How to take a round-the-world trip

by Alex Robertson Textor on

An open-ended round-the-world trip can be led by whimsy and happenstance and benefit accordingly from extremely loose planning. A more structured, time-limited round-the-world trip necessitates figuring out transportation in advance. With five weeks to play with, we fell into the latter camp.

I emailed AirTreks in the spring and dutifully submitted an itinerary through their global map booking request system. AirTreks prices round-the-world itineraries, for fares well under what one would pay for each individual stretch.

Around this time, we made another decision, one personally radical. We would fly business-class the entire way. Such a choice certainly isn’t unusual for many frequent fliers, but for a budget traveler like myself who travels in coach barring those rare times I’m upgraded or am flying on someone else’s dime, this was a big shift in approach. This choice amplified the unusual nature of the itinerary, underscoring the fact that this trip wouldn’t be repeated or emulated anytime soon.

Once we nailed our itinerary down and decided to go with business-class tickets the entire way, we requested a new estimate from AirTreks. Then Matt started to play with the oneworld Explorer round-the-world booking engine. This is where things got interesting. The oneworld Explorer fare was several thousand dollars cheaper than the AirTreks fare.

There was really no decision to make. Even our patient AirTreks consultant urged us to go for the oneworld fare. We made the purchase. Though shockingly expensive by my own personal standards and customary budgetary constraints, the entire journey in business-class turned out to cost a few hundred dollars more than a single first-class round-trip ticket from New York to London.As far as subsequent planning is concerned, things have been pretty low-tech. We’ve got a handful of guidebooks (all Lonely Planet, though this is simply an accident of timing and availability) and a few downloaded iPhone apps, which I’ll comment on if they turn out to be at all helpful.

Other planning focused on the tips of friends and acquaintances. My sister, a food writer, recommended some Sydney restaurants. Melbourne chef Tony Tan, who I’d had the good fortune of meeting on my previous visit to Melbourne, passed on a must-visit list of new Melbourne restaurants. A friend of Mauritian background provided contact information of a villa rental company with beautiful properties that were simply too expensive for our budget. The exchange that followed didn’t help us with accommodations, but it did allow us to clarify our focus for Mauritius.

For hotels we scanned our guidebooks for mid-range accommodations and then searched online to get a general sense of how hotels were reviewed. I’ve always taken TripAdvisor with a massive grain of salt, as I’ve found on several occasions that I don’t mind the sorts of hotels pilloried by TripAdvisor contributors. But we did use TripAdvisor this time as a kind of quality control verification source. In one case, we nixed an otherwise appealing hotel choice based on a number of reviews that suggested an ongoing cockroach infestation.

We poked around online to find low rates at good hotels. In both Sydney and Melbourne, location was the key consideration. In Sydney we wanted a central neighborhood, and we ended up with a boutique hotel in Potts Point booked through Venere. In Melbourne I lobbied for a stay in St. Kilda, an area I remembered very fondly from my last visit. There we found a furnished studio apartment.

For our single night in Johannesburg, we decided to stay in a guesthouse in Sandton, a Johannesburg neighborhood with good restaurants. In New Caledonia, Mauritius, and Réunion, we focused on well-priced guesthouses and hotels in areas beyond built-up coastal tourist strips. In London, we opted for the Hilton in Canary Wharf because we found a good deal for it on Hotwire. The most expensive nightly rate we’re paying for a hotel is $165. The least pricey is around $82.

We made most of our hotel reservations in advance, leaving a few nights free in New Caledonia (to give us some freedom if we decided to change accommodations) and Réunion (a by-product of our inability thus far to find an inexpensive guesthouse in one of the island’s inland Cirques, or calderas.) We wanted to put logistics to bed as completely as possible in advance. More open-ended itineraries would probably benefit from fewer advance reservations.

Check out other posts in the Capricorn Route series here.

