Upcoming Sabbatical and vacation

Ever since I started my Master’s degree program at ASU, Erin and I have had an eye on when I would be able to take my Intel Sabbatical (8 weeks of paid leave).

We had decided to delay my sabbatical by 2 years in order to avoid going on a long vacation while having to do homework and study for tests, etc.  Since my educational pursuits are finished, we are now able to enjoy some of the 8 weeks off.

Around late 2009, we tried to determine what kind of vacation we would want to take.  We thought about renting an RV for about 2-3 weeks or so with all 3 boys, and then a separate trip to Hawaii for both Erin and I.  We ended up changing our Hawaii plans to be a smaller San Diego vacation for Erin and I due to our enlarged RV trip plans. 

We initially thought about doing a one-way RV rental from Jacksonville, Florida all the way to Phoenix, Arizona.  When we found that the rental would cost an additional $750, plus airfare to get to Jacksonville, we went back to the vacation drawing board.  We didn’t necessarily like the added limitation that a cross-country flight would place on the types and amount of luggage we could take. 

We decided that for the money that would have been spent on the one-way rental fee and the flight to Jacksonville, we would add 1 week to our original plan of 3 weeks.  We figured that this would give us some time to enjoy the journey as we traveled to the East Coast.  As we considered our vacation path, we found that the number of stops that we wanted to make would be very difficult to do in 4 weeks.  Thus, we decided to make our trip last for 5 weeks.  We wouldn’t necessarily be spending any more on miles or gas, but only for extending the RV rental.

Another perk of renting an RV directly from Phoenix is that we can pack anything that we want to without having to worry about restrictions from an airline.  Plus, we had noticed that the Mesa office of Cruise America had started rolling out a new Intermediate RV (27 ft.).  It was more suitable for our family and we liked the floorplan better than the other 25 ft. RV.  The fact that it was brand new was also quite appealing.

Below is our proposed vacation path.  We are guessing it will be about 6,000 miles of driving.  Should be fun; regardless, it will be an adventure. :)