Rolling with the punches when planning your holiday

When we decide to book a holiday or go travelling we often have an idea of what we would like to do. Sometimes this is an entire itinerary that you have in mind and other times it is a headline thing or event that you would like to see or attend. This summer James and I had planned to visit Highway 1 in California. We’ve tried to do this route before back in 2016 but were thwarted by a landslide that meant that a huge part of the road was closed. This time we changed plans and headed in land before rejoining Highway 1 headed towards San Diego. This summer was to be our redo, but what do you know – Highway 1 has experienced not just one but two landslips! I’ve been tracking the progress of the repairs, current reopening time is Spring 2024 (we visit in August), but taking a look online at progress and images shared I feel it in my bones that the reopening is very unlikely to be Spring and that August is also looking unlikely. So, what do we do? Do we stick with our plans and risk taking the interstate from the LA area to San Francisco. A journey that we have done before and is uninspiring to say the least. Or, do we make a plan and do something completely different?

At the moment, we’re planning a little of both! We have accommodation booked along the Highway 1 route that is refundable. If Highway 1 opens then happy days – we will head along the route and stay and some amazing places; if the road remains closed we will make a decision closer to the time to rethink and regroup with a new plan.

So, what’s the new plan? Well, who knows! The world is out oyster in California! With the ages of our children I think we will skip the wine tours of the area – we can come back to those when we are travelling on our own. Our starting point for Highway 1 was LA, so we may decide to take the short hop flight or 4 hour drive to Las Vegas. If not Las Vegas then we may travel up to see Yosemite National Park before dropping back across to San Francisco and then home. Perhaps we will stay in LA, visit the beach at Santa Monica, Warner Brothers Studio tour and the newly opened Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood. Who knows – at the moment the world (or California and Nevada) is our oyster.

Sometimes when travelling or before you go, things don’t work out as planned. It is disappointing when that happens, but I’m always an optimist and look for ways that I can still have an awesome adventure – even if it’s not the one I set out on.