1/22/19 - Spokane

This post is different than anything else you will read on this blog. I took a look at my old credit card statements to find the date when everything changed for me and this is it. After spending a single night in Guadalajara, walking the streets alone, and I did not die, I had the itch to get some more stamps on my passport and see some of the world. The wife of one of my employees used to be a travel agent in the UK and she introduced me to Skyscanner. You don’t have to choose a destination. You can just pick a month and it will give you the best deals from your home airport. I browsed for a couple of weeks, then suddenly, Spokane to Frankfurt round trip, with luggage included was $375. It left 2 weeks later, but I just said screw it, I am doing this.

I already knew that within Europe travel was super cheap. I had no great desire to travel to Frankfurt, so I looked at flights from Frankfurt on the dates I was flying and Rome was $80+$50 in bag fees. I booked it. So at this point I am only in for $505 from Spokane to Rome. Everything worked out, but I did learn some lessons.

Frankfurt has 2 airports and they are about 60 miles apart. I did not realize it at the time, but I was landing at the big airport in Frankfurt and my flight to Rome was 6 hours later at the other airport. Alright, I can deal with this. I looked at all of the public transportation options and the timing just didn’t work. I emailed Rick Steves and one of his staff members suggested Flixbus. It was $20 and it got me to the crummy airport just in time for my flight.

My point of this post is that you should envision everything that could possibly go wrong, then plan ahead. I only discovered that I had to move between airports 3 days before my flight and it caused my stress levels to reach levels higher than I have ever felt. My best advice if you try and do the transfer thing is to never do it. If my flight had been delayed by a little bit, there is no recourse. I was switching airlines. Alitalia really didn’t care why I didn’t show up at the airport on time. If I missed the flight, I am just hoping to book another one and there are no refunds because I already had a good deal.

Happy travels. 

Next stop is Frankfurt.