Around the World
We are about to start a five-week around-the-world excursion. It didn’t start that way. It started as a trip to Australia and New Zealand. We selected an Australia & New Zealand: An Adventure Down Under tour as the base of our trip. We have had amazing trips on riverboats in Europe, safaris in Africa, and excursions in South America with the same group. This tour met all our criteria except for one huge exception, it doesn’t go to the outback, a major want for us.
When we searched for a way to see the outback we found a train that travels from Darwin to Adelaide, right through the center of the outback. It’s called the Ghan Expedition. It’s the Orient Express of Australia, very high-end, and we have a suite of our own. It travels mostly at night and has off-train experiences during the day.
After we had finalized our Australia and New Zealand itinerary, we worked on getting there and getting home. Liz and I always travel in business or first-class for international travel. We also never pay for our flights. We always use points. So I went to Alaska Airlines (our favorite airline) and searched for flights from Seattle (SEA) to Auckland (AKL), the starting point for our Vantage tour. The best deal I could find was business class on Fiji Airlines. But, it wasn’t a direct flight, we had to change planes in Fiji. Who would ever just change planes in Fiji? So we added four days in Fiji to our tour and found a small Fiji island resort with a bure on the beach. Sounds like a great way to relax after a long flight at the beginning of our trip, right?
The next step was to find a way home. So I went back to Alaska Airlines to fight a partner flight home. In the search results Emirates Airlines was listed. We’ve always wanted to fly on Emirates. We heard other travelers refer to it as the Rolls Royce of airlines. So we selected Emirates. In the flight searches, we noticed that all the choices included a plane change in Dubai. We have always wanted to visit Dubia. We were booked through Dubai on a Russia trip a few years ago, but Liz fell and needed rotator cuff surgery, so we canceled the trip. We went ahead and booked our flights on Emirates with a four-day break so we could spend four days visiting Dubai.
The super cool thing is that our Emirates flights are first-class on Airbus 380s, their new double-deck monsters. First-class on those planes on Emirates are “rooms.” First-class also has a lounge and showers! Quite the find on points!
It was a couple of weeks after we finalized this trip that we realized we always flew west. That meant we were about to fly around the world. How Cool! We have never done that before.