{"id":7233,"date":"2016-01-17T17:02:58","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T01:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/wanderlusty\/?p=7233"},"modified":"2016-01-17T18:55:02","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T02:55:02","slug":"crossing-the-pacific-in-a-737-the-united-airlines-island-hopper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/wanderlusty\/2016\/01\/crossing-the-pacific-in-a-737-the-united-airlines-island-hopper\/","title":{"rendered":"Crossing the Pacific in a 737: the United Airlines Island Hopper"},"content":{"rendered":"

i’ve long considered the Island Hopper an #avgeek (someone who geeks out about aviation) and travel enthusiast rite of passage. these routes used to belong to Air Micronesia<\/a>, a part of Continental, which got folded into United’s operations when they merged a while back.<\/p>\n

in a nutshell, the Island Hopper route, which is only fully flown a couple times a week at most, starts in Honolulu or Guam and makes brief stops on islands that have a historical connection<\/a> to the United States. i think i was able to piece together an itinerary with as many stops as possible to cross the Pacific, or close to it. it required an overnight in Honolulu (oh boo hoo) and then travel the full next day (about 24 hours total for me to get from Honolulu to Manila, i think?). the Island Hopper is a single flight number that most people apply to the Honolulu-Guam flight with five intermediate stops, but i found a flight to Manila that stops in Koror, Palau for extra hopping pleasure. and yes, the HNL-MAJ-KWA-KSA-PNI-TKK-GUM-ROR-MNL flights are all on 737s. i won’t cover the Guam to Palau to Manila flights here because it was pretty normal, and it was at night so you really couldn’t take pictures anyways.<\/p>\n

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i booked this as a round trip from San Francisco to Manila — if you book it on days the Island Hopper runs, it will give you that flight as an option on the United website, for a minimal extra cost, if any. fwiw i paid $760 roundtrip. <\/p>\n

but why would i do this? (you’ll get that question a lot…) because. just because. and because the views were supposed to be beautiful — and they were. honestly, if you can’t\u00a0get a window seat, don’t even bother.<\/p>\n

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It begins! pic.twitter.com\/zuHlsCJKES<\/a><\/p>\n

— Jonathan Khoo (@jonk) January 11, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n