Trip Planning

San Diego Bay, from a trip in 2021.

 

I kind of hate planning far in advance. There is a lack of flexibility. However some of the places I want to travel to seem to require it. Like if you want to visit any of the national park lodges for a week, it gets pretty hard to find a run of days with availability. This is compounded by the fact that the vendor website is inferior to normal hotel websites. You have to search and search rather than just being able to scroll through the dates. For some lodges, this somewhat works but for other lodges it doesn't seem to work at all. And the calendars display dates that appear to be open but when you click on them it says "reserved" or something, but there is no indicator in advance. You have to dance to their tune.

Eventually it became clear the only way to get reservations is to travel at a time of year with inclement weather or years in advance. I maintain that planning and logistics are the worst part of travel.

It feels like the NPS lodge websites are from the late 90s to early 2000s. The National Park system deserves better. The vendor for the park I was looking at seemed to be Aramark. Maybe they should just hire Wyndham instead.