A Random Cheap Flight Sent Us to Africa—and We Had No Idea What to Expect

To say this trip has come about suddenly would be an understatement. After finding a relatively cheap flight out of Springfield, we only had a month to plan. Out of all our trips, this one was such an outlier when it came to planning. For one, I had no idea what Morocco had to offer and had nothing that I had to see. Second, due to the infrastructure of their rail lines, Google and Apple Maps both failed to be very helpful in the routing stage. Other than the city's names, I didn’t truly know what was in store. This would be our first trip out of Europe and our first into Africa.

Unfortunately issues arose before the trip even began. The day before the flight, we had issues checking in and received an error stating that we needed to show the credit card used to purchase the tickets to the agent at the gate. After looking up this alert online, apparently this is a very rare message and wouldn’t affect 99% of travelers. We are just lucky I guess.

First stop was picking up Matt and Austin on our way to the airport. Always a nervous feeling at this stage, constantly in a state of worry as you are never sure you have everything packed and sorted. We arrived at the Springfield airport two hours before our scheduled departure to ensure our previous check in issue wouldn’t be a problem.

After having Austin flash his credit card to the half asleep agent at the Delta counter, we were then through security thanks to our TSA Pre-Check status (which was nice as we had never seen the Springfield airport this busy).

The two hours before our flight went by rather quickly and it wasn’t long before we found ourselves now in Atlanta. Now in Atlanta, we began our ritual of pacing through the long bustling corridors to tire our legs out before being crammed in the hell that is basic economy.

Eventually it was time to board and we were fortunate enough to all sit in the same row, avoiding the dreaded conflict of wrestling over the armrest with a stranger. We noticed there was an empty seat behind us, allowing Matt to move back to secure us some additional room. At this stage, we have taken close to a dozen of these long haul international flights but they never get easier. Five movies and just a measly two hours of sleep (and several repulsive meals) later, we had arrived in Africa.

To move onwards with us along our journey, click here.