Star Alliance RTW Fare

Someone on Trekaroo suggested that I check out the RTW fare from Star Alliance. At first glance it appears like another good option. They provide you with options for 29, 34 or 39 thousand miles for a set fee. You may make up to 15 stops and travel schedule appears to be flexible. The current cost for the 29K ticket is $3,700. Once you get used to these kind of prices (multiplied by 5 for our familiy) they start looking more reasonable.

oneworld Explorer

So far, every person I’ve talked to about the trip has had some immediate and important concern spring to mind. Some of the reasons have included – What about your jobs? What about the kids? What are you going to eat? These certainly are all valid questions. But, for me, the biggest concern about the trip has been the air travel component. In my initial research I was seeing fares of $5,000 or more more a limited number of stops. Tonight though, I happened upon an “alliance” called oneworld that has some pretty good options. I was able to create an itinerary with 16 stops on 5 continents for the base price of $4,650. Yes, that is still pricey, but I was able to add some really interesting and somewhat out of the way places that I had previously thought were out of the question like Inverness, Hong Kong, Philippines, Ayers Rock, Easter Island and the Falkland Islands. That got me excited and more willing to shell out the big bucks for one of these fancy around the world fares. I was able to save my itinerary which I believe is aptly named “The First of Many Itinerary”.

Delayed arrival in New Zealand

According to our itinerary, I’m supposed to be in New Zealand. While I’ve thumbed through some articles and books, I really haven’t spent enough time to write something intelligent. But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped thinking about travel.

I just finished the book, Honeymoon With My Brother. I enjoyed reading about the adventures, but as with many published travel stories, this revolved around singles doing the backpack thing. I beginning to think that not many families undertake the world travel quest. Although I’m holding out hope that I just haven’t come across these communities or information yet. Anyway, the book was OK. I give credit to the author for making the most out his situation (being left at the alter in a manner of speaking.) But the narrative came across as somewhat self-centered and that turned me off a bit. But still, my wife said that she hasn’t seen me read so fervently so I must have enjoyed it.

I came across two other good sites in my online travels. The first is a site about Vagabonding. Here again it focuses on the backpacking set. But there were some interesting articles, particularly about travel writing. I definitely plan to dig into this site in more detail.

The other site had do with the travel part of travel, specifically airfare. It’s called BootsnAll and it has a nifty little app for estimating the cost of an around the world ticket. This has been of particular concern lately as I’m worried that around the world airfare for the 5 of us will cost around $25,000. Just to get an idea, I priced out the following 7-stop trip.

New York -> Paris -> Mumbai -> Bankok -> Aukland -> Buenos Aires -> Caracas -> New York

The planner automatically added London, Dubai and Sydney for an estimated price of $4,100 – $5,800. It also offered me an expanded itinerary for basically the same price which included Dubai, Sydney and Tahiti. That’s a a little steep for the budget I’ve been thinking about. I’m hoping to get that number down to around $15,000.  Guess I’m gonna have to keep looking…