Countdown!!

 Countdown is on!  We always have a ring counter and we remove a ring every day. Anna made the one for this trip. This pic is from a few days ago but we have 11 days to go (before we leave for Toronto)  

Since we are travelling with kids 13 and under, Air Transat assigns seats together automatically 2 weeks before our trip  so I was anxiously waiting for the 14 day mark in Thursday to check out our seat assignments!  We have great seats on the way back. On the way there we are at the back of the plane but I’ll check in the moment checkin opens to see what I can do to switch them to closer to the front  and to be honest if that’s where we stay it’s totally fine.  Not worth $135 to pay for better seats!

We are pretty excited!

Meeting Friends in Costa Rica?

So one day Trevor was talking to his friend Aaron, and he mentioned that they were planning a trip to Costa Rica for March break.  Cool!  Aaron and his wife Allison invited Trevor and I for dinner and we had fun comparing notes and itineraries.  They are travelling with their child, Rowan, who is in Grade 9.  Coincidentally, they are flying to Costa Rica the same day as us and flying home the same day as us (different flights though).  We are doing several different cities in our itineraries but are in the same place for our first destination as well as two thirds of the way through, we overlap for one evening in Monteverde.  So we've booked a waterfall hike together in Curubande, and we've made a reservation to meet up for dinner in Monteverde.  Can't wait to hear all about our different adventures!  Allison and I have also been texting back and forth with planning advice and comparing notes.  So fun!

Planning an Itinerary

 So we've decided on Costa Rica.  But where are we going to travel?  We knew we were going to go for about 8-12 days.  I got a couple of Costa Rica guide books and looked at their recommendations for itineraries.  I also searched for "10 day Costa Rica Itinerary," "Family Trip to Costa Rica Itinerary," etc. I started to collect the recommended places and piece something together. 

Before we locked too much in, however, I needed to figure out flights.  Flying at March break isn't cheap!  So I needed to look for a deal.  Which airport had the cheapest flights might help to set the itinerary.

Picking a Location

One of the most fun things about planning a trip is picking a destination.  This time we picked Costa Rica!  As we were travelling with the kids, and Joel is in high school, the 'when' we could travel was a big factor in 'where' we would travel.  We didn't want to pull the kids out of school for too long as it's not as easy to catch up in high school.  So we needed to travel mostly during a school holiday.  I wasn't interested in travelling at Christmas time because I like to be home at that time.  Summer is short and we like to spend it at our camp!  Summer is also also really hot for travelling in a lot of places.  So we figured March Break would be the best choice!  Now with that that was settled, where should we travel?

We had to cancel our trip to London and Paris in 2020 due to Covid. We'd still like to do that trip again.  But March isn't super ideal for London and Paris.  Highs are around 12C and lows are around 6C.  Doable but maybe not the perfect time to go.  We also didn't really have the luxury of 2 weeks this time because we were trying to avoid missing too much school.

Refreshing the Blog!

 I spent some time rebranding the old 'Mommy Blog' into a travel blog!  Next trip...Costa Rica in March!  I'll be posting a bit before we leave about the planning and packing process and then posting from the trip!