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If I had to limit myself to nonstop flights, I'd run out of interesting vacation spots VERY quickly. Not everyone lives within reasonable driving distance of a major airport.
The city where I currently live only has nonstop service to 17 US cities.
There were only three tropical destinations in December nonstop from Las Vegas. Mexico City and Guadalajara are not places where your wife probably wants to go. Panama City is within an hour of some beach resorts. Brazil was not available at the time.
Essentially if they wanted to go nonstop they would have to fly the 6.5 hours Panama. Instead they chose an 11-12 hour layover to Aruba through Fort Lauderdale and Boston on the return. But the 4 hour layover in FLL was not enough because of the fog diversion.
There are very few airports that actually give you a wide range of nonstop destinations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoodHombre
The city where I currently live only has nonstop service to 17 US cities.
I can walk to an airport, but it only has 10 nonstops CLT,PHL,DTW, ATL, ORD for transfers and for Florida Vacations Orlando, Clearwater, Punta Gorda , and Fort Lauderdale. It's very sad as there are 650,000 people in the urban area.
There were only three tropical destinations in December nonstop from Las Vegas. Mexico City and Guadalajara are not places where your wife probably wants to go. Panama City is within an hour of some beach resorts. Brazil was not available at the time.
Essentially if they wanted to go nonstop they would have to fly the 6.5 hours Panama. Instead they chose an 11-12 hour layover to Aruba through Fort Lauderdale and Boston on the return. But the 4 hour layover in FLL was not enough because of the fog diversion.
There are very few airports that actually give you a wide range of nonstop destinations.
I can walk to an airport, but it only has 10 nonstops CLT,PHL,DTW, ATL, ORD for transfers and for Florida Vacations Orlando, Clearwater, Punta Gorda , and Fort Lauderdale. It's very sad as there are 650,000 people in the urban area.
I can’t wait to leave here, the population here is also like a bit more than half million.
It would be nice to live in a city like Houston or Los Angeles.
The city where I currently live only has nonstop service to 17 US cities.
Maybe OP happens to live near a major airport.
Not including Canada or island resort destinations, I can fly to:
Amsterdam
Beijing
Bogota
Copenhagen
Qatar
Dubai
Dublin
Duesseldorf
Frankfurt
Hong Kong
Istanbul
Lisbon
London
Madrid
Manchester
Mexico City
Munich
Oslo
Panama
Paris
Reykjavik
Rome
São Paulo
Shanghai
Shannon
Tel Aviv
Tokyo
Zurich
My friend got a very expensive flight diversion flying from Las Vegas to Aruba over New Years. Despite scheduling a four hour layover in Fort Lauderdale on Jet Blue, the plane was diverted to Orlando because of fog. He arrived in FLL about 6 hours later than he was scheduled, and was forced to spend the night in an expensive crappy hotel and miss a day in Aruba.
I suggested that it may make sense to plan future vacations around nonstop flights. If he wants to be warm, he could fly nonstop 6.5-7 hours to Panama City. It is also a 5 hour drive from Guadalajara to Puerto Vallarta, but in the middle of winter that may not be hot, but probably just warm.
Do you think that is crazy to build vacation plans around nonstop airport routes. Does anyone else do that?
While it can be ideal to avoid issues like what your friend experienced, I won’t limit myself to non-stop destinations only. There are places in this world I would like to travel to where non-stop is either going to be expensive or simply not doable. Some people travel looking to get away and any island/beach/warm weather place will do, then there are those who want to travel to specific places. You can only get to specific places based on what’s offered and affordable from where you’re traveling from. Really, a layover in normal circumstances isn’t a big deal; there’s travel lounges that can be taken advantage of and some airport terminal have concourses and eating areas for waiting.
That said, I do prefer flying non-stop in most cases mainly because I want to just get there. I’m at an advantage since I live where my main airport has carriers that fly to 126 domestic direct locations and 60 international direct locations. Yep, a major international airport. Not everyone lives near major hubs, however, so there is always an extra flight or more travel time for them. Another thing, even with living by a major airport, if I’m taking advantage of a flight deal or sale, those flights usually have a stop before the final destination, but the savings makes it well worth it. I always get travel insurance to cover any cancelled flights, flight interruptions, etc so at least I can recoup losses if I ever go through what your friend did.
There were only three tropical destinations in December nonstop from Las Vegas. Mexico City and Guadalajara are not places where your wife probably wants to go. Panama City is within an hour of some beach resorts. Brazil was not available at the time.
Essentially if they wanted to go nonstop they would have to fly the 6.5 hours Panama. Instead they chose an 11-12 hour layover to Aruba through Fort Lauderdale and Boston on the return. But the 4 hour layover in FLL was not enough because of the fog diversion.
There are very few airports that actually give you a wide range of nonstop destinations.
And LAS is moderately big by airport standards. But it still couldn't get your friends to go where they actually wanted to go via a nonstop flight.
So the answer to your question is obvious. Most people would be doing themselves a big disservice by sticking only with destinations they can reach on a nonstop flight. Better to book a connecting flight to the place they'd truly prefer to visit, and just get some travel insurance to cover any trip disruptions. (Most people vacationing outside the US will need the insurance anyway, for medical coverage.)
I can walk to an airport, but it only has 10 nonstops CLT,PHL,DTW, ATL, ORD for transfers and for Florida Vacations Orlando, Clearwater, Punta Gorda , and Fort Lauderdale. It's very sad as there are 650,000 people in the urban area.
My airport does a bit better, with 29 nonstop destinations currently (some only seasonal), but the only international destination I can reach on a nonstop is Toronto, and the only 'tropical' location is southern Florida.
I can only imagine what folks in places like Rapid City SD or Boise ID have as nonstop options!
Most of us just have to learn to love connecting flights. Ah well, at least we're not having to get there via stagecoach or a steamer ship.
Las Vegas is very large if it is ranked by number of passengers
ATL Atlanta
LAX Los Angeles
ORD Chicago
DFW Fort Worth
JFK New York
DEN Denver
SFO San Francisco International Airport
LAS Las Vegas
SEA Seattle
CLT Charlotte
PHX Phoenix
MIA Miami
MCO Orlando
Orlando is the closest airport to Las Vegas in that it is a large airport that is not a hub, but a vacation destination. But Orlando actually has a wide range of nonstop tropical destinations
But it still couldn't get your friends to go where they actually wanted to go via a nonstop flight.
The idea of the thread is that if you are taking a short vacation and not a business trip or a cultural trip, then you should limit yourself to nonstop destinations (if there are any).
Limit your wants.
Last edited by PacoMartin; 02-07-2018 at 04:20 PM..
Just to show how restrictive this is, there are nonstop flights from Los Angeles to only 13 European countries, Atlanta only nine. No nonstops from Atlanta to anywhere in Scandinavia. None to Lisbon from either LAX nor ATL. None to Prague from anywhere west or south of Philadedlphia. Several South American capitals with no nonstops to anywhere in the USA. To Manila only from SFO or LAX, and none to Jakarta at all. Only three destinations from JFK to sub-Saharan Africa.
Last edited by cebuan; 02-08-2018 at 10:07 PM..
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