Let’s see here… we leave New York’s JFK airport at 5:20 p.m. on May 30th (Friday) and arrive Johannesburg, South Africa, at 5:00 p.m. on May 31st. Factoring in the time changes, that’s — give or take a few minutes — 19 hours on a plane. Then we stay overnight in Johannesburg, fly to Richards Bay on June 1, fly back to Johannesburg on June 7, and fly home on June 8.
No. I am not spending 19 hours on a plane, each way, for only a week in Africa. I have no idea how I’m going to pay for this, and no idea what else I’m going to do, but I am definitely staying in Africa longer than just one week.
Onto the web I go, and with a bit of research and some poking around, it seems to me that Botswana looks like a great place to go… with the Victoria Falls tacked on to the end. So emails are going out to a bunch of safari operators (mostly from the Botswana Tourism Office website) to see what else I can line up.
Nineteen hours on a plane? Okay, but for two weeks, maybe. Three would be even better…