For our 10th wedding anniversary, Berta and I stayed over night in Philadelphia. The interesting story is less about what we actually did than what we tried to plan.
Mostly, you wouldn’t call it a plan. Friday night, we dropped the kids off at Mom’s then raced home to decide what to do. It was still early enough to consider flights out of Philadelphia, provided that they were late enough.
We’d been thinking about getting away for a while, specifically to exercise our passports one more time before they expire. Berta has stamps from Mexico, and I’ve got stamps from France, and we both have stamps and visas for India. I thought it would be nice to be “world travelers” and add another stamp to the book before it was retired.
It’s kind of strange explaining these trips we take. It’s like we just need to get away for a while, and it’s not about being pampered or being extravagant (although the travel might seem that way), but more about just getting away from home. And so on Friday night we simply looked for a reasonably cheap flight to anywhere that wouldn’t keep us away longer than the weekend. This is harder than you might think.
There aren’t any places that really answer the question, “Where can I fly to from Philadelphia in the next 30 minutes?” Thinking too much about it, why would there be? Not many people plan trips like that. Usually you at least know where you want to go, or you’re leaving well into the future. On the other hand, there have to be more people like us that would just like to get on a plane and go, right?
As we looked for a flight that worked, it got later, and as it got later, it came down to choosing a flight out on Saturday morning. There just wasn’t enough time to get to the airport. As it turns out, the best places to look for flights when you know the origin and not the destination are the small airline sites themselves. Since the small carriers only run between certain airports, that lets you limit your options significantly.
One of the carriers we checked was Spirit Airlines. Spirit flies out of Atlantic City, and had we left in the morning, that would work out fine. We could leave really early and simply fly out, or leave Friday evening, spend the night at a hotel in Atlantic City, maybe visit a casino or two, and fly out the next morning.
I skimmed the list of destinations available from Spirit. Aruba… Atlanta… Cartegena? Ok, I gotta see this…
Keep in mind that we had spent the past hour or so looking at flights to Europe, so flying to South America had certain things against it in our minds at the onset. First, the cheapest flights to Europe were about $1300 per person. Second, there weren’t any that fit our timeframe, or at least, none that would let us leave the airport after we arrived. I clicked through on Cartegena, just to see what crazy price we’d get, have a laugh, and continue down what looked to be another dead end.
Imagine my surprise when the Spirit checkout showed two (that’s both) round-trip tickets to Cartegena for $1200. More than that, the flight was at 6am out of Atlantic City, and would arrive in time for lunch. Berta and I looked at each other for a bit, and looked at the itinerary in front of us, and looked back in disbelief.
I said, “Ok. What’s in Cartegena, anyway?”
As it turns out, it looks like a pretty neat place. There are beaches, and what looks to be a lively old city with shops. The city is on a coastline, and was a beachhead in the early explorer days. As a result, there is a very large fort with a city inside. The hotels looked pretty extravagant for what I expected to find in South America. All of that and it’s not only a different continent, but one we haven’t been to yet!
So… We obviously didn’t go. What stopped us? The return flight.
The flight wouldn’t have gotten back to New Jersey until 11:30pm on Sunday. Then we’d have to drive back, pick up the kids and be at work the next day. That just didn’t seem tenable for such a short trip.
Even after noticing the warning on the State Department site on Saturday, I think we’re still interested in going. Sure, we might be kidnapped for ransom by Columbian drug cartels, or mugged while on a hike through the woods, but that could happen just about anywhere, right?
Instead, we decided to shelf the trip to Columbia for later in the year. I think we should make plans to go for a weekend. It’ll be cheaper if we wait, we’ll appreciate the warmth if it’s cooler here, and it’ll have almost as much wow factor if we do it later as if we just jumped on a jet and headed south.
This is not to say that our trip into Philly was unpleasant. Actually, that is a story all it’s own.
