Travel planning, early phases.

[camwyn]

Got an issue of Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel Magazine a while ago that included a big ol' writeup on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Now, I've driven to that area a few times, but only ever on the way to Toronto. I've taken the train to Toronto and theoretically been through the region - I say theoretically because we were STOPPED FOR CUSTOMS FOR TWO HOURS, once on the American side, once on the Canadian side. Aside from getting out of my car and briefly visiting the botanical gardens and gift shop at the Falls itself, I've never really visited the region for long.

I get to carry over three paid-time-off days from this year to next year. I believe I have a little more than that left, so I can allocate a few for early in January if I like and still have room for sick time or emergencies in this year.

US Airways has $97 round trip fares from La Guardia to Buffalo leaving on 1 or 2 January and returning on 6 January; Greyhound charges $7.50 or so to get me from Buffalo to Niagara Falls, Ontario, and back again. Niagara Falls has a couple of hostels. . .

Now it's just a question of getting to La Guardia, I think. I tried looking for cheap fares from Newark to that part of New York State, or from Newark to Toronto, but all the cheap plane fares are from either LGA or JFK. Bla.

Comments

[mephron]

On the bright side, JetBlue is cheap, and you can get there easily by subway, and while they serve you damn near nothing, they do go to Buffalo and you do get to watch Cartoon Network Boomerang the whole trip.

[camwyn]

Mmph. Just checked them out. The $49 flights are sufficiently early in the morning that I would have to get up at gross o'clock in order to ride the trains out there, and since it adds up to around $100 plus taxes and fees for round trip, it isn't an appreciable savings over LGA. And there's two flights out of La Guardia, one at 9, the other close to noon. But thanks for the suggestion.

[mephron]

Yeah, I didn't fly there, just back, on my last trip to Toronto. (I was travelling with a friend, and we had to fly out of Buffalo or she'd have to have stayed an extra day in NYC.)

We trained from Toronto to Buffalo, then took a cab from the train station to the airport.