Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. The other day, I asked B where he'd rather go for our next (after Puerto Rico) vacation, Jackson Hole or Europe. He said that Europe was a bit vague; could I be more specific, so I offered up Italy, the country whose light has stolen my heart. He thought about it for a moment but came back pretty quickly with "Jackson Hole."
You can't phrase a question as I did and then ignore the answer and go ahead and plan the trip that you want to take, and I knew before I asked that B's answer would probably be different from my own. And believe it or not, I'm ok with that. Jackson Hole is maybe not at the top of my vacation list, but if it's at the top of B's, it's worth strong consideration, especially since he has expressed an interest in going since our honeymoon-planning days.
If you're not familiar with Jackson Hole, you're not alone. Here's what I've learned in the last few days. Jackson, Wyoming is the city; Jackson Hole is the entire valley. The city of Jackson is located (I believe) in Grand Teton National Park and is several hours away from Yellowstone. To the south, Salt Lake City, Provo (home of BYU), and Park City (home of the Sundance Film Festival) are about a 5 hours' drive away. Oh, and some pretty famous people live or have houses in Jackson, including Harrison Ford and Dick Cheney.
Since Jackson is so close to Utah, I figured we could extend our trip by a few days and visit some of the national parks in southern Utah, including Bryce, Zion, and others in the area, and maybe we could stop off at Park City on the way down. And since we'd be in the neighborhood, why not swing by Las Vegas for a night or two? I haven't been there since early 2005 and B has never been there (well, never been out of the airport, anyway), and it'd be a shame to skip it since we'd be so close.
I planned out a careful itinerary, starting in Vegas, working our way across and up Utah through some national parks, finishing in northern Wyoming at Jackson, Grand Teton, and Yellowstone. I figured we could visit most places we were interested in in under 2 weeks, as long as we were ok with not diving in too deep at any of the parks (and we are, especially since it's our first visit to most of these places).
I assumed we'd fly open jaw, into Vegas and out of Jackson, and we'd get a rental car that we'd pick up and drop off at the two airports. Air prices were reasonable enough for the itinerary, but rental car prices, not so much. The first company that I tried didn't allow drop-offs at the Jackson airport. Ok, no problem - I moved on to another company. The pricetag on our proposed little excursion was actually laughable, over $4,500 (!) for a two-week rental of--yes, this is the kicker--a Chevy Aveo. Keep in mind that we could buy a not-too-old Chevy Aveo for that price and we'd get to keep it after two weeks. That itinerary was clearly not compatible with our rental-car plan.
Luckily, logistics are sort of my hobby--give me a problem that involves organization, creative thinking, and logic, and I'll be happy as a clam until I've figured out the best solution--so I identified a few alternative options. Here's what I've come up with.
Our first option involves flying into and out of the same airport, probably Vegas (highest demand of the area airports, and therefore more frequent and cheaper flights ) and completing the same itinerary but instead of flying out of Jackson Hole, we would spend a day driving back to Vegas and fly home from there (according to Google Maps, Jackson to Vegas is about 10 or 11 hours). We'd have to add an extra day and night to the trip, which would add to the expense, but a round-trip flight to Vegas would be cheaper than the open-jaw flights that we investigated. The main downside is, obviously, spending an additional day driving.
Option two involves less driving and more flying. We'd fly open jaw into Vegas and out of Jackson, but we'd buy a one-way ticket between the two cities and split the trip into two legs: the Vegas/Bryce/Zion leg and the Jackson/Grand Teton/Yellowstone leg. We'd spend 5-7 nights in each location and get a different rental car in each location. With this itinerary, we'd miss out on a Park City stop, but as B has visited before and I'm not itching to go, I'm ok with it. A variation on this theme is to fly round-trip to Vegas, and fly round trip to Jackson and then back to Vegas to fly home. The second flight option would be preferable only if it were cheaper, which it might be because the pricing of one-way flights is unpredictable.
B also offered a couple of ideas. He looked into the cost of shipping our car out to Vegas, driving it around, and having it shipped back home from Jackson. This plan, while cheaper than the $4,500 quote, was still too pricey, close to $1,000 each way. He also proposed buying a cheap car in Vegas and selling it when we got to Jackson. I have vetoed this suggestion, mostly because the cars that he has proposed and found on Craigs List are junky pickups and Monte Carlos, and because driving a clunker across empty desert roads sounds like more adventure than I'm looking for.
I suspect that we will have adventures a-plenty with any of the itineraries that we are considering.
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