Travel preparations
Ive had a rather quiet few weeks with the photography. My normal day job has impacted it a bit and to be brutally honest, its been a bland winter in Kalgoorlie Western Australia, throw in a small seasonal cold to put me on my arse and I really haven’t had much time or desire.
Ive had the last 1.5 weeks off work on annual leave with the intention of preparing for my next trip in September. I need to get back to work to make some overtime and pay for it all lol.
Duration, an unstable Aussie $, International travel and making sure I comply with legislation is a huge task. Not to mention several calls to my bank to ensure them that all the transactions were not fraudulent 🙂 . Give them credit though, they were all over what I was purchasing to set a red flag lol.
Ive spent the last 2 days melting the credit card booking accommodation across Canada and USA. 70 days of travel, 27 hotel locations, car hire, state and national passes all builds up.
I will say though, the 4 years of preparing for this trip have been a godsend, I think and what I have managed to prove is that I now have it all down pat. (.. let me reword that… My darling wife knows the questions to ask lol). Im not good with speaking with phone services on the phone, it does my head in and I end up getting a twitch in my left eye lol. I firmly believe its something that has built up over plus 40 years of listening to people who are not actually listening to you. My wife on the other hand is awesome at that stuff.
Ive managed to make some savings with hotel accommodation, I think when I first started out I was close to 19 grand on that alone, over the months/ years I have researched destinations and business memberships to get that value down to nearly half that. Even took the locations to a local travel agent who promptly quoted nearly 16 grand. Im pretty stoked on that part.
Car hire, Ive also managed to get down quote a bit and through a reputable company who have happily assisted with my questions. One thing to remember is that some car hire companies don’t permit cross border travel (esp Mexico) and some don’t even period travelling as far east as Arizona. Something I didn’t know last time.
So Im currently at a stage of all accommodation done, car hire booked, National Parks passes ordered, flights done, visa (ESTA and ETA) in both countries done, some hiking gear ordered…. I seriously can’t wait.
Id also been looking to replace the laptop. The one I collected in San Francisco the last time, incurred a broken screen 6 months after I got back, Its currently hooked up to screen and wasn’t worth ordering a screen to repair it as that was more than what the whole computer is worth. My Mac Pro is over 10 years old and still runs, but with the change in software with Adobe etc, its just not capable of the heavy computer lifting I need. I looked online at Lenovo today and notice that they had a even bigger saving on one that I had been eyeing up. You just can’t knock a $1000 saving on a item, so that was ordered as well.
This trip I will be flying into Vancouver BC via Hong Kong, Im looking forward to the change, last trips were via Abu Dhabi into SF and Melbourne, direct into LA.
The count down is on 86 Days, 10 hours and 35 minutes.
So I may add another entry before I leave, depending on what is going on and any other tricks I can offer. Now to figure out how to make all my camera gear fit into carry on 🙂
Have a good weekend everyone 🙂
“The Plan” and how I prepare myself for long tours.
Almost every day I check various social media sites for new locations to sight see on my next major tour back to USA. I can’t help it and its a major driving force in my life.
Ive been fortunate or unfortunate that the last few days Ive had issues with my back and unable to work , so social media has been hammered lately whilst Im lying down on the couch or bed.
The last 2 years have not been perfectly great with various major injuries, but hey! Im still alive, breathing and in a position that many are not, so I really can’t complain.
Photography isn’t the cheapest “hobby” to have, I can easily drop a grand or two on 1 camera lens and even that type of lens may have limitations and can not be used for everything.
This next trip, I DO plan to do a lot of the bookings myself with accommodation. Recent media portraying travel agents bumping up prices to increase their takings annoyed me, though I must say, the last trip went off without a singular hitch, but again, Ill thank my wife Fleur for double checking everything for me.
I have checked out AirBNB but reality is, once you start including taxes, cleaning etc you are almost at the same price as a hotel, but will check again when the dates get closer.
The next trip is currently sitting on about 70 days, a few more weeks longer than the last one. I would dearly love to do the 3 month max, but when you start calculating costs of hotel accommodation, fuel, vehicle rental, meals etc it all adds up.
Other things to consider, tipping (not something that is really done in Aus), purchases when the ticket value is different to what is rung up on the till because of various taxes, tolls, Insurances, tour costs, Park fees that are not connected with National Parks Pass, Bear Spray.. you name it…. It all adds up.
The ever dying Aussie dollar doesn’t help either. My first trip the Aussie dollar was up to 1.12 US, last one was around the mid 80’s and now…. its hit the ground at 70c with a splat! For every cent it drops, it adds about $900 to my trip.
All up it can cost a average between $4-500 AUD a day doing it comfortably, above average hotels, decent meals, various purchases (camera stuff, clothing), car hire and motion lotion, (fuel/ gas). Oh and issues with banks. But I will get to that.
I also find that the further away from LA, the higher the cost of flights and car hire is.
So how do I plan these trips? Well, I pretty much started within 6 months of coming home from my last tour. Fleur brought me a huge USA map in 2012 and use that to do a basic plot of where I want to go or want to see. Once I have some basics I use Google Maps.
I set locations out as “Major” and “Sub locations”. Major being the location I will book the hotel at and sub will be places to visit such as Roseburg OR being the major spot and Crater Lake being the sub. Clear as mud?
Once I have a idea of what I want to see, I plot out Major locations no more than 5-6 hours apart to reduce fatigue. I do find that I stop regularly to take photos on the side of the road, which helps, not that there is many locations in US highways to actually do that. But I make it work 🙂
Depending on what I want to see or achieve I will look at a town within close proximity, It doesn’t have to be bang in the middle and typically find that if you are just a little out of town hotel costs are cheaper overall. Not by much, but it all counts up in the end. I don’t tend to stay in big cities if I can help it, except for when I land and leave.
