Around the World Trip: Distance/Transportation

When I say distance I mean the distance from one country you want to visit to your next destination. Will it be hard to reach, or does it have a large international hub? For example London, or Rome vs any where in Mauritania. Once you arrive in this country how will you get around? Are there buses or tuk tuks? Do you want to be in rural areas? I am not saying urban and bigger is better but flights into bigger cities will be cheaper and can decrease your overall ticket cost. Our RTW ticket cost was based on where we wanted to go and the time of year or even date we wanted to fly. The more flexible you are the cheaper it can be.

If transportation may not be reliable take into account the amount of time it will take to get around. Instead of seeing most of rural Chennai in 2 days, you might want a week.  One advantage we found with STA’s Round the World Ticket was that we were able to fly into one city, for example Zagreb Croatia and then find our own means of transportation to Rome, Italy where we flew out. This option provided us with a lot of flexibility and the opportunity to use local transportation. I mean what better place to people watch than an on a local bus or train? 

One example of this was in India. We flew into Chennai then took buses and trains around the southern half of India. We then decided to skip Mumbai and fly straight from Bangalore to Delhi. We arranged our own travel and bought the additional flight, but it was worth it for us to have the extra flexibility in our agenda.

Based on this I hope you don’t think just visiting big international hubs is the best option. It may be for some of you but on average those cities cost more and were not of special interest to us. So for us, we came up with a good mix of big cities with nice international airports and smaller ones. To save a few hundred dollars my husband and I even agreed to fly into Bangkok on our way to siem reap Cambodia. We then paid $20 dollars for a bus to take us the rest of the way. We were able to enjoy Bangkok for a day, meet some amazing fellow travelers and enjoy the countryside. Be open to other options and your adventure may even improve!

*if you choose to use animals as transportation please please check to make sure they are healthy and well treated. Animal abuse is very common and although touristy, riding a camel or elephant may be contributing to the problem. Read this for more more information on animal abuse. 

Note: be opened minded when using new types of transportation. It is a means to get you from one point to another. The level of comfort and cleanliness can greatly depend on where you are. So please do not get on a bus in Asia that costs a few bucks and is used by the locals and then complain that it is dirty or uncomfortable- although you may be right, the people that use it every day don't need to hear your opinion. View it as an experience or a fun short term adventure and then when you return home to your clean subway and taxis, please just appreciate what you have.

*this is a seat on an overnight bus that was very wet and very covered in dead bugs*

My First Around the World Trip Itinerary

Once my best friend and I learned about the magical around the world ticket and we found STA, the company we wanted to go through for the tickets, we had to figure where we wanted to go and the dates we wanted to fly in and out of each location for our very first Round the World Trip!!! Some round the world tickets offer great flexibility with being able to book flights as you go. Since we only had 3 months to travel we figured that the preset dates were better for us. This way we could pace ourselves and not have to worry about running out of time at the end of the summer.

Where to go? For us this was in some ways easy. We had served as mission companions in Slovenia and had often dreamed about going back there, we also joked about one day visiting Thailand together when we were older. Well now is as good a time as ever right? So we had 2 of our desired 6 places. Jaims mentioned that she had friends in Singapore and would like to visit them. Knowing nothing of Singapore I agreed. We then agreed on India, Hawaii (I know I know not foreign, but hey what a great way to break up a flight across the ocean!), and Italy.

Our rough plan looked like this: (I would recommend using a spread sheet to include all of the details like dates, places you want to go, helpful websites, possible activities ect…)

Hawaii (6-7 days; BYUH, beach time) Singapore (4 days; time with friends) Thailand/Cambodia (three weeks; Bangkok, Koh Phangan, Siem Reap, Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai) India/Chennai/Southern States (13 days?; Chennai, Bangalore, Mangalore, Kochi, Mysore)  Northern India (14 days; Amritsarm Delhi, Agra, Varanasi, Dharamsala) London (4 days- extended layover; Cambridge?) Zagreb (1 days) Slovenia (6 days; Celje, Maribor, Ljubljana, Bled) Italy (11 days; Florence, Rome, Siena, Pisa)

When deciding where to go a few things to keep in mind are distance/transportation, culture, safety, weather, cost, flexibility, travel party and personal connections. For the sake of interest I am going to write about each of these in separate posts. If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment and I would love to help you in planning your adventure!

The Golden Ticket: A Ticket Around the World

The Golden Ticket: A ticket around the world

After residing in Sicily and then serving a mission for my church in the most beautiful country of Slovenia, I was ready to see the world. However, I knew study abroad programs were way out of my small student budget and flights to distant countries were SOOO expensive. But one day all those things changed.

My best friend and I were having lunch with a friend, well actually he was interested in her but couldn’t find a way to get her alone, so alas he was stuck with me too! I tried to stay out of the conversation and focus on my remarkable saag paneer that laid before me when casually he mentioned a Golden Ticket. My ears perked up. What was it? A ticket around the world. How does it work? I don’t know, I think you get so many stops but have to travel one direction around the globe And how much is this so called Golden Ticket?!?! I don’t know maybe around $3,000.  My friend and I looked at each other with that look only best friends can exchange. The look that says “yes we will find it, and yes we will buy it”! I then spent the next week googling everything and anything I could find about this golden ticket. It was only January and yet I knew what my summer plans would be. I turned down a job as a country director for a local NGO, I took on extra shifts at work and began researching countries I had never even heard of in preparation. Jaims, my best friend was luckily by my side and ready to go. We looked at countless companies that offered discounted flights and round the world tickets but found the best option was through STA Travel. If you are under the age of 26 or a student or teacher, they offer the best deal I have found on international flights including round the world tickets. Check out their website- they usually have awesome deals all over the globe! 
And thus our adventure began!