(Image: Flickr/Vinni123)

Photo of the day (9.9.10)

by Meg Nesterov on



Few things are more pleasant than tooling around in a slow boat and taking in a landscape via water. This photo by Flickr user Giovanni Fusco (whose photostream captures more than a few “wow” moments) taken in Dordogne, France shows a beautiful balance of the tranquility of the river with the rocky cliffs above. Just looking at it makes you feel peaceful and tempted to hop off for a farmhouse picnic, visit to a winery, or just stay aboard and enjoy the scenery.

Add your beautiful views to Gadling’s Flickr pool and it could be tomorrow’s Photo of the Day.

A round-the-world trip: Where?

by Alex Robertson Textor on

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)

Daily Pampering: Luxury ski chalets for the ultimate winter retreat

by Melanie Nayer on

Have a few hundred thousand dollars to spare and want to do something special this winter? You’re in luck! The Abercrombie & Kent group just added 18 new luxury ski chalets to its already grandiose offerings and starting this December, they’re available for you.

Enjoy the very best in private ski accommodations in the French and Swiss Alps, including your own personal chefs, housekeeping and private chauffeurs. Intrigued? So are we, so we’ve highlighted a few for today’s ultimate Daily Pampering:

France:

Chalet Montana sleeps 15 and occupies arguably the best spot in Les Carats, the most exclusive enclave in Val d’Isére at the heart of Espace Killy. Fabulous for experienced ski enthusiasts, Chalet Montana faces the black ‘Face de Bellevarde’ ski run, scene of the men’s downhill in the Winter Olympics of 1992.

Cool and slightly crazy, Chalet Himalaya is located on the piste in the hameau of La Daille in Val d’Isere. A former 17th century monastery, Chalet Himalaya sleeps 12 and is full of quirky features and facilities, such as the ancient stone window seats and the part-indoor, part-outdoor swimming pool which has an adjustable depth. Each of the bedrooms has an en-suite bathroom with vast bath which doubles as a steam room. Guests are catered for by a Mosimann’s chef.

The Shemshak Lodge is brand new for the 2010/2011 season and also sleeps 12. The lodge sits on the piste within walking distance of the resort of Courchevel 1850 in the Trois Vallees.Switzerland:

Chalet Kernow is stylishly furnished with antiques and contemporary pieces collected from around the world. The chalet sleeps 12, comes with billiard table, Sky Sports, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation2, networked Linn music system, outdoor Jacuzzi and ground floor mini spa with team room, sauna and massage room. Chalet Kernow is located within walking distance of the Medran ski lift and the facilities of Verbier’s shops, bars and restaurants.

Contemporary-rustic in style, Chalet Les Esserts is set over the ground floor of Chalet Sagittaire with access to its shared leisure facilities. The modern chalet sleeps 6 and features up-to-date sound and vision entertainment systems that compliment the traditional Swiss antiques.

The cost? The villas will be available in December at a starting price of $8,257 (Les Esserts in Swiss Alps in low season weeks) and will go as high as $122,685 (Shemshak Lodge in Courchevel French Alps).

Want more? Get your daily dose of pampering right here.


[Photo credit: Chalet Montana, Ross Woodhall]

Photo of the day (8.20.10)

by Alex Robertson Textor on


Rainbows are the stuff of childhood drawings and goopy romance. They’re everywhere and they’re corny. The thing is, they’re also pretty awesome. They pop up in unexpected places and can’t help but delight most viewers. This image of a rainbow in the Haute-Savoie region of France, snapped by Moody75, allows its multicolored arc to reign supreme over a vast and apparently well-tended string of countryside hamlets. France’s alpine department of Haute-Savoie is no stranger to dramatic scenery. It shares Mont Blanc with the Italian region of Aosta.

Got an image of a rainbow lying around? Or perhaps another figment of childhood fantasy with adult appeal? Add it to the Gadling Flickr pool. If we fall in love with it we just might feature it as a Photo of the Day.