Tl;dr – The increased connectivity makes it easier to get some intriguing destinations like wine country and national parks.
Alaska Airlines recently announced a few new West Coast routes, and my eyes beelined towards a few of the destinations in and near wine country. A few weeks back, I wrote this open letter to Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci, making the case for a West Coast ‘Wine Run’ (in a similar fashion to the famed Milk Run). You can take a look at the graphic below to see all of the new routes:
Other fun destinations include Sun Valley (which has a lot more to offer than just skiing) and Eugene/Redmond, one of the better places to land if you’re headed to Crater Lake National Park or Bend, Oregon.
Though these new routes aren’t all the way there for my wildest wine-loving dreams, I do have to applaud the increased service to Boise and, in particular, Pasco, which is only 50 minutes (my ideal cutoff from tarmac to vineyard was 45 minutes) from Walla Walla, WA.
Baby steps!
