Tickets!

My Australia plans have lagged, and it's no mystery: new(ish) job, new apartment, new town. It's tough to think about getting on a plane for two days and exploring an unfamiliar continent when you still can't find your way to from your own bedroom your bathroom with the lights off.

But I knew that plus-or-minus six months out was a good time to get the best price on plane tickets. Today, after several days of careful comparison shopping, the price on trans-Pacific flights dropped to my reasonable benchmark, and I leapt.

I'll be leaving the U.S. of A on February 26 and returning (or at least arriving) on April 24. I'm proud that I found a series of flights from Boston to Perth that connects one right after the other, getting me to Oz in record time (I'll see how my back feels about nearly 30 hours of nothing but sitting down after I get there.) Coming back, I end up with about a day's layover in LA, but it's long enough to actually give me time to get a hotel and sleep.

Now, to lay the rest of the major pieces in place: I have to reserve the camper van, and make sure I have a hotel to land in in Perth so I can skip a few days while my internal clock realigns. I might even get a vacation rental/apartment style spot so I can do serious gearing up and grocery shopping from a home base with a fridge.

This trip will creep up on me faster than the last one, I predict. Gotta make sure I stay focused!