Travel & Accommodations
Accommodations
We recommend that guests stay in or near the town of Camdenton, Missouri, which is about a 25-minute drive from our wedding venue.
We have a room block at The Lodge at Old Kinderhook (code 050826YSWB) for the nights of Friday May 8 and Saturday May 9. The room block rate is $199 per night ($236.28 after taxes and fees), discounted from $215. Our group code is available until April 8, and earlier booking helps to ensure room availability. Old Kinderhook is on the shores of the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks that this region is known for, and has an on-site restaurant, cafe, and nice places to walk. Reservations can be made by calling 573-317-4314 or online at oldkinderhook.com.
If you’d like to arrive earlier than Friday or leave later than Sunday, we recommend you make your reservation by phone rather than online, so you can get the room block discount for Friday and Saturday as part of a longer reservation. (The online interface only lets you book Friday and Saturday nights, after you’ve entered the room block code.)
Other lodging options in Camdenton include a Sleep Inn and various Airbnbs.
Luggage
We will have space available to store luggage at the wedding venue, in one of the small bunkbed cabins that are situated a short walk from the event space. The cabins are on your right as you drive in.
Parking
The venue has plenty of parking space. The driveway and parking area is dirt, but comfortable to drive on.
Flights
For most guests arriving by plane, the most comfortable flight itineraries will be to either St. Louis (STL) or Kansas City (MCI). Both of these airports are about a 3-hour drive to Camdenton.
For a few guests, it may be worth considering flights to Springfield (SGF). It's closer to Camdenton (about 1.5 hours), but has fewer flight options than MCI and STL.
All three airports offer car rental services. In addition, if there is sufficient interest, we can offer shuttle service and/or assist with carpool matchmaking. More details can be found in the "Shuttle and Carpools" section of your personal RSVP page (this section only appears for guests that we think might be flying in, after you fill in your RSVP).
We recommend flying in on Friday and returning Sunday, unless you are a member of the wedding party (fly in Thursday if possible), or are wanting more time to enjoy Camdenton, St. Louis, or Kansas City as part of your trip. (See “Bonus Attractions” below.)
I recommend this flight itinerary for folks coming from the SF Bay Area (SFO ↔ STL, Southwest).
This itinerary avoids early mornings and excessively long travel days. The departing flight is nonstop, and the returning flight has one 50 min layover in Denver.
Under this itinerary, you would land in STL 6:05pm on Friday, then travel by car or shuttle to Camdenton. You would stay Friday night and Saturday night in Camdenton, then return to STL by car or shuttle on Sunday. The returning flight departs STL 6:45pm Sunday, landing at SFO 10:40pm. There is time to enjoy either Camdenton or St Louis Sunday before the return flight, if you are interested.
If you absolutely want to avoid layovers, or if you need to be back in the Bay Area earlier on Sunday, this alternative itinerary is the same as the above, except the return flight is nonstop, departing STL 9:45am.
Under this latter itinerary, you might prefer to make the drive back to STL Saturday evening after the wedding, so that you don’t have to wake up quite so early on Sunday. The wedding day schedule formally concludes by 7:30pm Saturday.
The cheapest viable itinerary I could find was this one to and from Kansas City / MCI. However, it arrives quite late Friday and leaves quite early Sunday.
If you want to minimize driving, I recommend flying to Springfield (SGF).
Alternatively, if you want to avoid layovers, St Louis (STL) and Kansas City (MCI) both have multiple nonstop flight options from AUS that take off and land at comfortable times, and both are about a 2-hour flight. Flights to MCI are cheaper. On the other hand, guests from the Bay Area will most likely be flying in and out from STL, so you might prefer that if you’re hoping to carpool or share in the same pre- or post-wedding outings.
From Pittsburgh, your best choices are either St Louis (STL) or Springfield (SGF).
St Louis looks overall more favorable to me, unless you absolutely want to minimize the amount of time you spend driving (3 hours for St Louis, 1.5 hours for Springfield). The St Louis itineraries are cheaper and involve less time flying and less overall travel time, compared to Springfield. They are also all nonstop flights, whereas the one reasonable Springfield itinerary has one layover each way.
For St Louis, there are two nonstop flight options each way, and the choice is mostly about whether you’d rather be waking up early, or going to bed late. On the Friday PIT → STL end, both options are the same price, though the late option also spares you from having to take Friday off of work. On the Sunday STL → PIT end, the late option is about $55 more expensive the last time I looked, though it does make it easy to build in a Sunday visit to the City Museum.
Early-shifted St Louis itinerary
Late-shifted St Louis itinerary
(And of course, you can mix-and-match departing and returning flights from the above two itineraries.)
If I were choosing for you guys, I’d go with the late-shifted St Louis itinerary.
Bonus Attractions
If you have extra time before or after the wedding, here are a few fun things to do in the area.
Camdenton
Ha Ha Tonka is a beautiful state park, with varied and breathtaking views of the Lake of the Ozarks as you criss-cross your way up to the "castle ruins" at the top. It’s the go-to hiking excursion when we're in town, and Jeremy's family visits there often.
Kansas City
Jeremy's sister Lori lives in Kansas City and recommends the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. "That's the home of the big shuttlecocks sculptures, which is a common icon for KC." Also, “KC is known for its BBQ too, so a lot of folks check out a BBQ restaurant while they’re here.”
St. Louis
When bridesmaid Maria learned that the wedding would be in Missouri, she immediately became excited to take her son on a side-excursion to the City Museum. It's essentially a massive building-scale playground for adults and children alike, artist-built and wildly imaginative.
