What are our winter plans?

One week from today, we fly to Mexico!

You can't fly direct to Mexico City from Ottawa, so we have no choice but to connect somewhere. This is where the choices got interesting.

The cheapest flight was with Westjet. However, the connection was in Calgary! It makes zero sense to fly from Ottawa to Calgary and then Calgary to Mexico City. In the old days when we were being super frugal, we probably would have done it. 

The other choice was Ottawa to Toronto and Toronto to Mexico City. There were two options... Air Canada, or AeroMexico. 

Air Canada is our carrier of last choice. And AeroMexico is actually a good airline. So the choice was fairly easy. The only problem is that it is a codeshare flight using Westjet to get us from Ottawa to Toronto.

Ottawa to Toronto to Mexico City.

So because it's a codeshare flight, I can't book the extra luggage. Yes, this time we are traveling with a large suitcase that we have to pay extra for. I had booked the original ticket through AeroMexico and I tried adding the extra luggage to our online booking and the system won't let me. It tells me to use the booking through Westjet. So I tried that, and it tells me that I have to add it though the original booking!

So I phoned them, and was told that there is no way to add extra luggage through the website. I can only do it at check in. But the website also tells me that it will be more expensive to check the luggage at the desk! But, the guy did say that it should be a flat rate fee of $35 for the bag and that's no different than the online price.

Arriving in Mexico City, we will then Uber to the Poniente bus station and take the bus to Valle de Bravo. 

We are excited to be doing something different this year... we are renting a house for the year. More about that later. But we also have our campervan Igor and will be doing that as well. 

The house we are renting.

We're going to spend at least the balance of the month of October getting the house set up the way we want it. If it takes longer, that's fine too. We're in no rush. Then we were planning on some campervan time in November, but returning to the house by December 6th when we have a party to attend!

My younger sister is coming for a visit December 14th for a week, and afterwards we'll take off in the van again until January 28 when our daughter and family come for a two week visit. Really looking forward to showing them the real Mexico away from the resort areas.

When they leave mid February, we will likely head off towards Belize in our campervan. The current plan has us slowly heading into Central America over the next year. And then possibly into South America. But this is a long term plan, and since we are not on any kind of schedule, we will take our time.

We are looking forward to getting back into travel mode!

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