I'm a carry-on person. Four days in Boston for a conference? A rollaboard and my laptop bag. Ten days on the beach? Same thing. Seven days skiing? Okay, you got me there. That one requires checking the huge bags and skis. I think my carry-on would hold a day of ski clothes if I'm lucky.
So when we leave for Playa del Carmen in less than two weeks, I should be packing my carry-on bag, my son's carry-on bag, my laptop bag, and our mesh bag with our snorkel gear. That's my son's "personal item." And that's my rule. Don't check bags when you can carry on.
Not checking bags when traveling to Playa is great. We don't have to hang at the baggage carousel in CUN. We just head straight to immigration and customs. Some trips, I've been out of the airport and on the bus to Playa in fifteen minutes. Other times, like when our flight arrives at the same time others do, I can end up waiting in line at immigration behind another flight, and encountering a wait for the bus. No way to plan, since we're at the mercy of the airlines.
But now I'm THISCLOSE to breaking my own travel rule.
For the airline tickets on this trip, my goal was for my son and I to fly Continental, using my husband's frequent flyer points for Callahan's ticket, and paying cash for mine. Easier said than done. I'm a discount traveler, remember? So I'll almost always sacrifice convenient flight times if it saves me $200. I'd rather spend that $200 on fun at my destination, not on getting there.
It took a week or two of periodic checking on prices and reward availability before I was finally able to land one of the least expensive paid tickets along with a reward ticket on the same flights. Our flight times are actually great. We leave mid morning and arrive in Cancun in mid-afternoon. On the return, we don't depart until late afternoon, which is a nice change from our usual morning flights.
The downside? Our layovers are around three hours in Houston. The upside? That gives us a lot of cushion time. We almost missed our connection on our last return from CUN through IAH due to incredibly slow lines at immigration, even though our layover was two hours.
So those long layovers are coloring my thinking on the carry-on bags. I'm trying to talk myself into just packing one big bag and checking it.
If I pack our big bag, I can fit the snorkel gear in it. I can put two carry-on bags worth of clothes in it. The only things we'll have to lug around the airport on the three-hour layovers are a laptop bag and a backpack between the two of us, with a change of clothes and swimsuits in case our big bag encounters its own delays.
I'm trying to convince myself this is a good plan. Is it?
Recent comments