Why Australia?

"That better not be a suitcase I see."
see all photos »

Why Australia?  Blame United.

Like a lot of people we collect miles.  Who doesn't love seeing that total go up and up?  Unfortunately the mileage total goes up faster than the number of vacation days I've earned. Why not plan an ambitious trip that covers a lot of territory but doesn't span a lot of time?  OK!

Perth, Adelaide, The Great Barrier Reef, and that big rock will have to wait for another trip

"Does United fly there? OK - we can go."
see all photos »

Burning lots of miles means not having to ride in Economy - yay!  We planned this way back in September, so I searched out some dates that looked reasonable and booked it up.  The dates proved to be OK with my work schedule so I pecked away at the planning.  Now it's almost time to go.

Mid-May isn't peak travel season (think mid-November in the U.S.) but I'm hoping for cool-ish, not too rainy weather.

And since we're allowed an open-jaw routing we're booked into Sydney and out of Melbourne (that's the extent of UA's Australian network).  We decided to limit ourselves to just two cities with some fun excursions along the way - Australia is a big place so Perth, Adelaide, The Great Barrier Reef, and that big rock will have to wait for another trip.

With an open jaw UA also allows a stop of less than 24 hours along the way (you get one open jaw OR one stopover, not both).  Wanting to milk this one for every drop we're spending 23 hours and 44 minutes in San Francisco.  Just enough time to unwind from work when Friday comes . . .