We are finally on the road

We have been so extremely busy with preparations that I haven’t even had time to post that we’ve started. But we’ve more than just started, we’re already in New Zealand, our third country on our itinerary and we are lovin’ the scenery and weather. What hasn’t been easy is the rigorous schedule I’ve managed to put us on with only nine days to take in all the splendor of New Zealand.

But let’s go back a week to when it all began. With all our belongings safely in storage, we stayed with Sheri’s closest friend, Carol, on our final night in the U.S. We arrived late because of all the last minute packing we were finishing, but were treated to a wonderful home-cooked dinner. The next morning, we took the Amtrak train from the station in our hometown up to Vancouver, BC. We added an extra day before our flight to Sydney because, in the wintertime, you can never be sure that the train will actually make it. Track closures due to mudslides are quite common, so we didn’t want to be scrabbling on our first day. Continue reading

A date has been set

It’s been nearly 14 years in the planning, but we’ve finally decided we are going on our around-the-world trip. We have set a date, but I don’t want to reveal the exact date just yet. No need to alarm our employers and clients. Some may ask: why now? All the signs seem to point in the same direction: the road. Here are a few of the reasons:

1. Airline Policies Change

Originally, we were going to purchase two around-the-world (RTW) tickets, but since my wife traveled so much for work, we decided to start saving up her airline miles for those tickets. Using reward miles would save us over $10,000. That was over 10 years ago, and since then we’ve used some of those miles for trips to Africa, Italy, and the Middle East. I had some miles also and we used some of those for our trip to the U.K. and France last year. Even after all those other trips, we still have enough airline miles for two RTW tickets.

Last month, my wife received an email with some policy changes from one of the larger airlines where she has accumulated some miles. It indicated that they would no longer be offering an RTW ticket. Since it wasn’t the airline with which we had the majority of our miles, it didn’t affect us directly. However, airlines tend to follow the lead of other airlines, especially the larger ones. In the past, we saw that when a couple of the airlines started to charge extra for checked baggage, it wasn’t long before all the other airlines charged for checked baggage. So if one of the major airlines discontinued their RTW offering, we figure it won’t be long before the other two airlines also stop offering it. Time to use those accumulated miles. Continue reading