Flying Quito to Columbia

Suzanne and I were hanging out in Quito dreading the next part of our trip, a 28 hour bus ride from Quito to Bogota.  Not only would this be one of the longest bus rides we've taken but its also guaranteed to take us through the most dangerous part of a much-safer Columbia (the south).  Of course we had checked out flights but a one way flight from Quito to Bogota was around $300 a person for a one-way!  Strangely, if you make that a round trip, the price will sometimes drop!  So obviously there is some sort of penalty for one way flights.  I think I had heard of that before in the States but maybe with the rise of Southwest and the other discount airlines, its become a thing of the past.  Not so down here, but the good news is we found a way around the penalty a multi-leg trip!  I kind of stumbled upon it, but if you're considering a flight, try to consider two and make it a multi-leg trip and somehow you'll avoid the one-way penalty.  For us, we decided first to go to Cartagena (on the Caribbean in Columbia) and then take a second leg to Bogota.  I luckily just put it in as a multi-leg trip and it came up as around $350.  So not only are we getting to Bogota but we're getting a very inexpensive leg thrown on for just a little more (the bus ride from Cartagena to Bogota is 20 hours each way).  We calculated that we would save ourselves 70 hours in a bus!  So if you're in a position like ours in South America, check out the multi-leg trip.

~Mike