.you had one weekend in late July or late August to fly anywhere in the lower 48 states

I just did some research to plan my trip to Yellowstone. OMG, the airfares are really high right now. Looked at a few other places in case we want to go somewhere else. Guess those gas prices have made it a very expensive proposition to go anywhere this summer (plus I have 2 kids, so that's 4 very expensive plane tickets!)

Jannette

get a credit card that gives you frequent flier miles, and charge absolutely everything you can on it. you should be able to get a couple of plane tickets a year out of a good program, even if you don't fly much otherwise. i almost never pay for plane tickets anymore.

I do, I charge everything on my frequent flyer credit card. We've even gone to Australia on FF miles back before we had kids. However, we recently used up all our miles for a different trip, plus it always seems like it's difficult to use them on the dates you want to travel, and it's always for flights at ridiculous times or red-eyes. Every time I've tried to fly to the Bay Area, we could never get a frequent flyer flight. It's one thing to put up with bad flight times when you're travelling alone, but with 2 young kids, it's a nightmare. Oh, and with a family of four, I have to ring up charges of around $100,000 before we can travel somewhere for free. So it takes a while to accumulate...

So tonight my husband declared we're not going to Yellowstone/Tetons, too much money. Trying to think up something cheaper - either less airfare or within a day's drive. BUMMER!

Jannette

Jannette,

Val David, perhaps? Lots of fun climbing, moderately cute (albeit touristy) little town, famous bike trail, nice city (Montreal) en route. Drive from NYC would be long, but you could break it a bit by taking a day or two coming and going in Montreal and/or the dacks.

I did some climbing up there in 2002, and thought it was pretty nice. Bunch of Fritz routes up there as well, if that appeals to you.

Jannette-

I'm seeing the same thing with airfares and starting to think of the north east for my trip. Still up in the air right now as I focus on the 'weekend bachelor' hangout which, of course, will be gunks-centric. Problem is that of 8 guys, only 3 are climbers. So I figure we'll do some hiking in Minnewaska, swimming and maybe some mountain biking with a little bit of climbing for those interested (read: top rope!).

But for my 'solo' weekend, I'm still not sure. This thread has certainly given me a tick list of incredible places to think about. But I'm too into paying twice the airfare to get there (yet).

JK

Have prices really gone up recently? I haven't been shopping in a couple of months but I got under $400 to Seattle. Seemed like we were still at pre-9/11 prices though not as low as they were immediately pre-9/11.

Continental, ewr to lax $356, ewr to denver $533.

Which reminds me, I have to send some boarding passes into United their "Star Alliance" partner, Singapore Air lines screwed me out of credit on a Singapore-Seoul biz class flight and Seoul-Frankfurt biz class flight!

i fly salt lake to laguardia every few weeks on delta, and my tickets are generally between $250 and $400 tops. jetblue to salt lake is cheap too, but i hate redeyes.

None of that seems out of hand. I was paying around $600 to Seattle pre-9/11 and when you factor in gas prices and inflation we're getting a bargain. I know flying a family of four is expensive but it does't seem like it's more expensive than it's ever been and probably less so.

I had hoped for EWR to Madrid for September but didn't buy a month or two ago. When I looked last week it had gone up $200 or so to almost a grand. Ruined my vacation plans...

I had gotten used to waiting later for cheap flights but I think that has reversed.