation fund. This week I had them up it to an even $200. $50 per week is now going to be spun off to the vacation fund and the remainder will stay in my savings account against a time of need. Right now I have $450 in my vacation account. I am inclined to buy my plane ticket as soon as there is enough $$ to cover it, then continue saving until I have to actually take the money and go to Alaska with it. I'm allowed to take stuff out of that account twice a year, so I'm told. Hopefully, this will work...
mountainspeak, I truly am) - but still.However, round-trip airfare to Fairbanks, Alaska, costs $519 if I fly in on 3 September and return on 17 September. I've stopped looking at the costs to fly into Fairbanks and out of Anchorage, because for $199 I can get on a trip that takes me from Fairbanks up to Gates of the Arctic National Park and lets me get a photograph of myself at a marker saying 'hey, she crossed the Arctic Circle and you didn't, neener neener'. All right, no 'neener neener', but you get the idea... I know it's only an arbitrary designation on the map, but it's kind of a neat idea. I'm not a mountain climber, so I'm not likely to get the chance to set foot on Denali's own slopes; I might as well take this particular opportunity to have an experience I can't get anywhere else in the United States. I did briefly consider the $400 trip, which flies from Fairbanks to Point Barrow, but the few pictures I've seen of Barrow seem to indicate that it's not really all that interesting after the first hour or two. Might be the farthest point north in the United States, but... if I'm gonna fly up there I'd like it to be on a dinky little bush plane, maybe carrying the mail or something. That'd at least be part of the Old School Alaska Experience, not like flying on a 757 or whatever Air Alaska uses to ferry people up there. I might go for that, but the only bush flights to Barrow seem to be cargo only, so I'll just stick with 'heeeey, arctic circle' and leave it at that.
I changed the allocation of my vacation account money slightly. Previously, I had my office put $180 into my savings account and the bank would spin off $25 a week to the vacation fund. This week I had them up it to an even $200. $50 per week is now going to be spun off to the vacation fund and the remainder will stay in my savings account against a time of need. Right now I have $450 in my vacation account. I am inclined to buy my plane ticket as soon as there is enough $$ to cover it, then continue saving until I have to actually take the money and go to Alaska with it. I'm allowed to take stuff out of that account twice a year, so I'm told. Hopefully, this will work...