I made a tough choice a few weeks ago.

Since last year, I’ve been planning to attend the 2022 Hamvention and the Four Days In May (FDIM) evenings.

Hamvention weekend is one of the big highlights of my year and–until the pandemic–I hadn’t missed a single on in more than a decade.

I was really looking forward to this year if for no other reason than to connect with friends I only see at Hamvention.

My buddy Eric (WD8RIF), his son Miles (KD8KNC), and sometimes our good friend Mike (K8RAT) attend Hamvention together. We split accommodation, car pool, and fit in park activations before, during, and after. We also fit in an annual pilgrimage to the USAF museum. It’s incredibly fun.

As fun as Hamvention is–which is insanely fun–I realized that it was going to be a pricey 3-4 night excursion when I already have some pretty epic, much-anticipated travels planned this summer with my family.

Since I had literally no items on my Hamvention shopping list (Eric didn’t either) and since I wanted to funnel all of my travel monies into the amazingness that awaits us this summer, I had a hard time justifying the costs of the trip.

So I reached out to Eric who, turns out, was feeling much the same way.

We hatched an alternate plan that ended up winning us over. Continue reading Why I’m skipping Hamvention this year →