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Interestingly, our airfares for our planned trip this year are about the same as two years back, but insurance is on the up. In addition the slightly parlous state of the NZ dollar means that I’ve been advised by one close to me that the ten jammers that Canadians are enjoying will not be for us! Enjoyed reading about your ride though Steve- I’m sure it was well worth the financial outlay, and once you get that tyrant across the border sorted you’ll be able to afford another trip.

True. It is still worth noting though that without having a written record in the form of our blogs we would only have a fuzzy recollection of any of our trips, or at least the details of what we did and saw.

Ouch, that is really steep. Still, what is the money good for if not to use?

Money comes and goes but experiences are forever!

Medical Insurance is certainly a major expense. The first quote I got for this years trip (70days) was over $9000 about 4500E after much haggling I got it down to a little over $7000 thé moral of this is never get over 85 years old and still want to travel. And as for air fares !! but that is indulgence. My various orthopaedic problems make a 15 hour flight followed by one of around 7 hours almost impossible in economy so we now travel in business and that sucks a lot of money. We are well behind before we even start to pedal !

Thanks! Your experience, and comments about it, are always helpful. Air travel is not what is used to be, for sure.

With that intro about how many times we have done it, it's embarrassing to admit that we have no really strong procedures or insights. Here, however, are some random comments:

The airlines are so capricious about how much they charge, that I always check our past couple of blogs to see how much a flight to Europe "should" cost. And I begin by telling them it's one traveller, because they so blithely quote prices that could easily be for "each" rather than two. i.e is $1000 a price for us both or just for one?

Not relevant for you, but we always check the price from/to Victoria to see if it might be cheap enough to cut out the ferry ride for us. Sometimes it is, sometimes not. Again, no logic or fairness in air tickets.

In the old old days, we would see lots cheaper prices out of SEA, enough to make it worthwhile to go visit our daughter in Seattle and then take a shuttle (or make her drive) to SeaTac. But now, we won't set foot in the U.S., not even with a daughter there.

We will try our best to stay away from Charles de Gaulle (CDG) as a transfer point. The place is so big and convoluted, that you need to budget hours and hours to be assured of reaching a new gate. If pushed, we will go to a hotel in Roissy and carry on to a final destination the next day.

We felt ripped off by TAP Air Portugal, especially for the bicycle charge. But for flying to Portugal it is often not possible to avoid them.

On a long flight you can go crazy without a good entertainment system in the seat back. We have never made this a make or break criterion, but are always so grateful when we find it. Westjet to Europe seems good, but Westjet to Costa Rica used an old rattletrap plane. We used to like Air Transat, especially because they would supply a plastic bag option for the bikes, but somehow lately they have fallen off our radar.

We are now absolutely avoiding taking full sized bikes onto planes. So much hassle and some airlines have crazy rates for carrying them. We are even planning for the next time to take the Bike Fridays one last time, to Yucatan, and to store them there, despite the monthly cost of at least $50.

Nice that you are back safely and in good health!

I'm interested to know the basics of your strategy for planning your flights across the Atlantic. e.g. Where do you look online, how far out do you book and pay, airlines you favour or don't, always out of YVR, or sometimes SEA, etc.? You've done it so many times, and plan to continue doing it, so I thought I'd ask, as we look at options.

(I have not read all of your many hundreds of thousand of words, so perhaps you've addressed this somewhere, and if so please point me to it.)

Thanks,
Mark (in Abbotsford)

Welcome home! Haven't kept up as much as I normally would - lots going on here, but we will have to meet up soon for lunch at the Willow Tree!

Thank you very much Dodie, Steve. Today May 26, 2025 we received a very nice postcard from you guys : Patio de Los Leones الحَمْراء posted on March 23rd 2025 !
Did you know that the bicycle distance between La Alhambra and Nantes is 1590 km. That makes 64 days for the post card to be delivered, that is to say 24 km per day on bicycle. What kind of recommandations did you give to the Spanish post office for this post card ? I suspect the bicycle lady which is delivering our mail was directly coming from Spain on her bike ! Please advise !

Dodie here. Did you click on visible to public, and then click SAVE? That might be a step you forgot, I always seem to miss that one. Otherwise, after you have created the journal you only need to Add a new entry, write it, ask to have the entry at the end, or it maybe calls it bottom, of the entries, and click save to keep it, then click visible to public and save when you are ready for it to be viewed. It is weird that it doesn't work for you. Send Steve a private email at shadybrook at shaw dot ca and maybe he can help you offline.

I am thoroughly perplexed as I have checked all the boxes you said about. I just ( now) entered an entry but I cannot find it, even though it says “posted”. My first and best entry from last week still shows “not visible to the public”. I will try later this evening after the bike ride and ask someone here on the barge for REAL help.. 🫣 My apologies! But, at least it is sun today and not pouring rain🌧️..The wind is another matter.. ugh..But! I did it! 41 miles in rain and wind.

Hi Karen, I went through the process of creating a journal and making a posting, to see if I could spot where your difficulty might be. Actually, I had forgotten how to get going, but then I remembered. So this is what I did:

Went to My Cycleblaze
That offers a "Create Journal" button
Got a screen that asks for a title, a start date and optional end date, a single word that will be used as an id for the journal
Then you get s choice of "Edit Settings" and "Create Item"
You want to "Create Item" - then you can title a post, write something, and save it, but not for the public yet
Then if you can see how to view your journal, select "edit"
This allows you to edit a previous post of "create" a new one
But first choose "edit settings" and select "visible to the public"
You should then be rolling with the ability to "edit" the journal and so to make new entries.
When you "save" or "save and keep editing" a post, click "visible to the public" when you are ready to have it really published.

Go through and let me know where you are at when you run into the glitch that is keeping you from success!

Grateful for your journals, Grampies! As it is pouring rain today in Den Bosch, The Netherlands, PLUS being the first day off bikes in 7 days, it is welcome! But, I still walked 3 miles in the rain for kibbeling. I could eat that every day. Now.. I have NOT YET done a journal, because I seriously cannot figure out where to TYPE an entry. Must be my name ( dumb Karen) or some glitch. I have checked off every box seemingly “admitting” my posts, complete with “cover photos”.. I am stumped!
No further mentions from the good folks at CB, either. Maybe I really am not meant to write but read everyone else’s and make my silly comments.
Tot Ziens from Bossche Ballen town where I did not make the trek to eat it!