per•e•gri•nate (perigrəˌnāt). To journey or travel from place to place, often with the suggestion of a roundabout route.

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The word “peregrinate” is not commonly utilized in our everyday vernacular, but it is perhaps the best word to describe my upcoming travels around the continent. In most any thesaurus, the closest synonym to peregrinate is “wander”, and though for many that word suggests moving about tinged by a degree of insouciance to the point of outright aimlessness, I prefer J.R.R. Tolkien’s take on wandering:

Not all who wander are lost.

While I appreciate the ambiguity of a good wander as much as anyone and indeed more than most, for this trip I’ve managed to weave fifty-four flights, nine train rides and four thousand miles of road travel into a cohesive month long itinerary. Aimless meandering this is not.

As ever, mileage will be accrued and status will be earned. Along the way I’ll fly on nine different airlines aboard fifteen different types of aircraft. Skillfully blended in will be Business and First Class travel aboard a variety of Amtrak trains as I continue in my quest to ride over every route in the United States.

All told, this trip will total out at close to 50000 miles. It will include 42,380 miles of air travel, 2820 miles of rail travel and a little over 4000 miles of highway travel. I’ve also scheduled flights aboard two new airlines rarely reported upon here, bringing my total number of airlines flown to 156. With two exceptions, the trains that I’ll be riding upon will cover distances from 100 to 320 miles through twelve states.



Autumn Perigrinations

The best thing about leaving Alaska is having a return ticket. I’ll be home on Halloween, just in time for winter. For those of us who live here, especially in the interior, Alaska is a cool place in the winter. There’s no place I’d rather be. Alaska has been my home for over 20 years and I love it up here all year long.

Although this is no glamour trip involving First Class travel to exotic destinations halfway around the world, I really like the mix of planes, trains and automobiles that this itinerary offers and fully look forward to a really good time. The trick will be trying to write about it all in such a way that you'll find it both entertaining and perhaps even informative.

There is however one caveat: This is not a trip report about how to create mileage runs. It might give you some good information about how to do a mileage run once you’ve gotten the tickets purchased but for anyone looking to gather information about building a good mileage run, I refer you to the Mileage Run Deals forum here at FlyerTalk.

I'm not a regular daily contributer to FlyerTalk, so it’s been a while since I’ve been over to the Trip Reports Forum. I’ll bet I’ve posted less times this summer than some FTers post in a single day. In the meantime, it looks like there are some great new reports to read here, so while you're reading mine, I'll be reading yours as well. That said, let's go fetch ourselves a good drink and settle in for the ride. This trip report is cleared for takeoff and rollin’ down the tracks.