Sunday, October 9, 2011

Setting the Itinerary

It seems premature, but one of our first tasks is to set the itinerary for our major round-the-world destination spots.  This is very important because we want our round-the-world travel agent that we are working with through http://www.airtreks.com/, to have plenty of time to book the best available flight options.  The longer we wait, the best airfare and schedule may dwindle.  Some travelers may opt to purchase separate legs of air travel on their own.  We feel that going through an agency that specializes in round-the-world travel helps keep the airfare as economical as possible.

Up to this point, we've had a wish list of destination spots such as Vietnam, Thailand, Turkey, Morocco, Argentina, and so forth; however, it's an entirely different story when we need to commit to putting actual departure and arrival dates to these places.

So, we took advantage of the perfect weather on a Sunday afternoon by taking our laptop, iPhones, pen, paper, dog, and a bottle of wine outside on our patio and went to work.


We only needed to decide on the cities in which we will be arriving and departing via air, as part of the round-the-world ticket.  There are some caveats to the ticket, including the need to travel in an eastwardly or westwardly direction.

Here is what we came up with for our trip.  Of course this is still all up in the air until we have final confirmation from our travel agent.  You will be confused as to why we are flying westbound, all the way to Japan first, then tracking back in a eastwardly direction.  The flight to Japan will not be part of the round-the-world ticket.  We are taking this detour to meet up with Akiko's family first.

  • Tuesday, May 15th, 2012: FLY from Atlanta, Georgia to Narita
  • Tuesday, May 29th, 2012: FLY from Tokyo to Hawaii.  This will be the start of our round-the-world ticket.
  • Monday, June 4th, 2012: FLY from Hawaii to Quito, Ecuador
  • Travel overland through Ecuador and Peru
  • Thursday, July 12th, 2012: FLY from Lima, Peru to Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • Thursday, August 7th, 2012: FLY from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Madrid, Spain
  • Make separate arrangements to fly from Madrid, Spain to Morocco and back.  
  • Make separate arrangements to fly from Madrid, Spain to Venice, Italy.
  • Take a ferry to Trieste, Croatia.  
  • Travel overland from Croatia through Montenegro, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, etc.
  • Tuesday, September 25th, 2012: FLY from Istanbul, Turkey to Tel Aviv, Israel.
  • Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012: FLY from Tel Aviv, Israel to Bangkok, Thailand.
  • Travel overland through Thailand and Vietnam.
  • Thursday, December 6th, 2012: FLY from Vietnam back to Tokyo.  This will be end of the round-the-world ticket.
  • Make arrangements to fly back to the United States in time for Christmas, to make the parents happy.