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Shit just got real!

Shit just got real!

Sorry to interrupt your Frugal February reading, but the two of us have got a major announcement to make regarding our travel plans! For those of you who haven’t heard the news on Twitter or Facebook (side note: you should totally be following us on Twitter and Facebook if you’re not already, so click the links above and get to it!)

WE’RE GOING TO HAWAII

Waikiki Beach

In under 6 months, we'll be hanging out on Waikiki Beach!

That’s right! After a hell of a lot of deliberation, the dilemma we faced a few weeks ago when we were trying to decide between Fiji and Hawaii as a starting point for our RTW has now been sorted.

In 170 days from today on Tuesday 26 July 2011, we’ll be flying with Jetstar from Sydney to Honolulu on a one-way ticket and not ever looking back!

Why Sydney?

For our astute readers, you may have noticed that our flight departs from Sydney and not our hometown of Melbourne. Why? Well we missed out on a planned visit there 14 months ago due to Amy getting ill and it’s been on our “to-do” list ever since. We’re not sure yet which of the city sights we’ll take in, but this will be decided in due time.

At the moment, the probable plan is to road-trip it up from Melbourne to Sydney over 2-3 days and then spend a couple of nights in the Harbour City. Along the way, we’ll stop in and visit friends and relatives to bid them farewell before we get on that first plane to start our huge adventure.

If any of our readers are in Sydney the week of our flight, leave us a comment – we’d love to hang out with you!

How did we make this decision?

There were so many great arguments raised for both destinations in our Fiji or Hawaii post that it probably made our decision even harder. Despite this, thanks so much to all of you for participating in the discussion, it was brilliant and we did get many great tips from it! Here’s the rationale behind choosing Hawaii as our starting point…

  • Fiji is easily accessible from Australia and can be saved for a later vacation. With 2 of Australia’s budget carriers flying there along with Air Pacific, flight prices are likely to stay affordable for the unforeseeable future.
  • We would prefer to start with a 10 hour flight to Honolulu followed by a shorter flight to mainland North American than vice-versa. Let’s kick that long haul flight straight away!
  • We got a fantastic deal on the flights, particularly the first leg. Our original calculations worked the cost to be $1,788 overall for Melbourne – Honolulu – LAX. This is now down to $1,528, a saving of $260 on the initial price and $560 cheaper than going via Fiji.

And what next?

The original plan was to fly on to Los Angeles from our chosen destination. Because of flight routes and further research, this looks like it’s completely out the window as well and we’ll likely start on the North American mainland in one of the following three cities:

  • Vancouver.
  • Seattle.
  • Portland.

We’re leaning ever so slighty towards Vancouver and working our way down the West Coast from there (including Seattle and Portland along the way). Feel free to support this option or try to convince us otherwise in the comments!

Now we’ve got that announcement off our chest, it will be back to regular Frugal February posting as of tomorrow!

Flickr Photo: bethers

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