So I then find out what the estimated drive time and milage is between every major locations. Sub locations I do the same however I will double the time and milage (to and from) irrespective of if the sub locations are on the same route, Ill still calculate from the hotel. I check out sites like Gas Buddy and online sites and make a few estimations on fuel costs for that location, fuel economy of the type of vehicle I wish to hire. (est 24 mile per gal ). that can change considerably if I arrive hoping to collect a Hyundai Santa Fe and receive a Tahoe. The change could increase by $1000.00
The time is important to calculate as there is only 24 hours a day and need to include 8 hours of sleep, meal, drive, shopping/ supplies and explore (hiking) times. Plus I can plan for doing Astro, time lapse and checking on tidal information whilst on the coast,
I set this information up on a excel spread sheet, one tab for each major location, fuel costs and other information, all feeding data back into a cover sheet of total estimated costs. In most sub locations I am generous with drive and hike times, better to be safe then under estimate.
I also review previous years for weather and road closures to make sure Im not booking somewhere that won’t let me drive to locations with heavy snow. I have identified some risks with weather on the next trip but I think the time I plan to go I will be ok. Mind you mother nature may have her own agenda. A good example is the Going to the sun road in Glacier NP. That typically closes around October 16th. With this in mind I moved my arrival location to Seattle rather than San Francisco (which I loved last time).
Checking site like Trivago, and Hotels Combined give a rough idea of hotel costs, this is a variant I can’t change, as is fuel , car hire and flights.
Meals. The last time I was travelling $30.00 got me a big dinner and a couple of pints of beer plus a break fast coffee and the rest of the day is muesli bars or trail mix.
Car hire can be a what if as well. Unbeknown to myself the cars I hired the last couple of times were from Dollar. Whilst doing checks this time I learnt that they don’t cover taking their vehicles any higher than Utah let alone crossing the US/ Canadian Border. Im sure it was all in that fine print that I DIDNT pick up on.
GPS systems. My first trip I purchased a GPS only for it to refuse to work and needed a immediate software upgrade which conflicted with the laptop I took. I ended up having to return it to Target in LA. The last trip I got one on discount at Best Buy in SF. Ill reuse that one again this time. I did watch a couple on my last trip get suckered into a loan gps with their car hire. It added almost $500 to their bill, where I walked away with one from about $99 USD at Best Buy.
Suitable clothing. Last trip I picked up a awesome jacket and gloves and beanie. Ill take these with me to reduce costs. I will need to pick up some new shoes, but will do that whilst in Aus. Ill likely pick up some Thermals online and quality socks as well. Normally I will also pick up clothing as I go, tourist T shirts, long sleeve shirts and jumpers. Most do last a while. I have the same shirt from Drug Wall in South Dakota from 2012 and still looks good.
What I will pick up is some hiking poles and yak tracks from REI. Both are reasonably in-expensive.
Prepaid phone will be another purchase and the credit for it, for the duration I am travelling my guess would be $200 USD should cover this in credit. Majority of the time Ill use Skype through various wifi locations though and its not something I have to spend all at once, just top up as I go.
This trip, I am hoping to acquire another DSLR and a reasonable laptop to process shots on the go. I did buy a laptop in SF last trip as it was a gift to my eldest daughter, however she accidentally smashed the screen and to replace it was going to cost more than the laptop and it was a US laptop which made it hard to get parts. I repurposed that one for a second computer for processing and she was given a smaller/ cheaper one for school.
Bear spray is important when hiking through some of the back country. Normally I would do this when I land and check out REI, but I do not believe that I can take it across the border into Canada, so i will likely have to wait until I get to Glacier and maybe hire one. My other option is to hike with someone else and make sure that they are slower than me 😉
National Parks pass is a good purchase. I think it was about 80 USD last time, I did hear a rumour it was going up, but for the amount of times I was in a NP it well and truly covered it. The Pass did not cover other locations like Light houses in Oregon and other smaller parks.
Parking. If you have a car and in a big city it will cost you a pretty penny. Even when I managed to book in at Pier 2620 it still cost me about $70 USD for about 3 days. Kanarraville was another location that required paid parking. Something else to factor in to.
Credit Buffers. The last 2 trips I have been caught out. Honestly the second one I completely forgot about. When the hotel takes a swipe of your credit card and a deposit so you don’t trash their rooms, on occasion there is a issue with being refunded. Its not the hotels fault, its actually the bank not recognising the returned payment. It means having to contact the bank, getting them to fax a form to the Hotel and doing other stuff I don’t understand. Its worth while keeping a grand aside just for this. From memory it was Skamania Lodge in WA. Again, not the hotels fault.
Estimated hiking miles 475
Estimated driving miles plus 18000.
Based on those figures I will be doing some exercise in the New Year as the hills in SF on the last trip near on killed me being so unfit.
So here is a list of anticipated locations I plan to visit:-
| SEATTLE WA FOR 3 DAYS VISITING Airport to Accomodation – Space Needle – Other – Kerry Park Look out – Equipment – jet lag – Gas works park?? – Discovery Park – SNOQUALMIE FALLS – Lake 22 – Deception Pass – Granite Falls – possibly Mount rainier 3 hours return seattle – Dr. Jose Rizal Park, 1007 12th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98144, USA – seattle japanese garden |
| KAMLOOPS ALBERTA FOR 1 DAYS VISITING Border crossing consider Seattle to Whistler to Kamloops. Extra 3 hours drive Extra 200 miles plus any explore time.
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Colours
Geoff Pritchard Photography 