So I bought my tickets to Iceland over a month ago.   One of Icelandair’s major hubs is Seattle and they fly a direct route out of there daily for super cheap.   My ticket with taxes included was only $620 round trip!

To put that price in prospective – a return flight from Vancouver to Toronto is $60 more.

The only downside to this ticket is that I have to fly out of Seattle which means, of course, I have to figure out a way to get down there.

The first thing I looked at was how much it costs for long term parking at the Seatac airport.   Turns out to be reasonable at $10/day making a total cost of $150 for my 15 day trip.   Figure another $50 for gas and it costs about $200.

Then I looked at buses going down there.

There is a direct bus from downtown Vancouver to Seatac airport called Quick Shuttle.   It runs a few times a day and costs $100 return.   Much cheaper but of course it takes longer and arrives at the airport 2 hours earlier than I need to be there.

And then there’s Greyhound…

Round trip – $30!   Yes, $30.

Of course it runs even less frequently and doesn’t go directly to the airport.   From the Greyhound terminal station I’d have to walk 4 blocks to the Westlake light rail metro station and take a 35min trip to the airport.   Oh, and it arrives 3 hours earlier than I need to be there.

So, no matter how I looked at it, it wasn’t perfect.

But for $30, I can’t even consider the other options so I’m taking Greyhound down at 6am, arriving in Seattle at 10am for my 3:30pm flight.   I figure I’ll just hang around downtown Seattle for a couple of hours, eat some lunch and then head to the airport.

Coming home, my flight lands at 4:40pm but my bus doesn’t leave til 9pm so I guess I’m having dinner in downtown Seattle that night.   I’ll be home at 2am.

6 days to go….