This Friday, I’ll depart on a three-city tour to visit friends and get out of D.C. My itinerary puts me in San Diego on August 5, 6, and 7th, San Francisco and Oakland on August 8, 9 and 10th, and on a lake “up north” in Michigan for a few days before returning to D.C. I’ll be covering 5,500 miles in nine days in a trip that includes six separate flights. My budget for the entire trip is $1,000, and thanks in part to the discount airlines I was able to purchase all the flights for just over $520.

From the road I’ll hopefully be posting some photos and observations, trying my hand at trip-blogging. These first two photos of San Diego were produced by Google Earth.