theDIBB - Pacific Northwest summer 2019

We are all getting very excited about our forthcoming road trip to the Pacific Northwest.

Meet the cast:

Here we are kayaking in Croatia last summer

Katie - Chief DIBBER, loves planning holidays, roadtrips, music, and getting outdoors

Steve - Excellent planner, chief route planner and hotel booker, loves USA roadtrips, being outdoors, music and sports

Daniel - generally happy teen, loves helping plan our USA roadtrips, being outdoors, especially anything where he can get wet, music and American sports

We have been very fortunate to have visited the states on many occasions. We love Florida and WDW but also getting out and about on roadtrips. We don't mind multiple hotels and in fact love life on the road. We had a year off visiting the US in 2018 due to moving house halfway across the country. However we have all missed it and spent many a day dreaming of wide open spaces, country music and yummy American food. So we are all really looking forward to our trip especially as none of us have travelled there before.

As we are restricted by school holidays, we started looking at flights back in September and were struggling to find anything to Seattle at a reasonable price. However, one evening I was playing around on google flights and found bargainous indirect flights from Heathrow to Portland, Oregon with BA for £1200 for all 3 of us. We quickly snapped them up before BA could change their minds (:grin:) and adjusted our planned route to start and end in Portland instead. We have a layover of 4 hours in Chicago on the way out and 3 hours in San Francisco on the return but for £400 each including seat reservations we don't mind.

Next up in the planning was firming up our route. We know from previous trips that we enjoy getting outside in the National parks and being active to visiting cities, so were keen to not spend too long in any one city. Although we are spending a couple of nights in each Seattle and Portland as we would like to see them both.

Our route takes in Crater Lake NP, Bend, Dalles, Mount Ranier NP, North Cascades NP, Seattle, Port Townsend, Olympic National Park, La Push, Washington Coast and back to Portland. Along the way we will also be visiting various state parks, gong whitewater rafting (which is a family favourite) hiking, horse riding, baseball, whale watching and swimming. I am also dragging the boys to Forks for a bit of Twilight location spotting ;)

We have spent the last few months firming up accommodation which has proved to be more expensive that we had anticipated. Partly down to the rubbish exchange rate but also some areas are ridiculously pricey, such as Seattle. So we have got a mix of Air B&B, self catering cabins and motels. We do like a bit of self-catering when we are away as it is nice to cook your own breakfast or have a barbecue in the evening rather than eat out at every meal. It is also helps keep the cost down as we have to feed a ravenous teenage boy!

We have booked an SUV with Virgin Holidays as it was the cheapest way for us to get additional drivers as both Steve and I like to drive in the states.

As our countdown gets shorter are now busy planning and booking various activities and getting excited.