A short story about flying to Vanuatu from Atlanta.. Some advice, cheaper is not always better.
Since we were now without a home base (Ed tells me this sounds better than referring to ourselves as “homeless”.. I guess he does have a point), we were ready for our first adventure, and because it had been quite a while since we’d seen Ed’s parents, our plan was to spend a few months visiting with them. His parents had been living in New Zealand on their sailboat for a few years, and earlier in the year they purchased a home on the North Island, overlooking Doves Bay in the adorable town of Kerikeri. In May, his parents joined the 2019 Pacific Circuit Rally for their own adventure; they joined other friendly sailors to sail throughout some of the most breathtaking destinations in the Pacific before planning to return to New Zealand in October. Ed and I were traveling to join them for the final few legs of the rally before exploring New Zealand for ourselves.
If you’re interested in sailing or learning more about the Pacific Circuit Rally, click here.
Okay, so now that you have a little more of the back story as to why we were flying to the other side of the world, I’ll get back to the real point of this story. Ed and I love to travel, and we have both been on quite a few flights; we’ve also always been and most likely always will be, people who search for the cheapest flights possible when traveling. So just like any other flight search we’ve done, the lower the numbers coming up in the search engines were, the more interested we were.
Flash forward to the morning of September 12th, 2019, our bags were packed and we were dressed in our appropriately comfy airport attire, excited to begin our journey. As much as it pains me to admit, my outfit of choice was something I later came to regret (even though I told Ed I wouldn’t). So I’ll just say this, wearing a jumpsuit, although the comfiest jumpsuit I’ve ever owned, is less than pleasant when needing to use the bathroom multiple times in a not-so-roomy airplane restroom. Ladies, you know what I’m taking about.
We arrived at the Spirit Airlines terminal in the Atlanta airport with plenty of time to spare. The first leg of our long journey was a 4 hour and 45 minute flight to Los Angeles, no big deal. The big deal was the 9 hour layover we had in LA before our following flight to Fiji, followed by another 9 hour layover in Fiji before our final flight to Vanuatu. And I should tell you, having a lengthy layover in Fiji’s airport which is essentially a circular foodcourt you cannot leave, after a 12 hour flight, can make a person go a little crazy. All-in-all, our total travel time was a whopping 68 hours and 40 minutes. Yes, I said 68 hours and 40 minutes. Needless to say, we smelled slightly less than pleasant when we arrived at our final destination.
Things we learned during our nearly 70 hours of travel to Vanuatu:
- Do not wear a jumpsuit/romper/onesie when flying (especially when traveling for 68 hours and 40 minutes).
- Do not buy the cheapest airline tickets you can find without checking the layover times between flights.
- Free alcohol on international flights is everything.
- Arriving to an amazing sunset at your final destination helps you forget any pain you went through getting there.
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An Advantageous Life 