TRIP REPORT: Taking the Longer Way Home – Sometimes, It’s more about the Journey

Sometimes, It’s more about the Journey
Taking the Longer Way Home

In this trip

• So. Keeping it original for autumn, aren’t we?
• Off to Heathrow in the Dead of the Night
• Terminal 3 Lounges… And more delays
• American Airlines AA99 London Heathrow to Chicago O’Hare (Main Cabin)
• In the USA, Candlewood Suites O’Hare
• TRAVEL PLUS: Fooding around Chicago
• Hyatt Regency O’Hare
• Airplane Art Extra – from the 10th Floor of the Hyatt Regency O’Hare
• TRAVEL PLUS: The Art Institute, Chicago
• Back to O’Hare, Air France/KLM Lounge
• Finnair AY010 Chicago O’Hare to Helsinki Vantaa
• A Helsinki Layover
• Finnair AY1335 Helsinki Vantaa to London Heathrow
• Coaching Homewards
• Sometimes, it’s more the journey

For some, travel is about the destination. Sometimes it’s the journey. Taking the longer way home sometimes leads you to places you’ve been before, or a chance to try different experiences – or even to investigate experiences you’ve had before.

If I have time on my hands, I will always consider a route away from the norm, away from the usual to try something new and maybe learn a little more about the world.

Anyway, enough of the well-gazing. Let’s do some quick one-liners to wrap this trip report off.

One Line Reviews

Heathrow Airport – T3 is still easy to navigate, but use the FastTrack to avoid Duty Free.

Cathay Pacific Lounge Heathrow T3 – Consistently good.

American Airlines Lounge – Basic, but passable if your flight is delayed.

American Airlines AA99 – A consistent experience over the Atlantic. Even better when you get three seats to yourself.

Candlewood Suites – Better than I expected, especially at the price.

Hyatt Regency O’Hare – Filed under “Must Do Better”.

O’Hare Terminal 5 – It’s still not a great terminal to arrive or depart in.

Air France/KLM Lounge at O’Hare – It’s one of the better lounges at O’Hare T5, but that isn’t saying a lot.

Finnair AY10 – They offer a great passenger experience in terms of the soft product, but they need to ramp up the fleet update to improve the hard product.

Helsinki Airport – Still a pleasure to transfer through, even though the use of bus gates is more than annoying.

Finnair Helsinki Non-Schengen Lounge – It’s still small, but outside peak hours, a wonderful place to be.

Finnair AY1335 – Slight better than the oneworld competition, but there’s room for improvement.

And we come to the end of “Taking the Longer Way Home”.  Once again, this long form write up has been long, but I hope you’ve enjoyed some of the adventures I had – as well as some of the passenger experiences I’ve encountered.

COMING NEXT

It might be nearing the end of the year, but there’s still time to do a little more travel. Join me for something a little different as I burn a bunch of Avios and combine travel with photography.

Join me in Modelling Around Barcelona – with British Airways (and with a special guest through it!)

Also, I’ll be taking a look at this

It’s been a year or so since I updated it – and I have many more stories to tell behind the lens to tell you, as well as some pratical experiance with the EOS R. So coming after Christmas will be Life with the Canon EOS R – 2 years in.

Until we see each other again – safe travels!

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