The Epic Trip - Travel day and first steps 1

Finally. It is happening.
The long-awaited vacation is here. Actually it is a journey. Not a vacation.
A journey that changed the way we view the world and expanded our horizon once again. We had great experiences, made wonderful memories and as I now know – we are missing it a lot.

This time we are going to California. The sunshine state, the most populated state and probably the most diverse state of the US. California has great beaches, lush green forests, mountains and the beautiful desert to offer. All of this can be reached in just a few hours by car. Exactly that might be the reason for so many tourists to visit California every year. How many you might ask. More than 251 million people visited California in the year 2015. – We did not. We visited this beautiful state in May and June of 2016 ;-)
This journey is what I am going to tell you about in these blog posts I called Epic Trip.

(This is us on the plae :-) )

Where do I begin? I guess right at the start – the planning (in short, a seperate blogpost is coming on how to plan a big journey like that)

Since we are familiar with the overall sights and landscapes in the United States we pretty much knew what not to miss out on while we were in that area. It is not the first time we are planning a big trip like this one which made it a bit easier for us in regards to the planning.
This time we are travelling for four weeks.

After we booked our flights, lodging and rented our car as well as the overall planning was done, the great anticipation toward departure day had no limits.

(About To Land In London)

When the day of departure finally comes it feels very unreal to me most of the time. I have been to many places all over the world and I just feel endless gratitude to be able to experience all of these wonderful places everytime!
It is amazing that you can travel to the other side of the world in just a few hours and it looks completely different from what you know. But that only as a side note.

(Flying Over Greenland)

We decided to fly with 'Virgin Atlantic'. It is a nonstop flight from London to Los Angeles. We only had to get to London in the morning.
The flight to Los Angeles was on time and quite pleasant. As usual we were taken care of with meals and the entertainment system.
We arrive in L.A. on schedule.

(Flying Over The Places We Will Be Visiting On This Journey, #ColoradoRiver, #GrandCanyon)

Passport control usually takes up quite a bit of time. Unfortunately it is not always possible to get off the plane quickly to be the first in line ;-)

Right after that we are getting our luggage and our car. We had good experiences with Alamo. Unfortunaltey we were able to 'test' their service unwillingly three years ago after an unfortunate event with our rental car. Only then one can speak of a good service ;-)
It is already quite late at that time and we are very tired from our flight.
On we go to our first AirBnB in Los Angeles and fall right into bed.

This travel day is over and the 'Epic Trip' can start in the morning. (or right here in the next post!)

XO
TabeaLouise