Sarah 🪶 F1330

I haven't been to a furry convention since covid started, and don't plan to any time soon. But as a thought experiment, I've decided to see how many furry cons I can go to in 2024 if going to furry cons was all I did.

I'm pulling this data from Furrycons.com, which doesn't actually have a lot of cons listed for next year, as most cons haven't announced them yet, so I'm using 2023 information, which is pretty complete but not full, so I might be missing a few.

I also want to do this on the cheap, and reasonably safely, so I've come up with the following rules:

3. Warmer weather ahead

Finally the weather starts to warm up, making car sleeping a little easier. That’s good because we’re going to have a lot of downtime between cons the next few months.

We start with yet another cross-country drive for Golden State FC (April 8, Los Angeles CA). We have to skip Furcationland (Portland ME) in favor of Las Vegas FC (April 13, Las Vegas NV). I just can't pass up the easy drive from one to the other. And Las Vegas is a great place to stay, because now we have a whopping MONTH to drive south to I-10 through Las Cruces (where we stayed back in February), San Antonio, Houston, and New Orleans, doing a little real vacationing before arriving at Furry Weekend Atlanta (May 13, Atlanta GA).

From Atlanta, we have the shortest drive on the trip, just 248 miles over two weeks to make it to NomadiCon (May 26, Nashville TN). Sadly we have to pass on AnthrOhio (Columbus OH), but Nashville has too much to offer. I’m going to enjoy the music scene here for a little while before heading into the mountains to find a place to hunker down for a few more weeks.

Cons Attended: 4     Miles Traveled: 4730

4. Far North, High Mountains

Moving into summer, the heat — like the government there — is going to become oppressive in the south. To take a break from both, we’re headed north! Snaking up the east coast to arrive at PortCon Maine (June 23, Portland Maine), we do get to stay the whole weekend, but we may not want to, because we have the chance to get to AnthroCon (June 29, Pittsburgh PA) early and crash with friends for nearly a whole week.

We can stay at AC until Monday, but after that we have to get up and go, driving over 2000 miles in four days to arrive at Fur-Eh! (July 7, Edmonton AB). At this point, we’ve left the south behind for nearly a month, maybe more depending on where we car camped, and we may have forgotten what it's like to live in a budding theocracy. Fortunately(?) we get a refresher as we travel to the Beehive State to attend Anthro Weekend Utah (July 15, Layton UT)

While the convention will be nice, a day’s drive across the border lands us in Denver, Colorado for the first time this year, where seemingly half the fandom has moved to, so we have options to settle down for a couple weeks off.

Cons Attended: 4     Miles Traveled: 5022

5. The Gauntlet

We’re freshly showered, well fed, and about to dive right into the gaping maw of the convention calendar. Eight weeks of nothing but cons, each over 1000 miles from the next one. We bite the bullet, leave the mountains, and head south into the sweltering Texas heat to hit up Texas Furry Siesta (August 4, Dallas TX). The heat here makes car camping extremely difficult, so we are going to buy a shirt and attend the panel on scalies and hit the road.

We find refuge from the heat at far off Wild Prairie FC (August 11, Winnipeg, MB), then head back to meet up with the friends we just left at DenFur (August 18, Denver CO). We have time for maybe one extra night or two after the con, but then it’s yet another four-day trek across the country to make it to Furrydelphia (August 25, Philadelphia PA) on time.
Now, we could have attended IndyFurCon (August 25, Indianapolis IN) instead. That would have cut our driving time in half, and in hindsight that probably would have been a good idea. But we’ve heard too many good things about Furrydelphia to leave it off our trip.

Cons Attended: 4     Miles Traveled: 5387

6. The Gauntlet, Part 2

From Philly we are heading back down south, this time to Mephit Furmeet (September 3, Olive Branch MS). This is one of those conventions that I always wanted to go to if for no other reason than name recognition. Checking that one off our list, we go back to the top of the country to Furry Migration (September 10, Minneapolis MN) and get ourselves out of that still-sweltering southern heat. Unfortunately, we don’t get to enjoy it for long, because we immediately turn around and head to another famous con, Megaplex (September 17, Orlando FL).

Finally, mercifully, we’ve run the gauntlet, and just like a Super Bowl winning quarterback, we’re going to Disney. After a quick little vacation, we push our driving time to maybe 10 hours, just to arrive at our next destination in one night, which is Furry Takeover (September 29, Fortuna Dam NC). We head back to the deep south one more time, but it’s cooled off as we get into fall, arriving at Alamo City Furry Invasion (October 13, San Antonio TX)

Cons Attended: 5   Miles Traveled: 5471

7. Uhhhh, Turns Out There’s a Gauntlet Part 3

We get to take our time, with two weeks until my home con, Furpocalypse (October 28, Stamford CT). We’ll take a longer, southerly route to enjoy the warmer weather. As for the con itself, we’re definitely going to want to pre-reg for this one, because as soon as the dealer’s den opens Friday, we are doing a quick run-through, checking out a panel, and hitting the road.

In true Cannonball Run style, we are crossing the country with a 6 day road trip out to Biggest Little Fur Con (November 2, Reno NV). If we’re lucky, we might be able to sneak in before the convention shuts down on Thursday. If we’re not, no worries, we’ll just head on over to PAWCon (November 4, San Jose CA), avoiding the Donner Pass and taking an alternate route. This one we should be able to enjoy to the fullest after nearly 8 straight days of driving, as we made friends in town during Further Confusion.

Cross this one off the list, and there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Cons Attended: 4   Miles Traveled: 5819

8. Wrapping It Up

We can afford to stay with our west coast friends a few extra days, as the drive up to Howloween (November 11, Richmond BC) should only take two days up the scenic Pacific Coast Highway. We should have friends here as well, since we stayed in nearby Vancouver back in March for VancouFur. That’s convenient, because we have three whole weeks off before our last big con of the year, and of course it’s the very biggest.

Midwest FurFest (December 3, Rosemont IL) is the largest furry convention of them all, and we should be able to meet up with other furries from all over the continent that we’ve seen throughout the year. It’s been a great time! But we’re not quite done yet. For the first time all year, we’re going south of the (American) border, to Furcan (December 17, Puebla, Mexico) and the warmth there is going to feel incredible after freezing at MFF.

We’ll be inclined to linger for a while, slowly making our way up over the next two weeks, avoiding Christmas with biological families, to ring out the Year of the Perpetual Convention back where we started, at the New Year’s Furry Ball (December 31, Wilmington DE)

Cons Attended: 4   Miles Traveled: 6629

TLDR;

You can get to 34 furry cons in one year, assuming you count New Year's Furry Ball as two cons, since you went on Jan 1 and Dec 31, and you can make the Cannonball Run from Furpocalypse to BLFC.

You will drive over 47,000 miles, assuming you take some of the more circuitous routes.