Once again it’s time to look back and see where I traveled in the past year.
Red: Ski trip to Snowmass, flying into the Vail/Eagle County airport, Yellow: the path my luggage took on that ski trip, Pink: a visit to New Orleans, Green: European vacation, Blue: Vacation to Iceland, Purple: work trip to Italy and Germany
My lone ski trip of the season was to Snowmass, Colorado in February. I flew United Airlines from Memphis to Houston and into the Vail/Eagle County airport (EGE), where I chose to rent a car and driving the last 1.5 hours rather than getting stuck all day in the Aspen airport like I’d done in 2017! I spent one night at the Westin Snowmass and the rest of the week at The Crestwood condominiums. Meanwhile, my luggage decided to take the scenic route (shown in yellow on the map) and visit San Juan, Puerto Rico. When it arrived there the good folks on the ramp determined that the quickest way to get it to me was to send it to Newark, NJ and from there Newark to EGE. Unfortunately that meant over 48 hours without my luggage and two missed ski days. I did get a free sweater, t-shirt and shorts out of it (had to buy something clean to wear and to sleep in) and eventually United reimbursed most of my expenses and sent me a flight voucher.
In May I visited with friends in Chicago. No reviews on that trip.
After a very busy summer at work I was able to get away for a long weekend to New Orleans at the end of August. Reviews of the Hyatt House New Orleans, Airboat Adventures and Fairfield Inns & Suites New Orleans Airport followed.
Late October and early November were very busy travel months and I haven’t yet had time to finish writing up the reviews. Included will be flights on Iberia from Chicago to Madrid to Amsterdam and returning from Munich to Chicago via Madrid. I’ll have a brief description of our economy flight from Amsterdam to Reykjavik and from there to Munich in premium economy. We stayed at a number of different hotels including the Kimpton DeWitt and Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel and Conference Center in Amsterdam, the Radisson Blu 1919 and the Center Hotel Plaza in Reyjkavik and the aloft Munich and the Hilton Munich Airport.
November brought a work trip to Europe with the flights between Chicago and Munich both in United 777s, but the trip over was still in the old 2-4-2 layout in business class while the return flight had been refitted with the Polaris 1-2-1 layout. We stayed at a Novotel in Turin, Italy and the Hilton in Bonn, Germany. I’ll even have a brief review of the Lufthansa lounge at the Cologne/Bonn Airport.
The year started out slowly for travel but ended with a bang as those two European trips were just 1.5 weeks apart. All told I spent just over 30,000 miles in the air this year. Next year will kick off more normally with two ski trips and next year’s big October trip planning is already well underway.
How did your travel year compare with past years? Any big plans for next year?
2B Traveling 
Recent Comments