I want to go to the bulb conference in Cape Town next August, so I decided to start checking for a reasonably-priced flight, assuming that there would be bargains this far in advance. There don't appear to be. I've checked some airline websites and also travellersweb.com which told me it was searching millions of possibilities. From the North American west coast, there are these routes: Return fares,in order of price, cheapest first, U.S. dollars: Vancouver to Toronto to Atlanta, then via South African to Cape Town $2300 Seattle to Chicago to Atlanta to Cape Town $2391 Vancouver to London to Cape Town $2440 (From Seattle, $2485) All the way on South African: Seattle to Atlanta to Cape Town $2527 Vancouver to San Francisco, to Atlanta, to Cape Town $2875 Seattle to London to Amsterdam to Cape Town $3037 More expensive still is Lufthansa: Vancouver to Frankfurt to Cape Town One good thing about going via London is that a stopover doesn't cost any extra. I think a stopover would be a good idea, as it is a very long way to travel. Generally, one leaves here the afternoon of day one and arrives midmorning of day three. (I know there are time zone differences I haven't included.) If anyone knows of any real bargains, could you let me know? Diane Whitehead Victoria B.C.