Here we go, in less than 2 weeks we are GONE!
We finally booked our hotels for Vegas, Monte Carlo & The Caesars, yup, we are out very soon.

Key points:

– Use your social media to see if your friends know of any great activities or accommodation.
– Use a private browser and look for flights from 6 months out
– Make sure you know the countries public holidays for price surges
– Each city has a Calendar of events for each month, look at before planning
– Visit several accommodation sites before booking. There are ALWAYS good deals somewhere.

I’m not sure why I am so fascinated with the United States. Maybe it’s because of the copious amount of food you can eat or maybe it is the fact that every one of the 50 states is so unique in its own “mini-culture.” The most likely scenario for me is that it has something to do with the amazing marketing of the professional sport teams.
For those reasons and more, we have decided to do a Canada/USA trip for 7ish weeks.

A few weeks ago on Facebook, I put out a request to see if any of my American comrades can recommend us anything we can see or do. We were pleased with the resounding support and ideas we received.

So from what our friends are helping us with, plus a few “must do” activities, we are slowly putting together an itinerary. At this stage it is a little back and forth, but that is largely due to an exciting opportunity in San Francisco that has arisen
Have a look, tell us what you think, feel free to leave a comment!!

Flights

We have kept our eye on prices for a few months now, but there seems to be little fluctuation in long haul flights.
We are flying a long way, so we knew it would cost a bit.
$1600 USD got us return flights Ho Chi Minh – Los Angeles – Las Vegas – Montreal – New York – Ho Chi Minh.

We are still perfecting the art of cheap flights, there are many ways to do it.
For example, signing up for credit cards, getting free bonus points to use for travel is one such idea.
There are other websites, such as flightfox.com – guarantee they can beat your lowest found price by $100 USD, or you get your money back. I used them but they were unable to find a cheaper price. They were fast and HONEST. I will be using them whenever I book flights from now on.

Make sure you are doing regular checks on
– Skyscanner
– Kayak
– Expedia
– Cheapflights

Accommodation

At the moment, we are trying to use our friend network to reduce the cost of this. If you are unable to do so, I recommend jumping on AirBNB, Couchsurfing.com or looking through the hostels (if that is your budget).

Itinerary

Here is a very brief plan of what we want to do

June 12-15: Australia (little stopover for me while Thuymi goes there before)
June 13-20: Las Vegas
June 20-25: Montreal aka Thuymi’s HOME
June 26 – 5: West Coast road trip from San Francisco to San Diego
July 5 – 18: Montreal – several road trips planned including Quebec City, Boston and maybe Toronto
July 22-25: Chicago, maybe
July 26 – July 31 : Atlantic City, New York