Airfare Struggles

Airfare is only an issue when I travel to places that are inaccessible by land or when I don’t want to struggle with ground transportation. Right now I’m working in getting to the “countries” of Sulawesi, Moluka and Papua (Irian Jaya). They are all on islands. That makes airfare very important. If I’m going to get somewhere I can take one of several methods – fly, ride or drive. Islands mean an airplane or a boat.

My best options for getting into those countries is to arrive by air in Makassar, Ambon and Sorong which are three cities in Sulawesi, Moluka and Papua (Irian Jaya), respectively. The reason why I picked those three cities is that I can get relatively inexpensive airfare into and out of those cities. The key word here being relatively. However, it’s a struggle figuring out how to get there. You see, I’ve got four flights I need to take to arrive where I want to go. I’m going to start in Bali and I want to wind up in Yogyakarta. I need to book airfare from Bali, the location I’ve picked to be in during the first week of March, to Makassar, Ambon and Sorong, the three stops on my way to Yogyakarta. I have no trouble finding the flights I want to Makassar and Ambon, but I’m having trouble finding the right flight to Sorong which is where I plan to fly out of to get to Yogyakarta, my next next place of interest. I have five cities to visit and I’ll need four flights to do it. It seems I can book those four flights a total of a six different ways if I always start in Bali and always wind up in Yogyakarta. The issue is to figure how to minimize the time sitting in airports and to minimize the overall cost of the four flights.I have no intention of actually spending any time in Makassar, Ambon or Sorong. It’s not that they’re thoroughly uninteresting cities, it’s just that there’s nothing there I need or want to see. But I do want to go there. I need a stamp in my passport or the photo in front of the airport to be able to add these locations to my list of “countries” visited. Call it superficial or an exercise in travel logistics.

Whatever it is, I wound up spending hours to make it happen in a manner that makes me feel good about my travel skills. The four flights wound up costing me a total of about $300. I will leave Bali at 5:30 in the evening and arrive in Yogyakarta at 6:10 in the evening of the next day. I will have landed in three different time zones. I will fly a total of 2,776 miles. I’ll spend about 14 hours in airport lounges and getting through check-in and boarding the planes. But, overall, I was really pleased with the routing and the cost. I accomplished my goals and I think I learned a little bit more about flying around Asia. It took a lot longer to accomplish the task than I thought it would but I considered the rewards for the time I spent to be significant. Now, if only the weather cooperates…