Sometimes, when I’m dreaming about traveling the world, I’ll go on google maps and wander about until I find a country or city where I wish I could be in on that day. It’s mostly a happy thing I do, it makes me happy. Once I pick a place I wish I could be in on a certain day, I’ll go on google images and just look at all sorts of pictures of the place. It’s a mental vacation, I guess. It’s like that taxi driver movie with Jamie Foxx. His job as a taxi driver is depressing, so he keeps a picture of a nice place he always dreams of going to but can’t due to lack of resources. Whenever he has a break in driving, he pulls out the picture and just looks at it for minutes, letting his mind escape to that place. That’s me. I don’t have the resources, and likely never will, to travel to all the places I wish to see. So I just do my Jamie Foxx internet vacations. Sometimes I’ll post pictures onto my twitter account and call it my twitter vacation.
Anyways, yesterday, for whatever reason, I was all curious and wondering, what is the furthest south city in the world? So I went on google maps, and found Ushuaia, Argentina. I immediately was like, I want to go there. I wish I was there yesterday. I want to travel to and say I’ve been to the furthest south city in the world. There’s nothing I found really special about Ushuaia other than it’s the furthest south city in the world, and that’s why I want to go there. It does have a ski resort, so I’d love to go snowboarding there! It’s pretty cold as you can imagine, but it’s super pretty, with all sorts of mountains nearby. It’s not like a small village city, it has 67,000 people, and an easy to fly into airport from Buenos Aires. From Ushuaia, you can take cruises to Antarctica, which is something I’d totally be down for. Also, you can take tours to Isla Yecapasela, known as “Penguin Island” because of the penguin colonies. So I could see penguins!
Now, here’s why going to Ushuaia will most likely only ever be a Jamie Foxx type google image trip. When I travel to places I’ve never been to, ideally I’d stay for three weeks, because that’s when I start to get tired of being in the same place. One week is too short, as my Final Four trip to Phoenix showed. I miss Phoenix so much, because one week wasn’t enough time to go see everything I wanted to see there. Two weeks is okay. Three weeks is when I begin to get tired of being in one place. So, a three week round trip from Seattle to Ushuaia, with a one month ahead booking, with the quickest cheapest possible flight booking, comes out to $2,357. It takes about 28 hours of flying to get there and back, including the layovers. This isn’t including hotel costs or possible Airbnb, if Argentina has those. This isn’t including food costs, snowboarding costs, cruise costs, penguin island tour costs etc. Just the flight stuff alone. It’s a five hour flight from Seattle to Atlanta. 10 hour flight from Atlanta to Buenos Aires, a change of airport in Buenos Aires with a six hour layover, plenty of time to get to the other airport, and 3 ½ hour flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia. Let’s say I get a hotel for just under $100 a night, so 20 nights roughly, so another $2,000. It just adds up quickly, ugh.
Also, this is only one trip for me. This is only one city in Argentina. I want to see so much of Argentina. I want to see literally every country in the world. I don’t have unlimited money though, I can only do short regional trips for special occasions that will become lifetime memories, like one week trips to Phoenix to see my Ducks in the Final Four. On the non-basketball days, I was go-go-go trying to see as much of Phoenix as I could. I have to get the most out of limited time and money.
Anyways so yea, I went to Ushuaia in Argentina yesterday, and kinda today too. My spirit is still there. I’m on vacation right now. My heart, mind and spirit are all there right now, just not my physical body.
adamkendall2 