I’ve sat here staring at this question trying to think of a one-word answer that fits. I can’t. There is simply too much. I have a series of blog posts brewing in my head, but before I detail packing, vaccines and how to take care of things back home, I will try to go through the big ticket and important items for planning such an adventure.
I suppose first off you need to decide to go for it. Once you jump in on planning you don’t want to turn back. It’s a big deal. For us once we realized we had enough miles for the tickets (180,000 each for coach, 260,000 each for business and 340,000 each for first) we were in. We opted for the business class option with the goal of getting good rest on long flights to arrive ready to enjoy the far-away places with less jet-lag.
So it is important to know that not every stop along the way came on our single “around the world” ticket. We did also make side trips, most using miles, others using regional bargain carriers. And it is important to know that even on these miles tickets we had to pay taxes, taxes on the RTW ticket itself were under $300 each.
So where do you go? How do you decide? Well, obviously to get to this point we’ve traveled loads already and have some places we like. And some friends along the way to visit. But also lots of places we’d still like to see. Look at a map. Here’s the one we started with. It was hanging on the way with post-its. We’d put them on for places we knew we wanted to go. Then started with that dream list and tweaked from there.
Go for bang for the buck. Find a base, then take small trips from there. That works great for Europe and Southeast Asia, not as well for Africa and Australia. For us for Europe our base is Munich, then we head east and south, then back around to Munich before we head to South Africa. We based cities that we stop in based on how much time did we want in the car to get from place to place. We wanted to drive 5 hours or less from place to place, enough time to enjoy the ride, but not ALL day driving. Still time in the cities when we arrive.
For our Asia stops we are flying into Bangkok, then taking regional flights on Air Asia to Krabi, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore before we go back to Bangkok.
For New Zealand we did a lot like we do in Europe. Land in the south, how far do we get when we drive a few hours? Stay there, then move on the next day until we reach the far north.
We also picked some of our places based on hotels. We cashed in hotel points for many of our stays.
Be prepared to be flexible. Know what is negotiable and what is not. I’m kinda meh on Istanbul, we’re not there long enough to make it a great stop. And I wish we had more time in Hong Kong, but that was negotiable to me.
It is also important to not forget the rest of your life while planning this. It can be and is all encompassing. It is a time suck (it really needs to be, but still). Make a conscious decision to have days where you aren’t planning or talking about the trip. Sure, everyone is excited for you, but they’re not going with you.
Comments