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A round-the-world trip: Where?
Once I'd dispensed with my unrestricted fantasies of scurrying from seldom-visited corner to seldom-visited corner (see Monday's post) we got down to the essentials of figuring out where we wanted to go.
The Micronesian islands of Palau and Yap were our first priorities. Both destinations had been on our radar for years. Palau with its faintly stinging marine lake jellyfish and the Federated Micronesian state of Yap with its enormous stone money both struck us as appealing in a magical, fairytale sort of way.
Once we'd identified our trip duration and got into the planning phase, however, the inclusion of Micronesia on our itinerary became a less appealing prospect. The flights there and onward were long. We'd need to overnight in Guam at least once, possibly twice, and though that wouldn't be a hardship exactly, we wanted if at all possible to avoid layovers in places where we wouldn't also be spending several nights.
The final clincher was the cost of zipping around Micronesia, which would have made an unavoidably pricey itinerary even more expensive. If we had been planning a round-the-Pacific tour, there is no question that Palau and Yap would have been included, but for a round-the-world trip they weren't quite right. Reluctantly we crossed Micronesia off the list.
Where else did we want to travel? We'd settled into a Southern Hemisphere focus, and we were keen to get back to Australia. We both wanted to visit Sydney and Melbourne. For a jaunt to a third city in Australia, Matt had made noises about Cairns and I focused on Perth. The inclusion of these two cities would have made a round-the-world air ticket even more complicated (more on that on Friday) so we dropped them and decided to divide our time in Australia between Sydney and Melbourne.
Years of thinking about Palau and Yap had us fantasizing about a Pacific island and we didn't want to miss the opportunity to visit one. We glanced across the region and zeroed in on a Pacific territory easily visited from Australia: New Caledonia, a French overseas "collectivity" three hours by plane from Sydney. We decided to sandwich six nights in New Caledonia between stays in Sydney and Melbourne. In New Caledonia we would spend most of our time on Lifou, one of New Caledonia's Loyalty Islands, with a day reserved for checking out New Caledonia's capital, Nouméa.
Beyond that, we wanted some time on Mauritius and the French overseas territory of Réunion, two Indian Ocean islands. To journey from Melbourne to Mauritius we'd need to break our rule against short layovers with a single night's stay in Johannesburg. We'd then divide nine nights between Mauritius and Réunion, which is a short 50-minute flight from Mauritius.
From Mauritius we'd fly to London, where we'd spend the final days of our round-the-world itinerary visiting friends and exploring various East End neighborhoods.
Without further ado, here is the full itinerary: New York (via a stop to visit friends in New Orleans) to Sydney to Nouméa to Melbourne to Johannesburg to Mauritius to Réunion to London and then home to New York.
Seven stops in five weeks. After five years of daydreaming, it'd hard to believe that it's now happening.
Check out other posts in the Capricorn Route series here.
(Image: Flickr/Eustaquio Santimano)
Years of thinking about Palau and Yap had us fantasizing about a Pacific island and we didn't want to miss the opportunity to visit one. We glanced across the region and zeroed in on a Pacific territory easily visited from Australia: New Caledonia, a French overseas "collectivity" three hours by plane from Sydney. We decided to sandwich six nights in New Caledonia between stays in Sydney and Melbourne. In New Caledonia we would spend most of our time on Lifou, one of New Caledonia's Loyalty Islands, with a day reserved for checking out New Caledonia's capital, Nouméa.
Beyond that, we wanted some time on Mauritius and the French overseas territory of Réunion, two Indian Ocean islands. To journey from Melbourne to Mauritius we'd need to break our rule against short layovers with a single night's stay in Johannesburg. We'd then divide nine nights between Mauritius and Réunion, which is a short 50-minute flight from Mauritius.
From Mauritius we'd fly to London, where we'd spend the final days of our round-the-world itinerary visiting friends and exploring various East End neighborhoods.
Without further ado, here is the full itinerary: New York (via a stop to visit friends in New Orleans) to Sydney to Nouméa to Melbourne to Johannesburg to Mauritius to Réunion to London and then home to New York.
Seven stops in five weeks. After five years of daydreaming, it'd hard to believe that it's now happening.
Check out other posts in the Capricorn Route series here.
(Image: Flickr/Eustaquio Santimano)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John Sep 9th 2010 9:52PM
Three years ago, we took our kids, 11 and 14, out of school an extra week for spring break for an around the world trip in 13 days. We started in ATL and first overnight stop was Christchurch, NZ where we went bungy jumping, whitewater rafting, and fishing. Next overnight was Cairns, AU where we dove the reef and spent a day at animal parks. Then we flew through Sydney to Hong Kong, spent the night and flew through Dubai to Cairo. We spent one AMAZING day in Cairo where we went to a mosque, Egyptian Museum, pyramids, sphinx, camel ride, store where they make papyrus and perfume, 2 hr dinner cruise on the Nile, back to pyramids for night photos and finally back to the motel. Next day we flew to Rome. Spent 2 days and saw the Vatican, took ancient Rome tour, tour of Coliseum and St Peters Basilica before flying back to ATL. It would have been great to have more time but we didn't. Some people think we are crazy. They have missed the world. Some people think we are adventurous. We met them on the trip. The kids learned more in 2 weeks than they would in a year in history class. And best of all, we spent 2 weks of amazement together as a family.
Unexpected Traveller Sep 10th 2010 11:47AM
Ah, what memories of Sydney .. It is a lovely place and I long to be able to visit again at some point. Unless I run into this cab driver again: http://wp.me/ppqxP-7T