Travel Inventory

The first 5.5 months of this year are nowhere near last year, in terms of total plane flights (a temporary move to the Seattle area while maintaining a law practice in the bay area = lots of airline miles).

But, even so, E and I have been discussing how we much we are looking forward to the rest of the year, where there isn't too much travel left on the horizon.

Sure, last year, our trip to Europe was one of the best vacations we've ever taken, even when you include the working tail in London.

But, upon arrival home, we agreed that missing summer in California for travel elsewhere is not ideal.  So, we were already committed to staying home as much as possible this Summer.

Why, then, are we so excited about how many weekends we have scheduled for staying home? Oh...the calendar makes it clear.  

So far, this year, while ostensibly living in the bay area and leading a non-nomadic existence, I've done overnight or longer trips to Carmel, Palm Springs, Washington DC, my hometown area, San Francisco, Cambodia, San Diego, Oakland, San Luis Obispo/Pismo Beach/5 Cities, Savannah, Spokane, and Newport Beach.

E's been with me for most of those and has added 3 or so business trips to his list to make up for the missed ones.

Essentially, that's 12 trips for each of us in 19 weeks, not including day trips (for example, I spent today in SF, onsite at a copyright conference at the St. Francis and E regularly flies to western major metropolitan areas before 6 AM to return home before midnight).

So, of course we're very pleased to see big blocks of uninterrupted time at home for the rest of the year.  In fact, if we stick to the current plan, we've only got 3 overnight SF trips (super easy), 3 trips associated with weddings (fun!), 3 trips to visit family for the holidays/birthdays (extra fun, and double duty), and only 3-4 other trips for the whole year (which are all associated with races and friends/family combined).

That's just 11 trips in 32 weeks, or the lowest travel frequency we've had for the last 2 years.  No doubt, at least one or more work trips will sneak in there, but even so, it's on track to be a great California homebody summer and second half of 2012!