Itinerary

Update 10/11/2021

We got vaccinated and resumed traveling. Yay! However, after visiting Europe, we need to stay in Thailand for a little while. We will probably re-resume the adventure in ~November.

Update 3/6/2021

Well, it’s March and we are not close to resuming travel. We need to get vaccinated first. Even though we have a very poor track record of guessing, we think that we will resume traveling around July/August. We can’t be too far off because out tickets expire at the end of the year. We are going to need some magic for this to work out.

Update 11/18/2020

Yep. Still in Thailand. I have a visa that could last until August 2021. Now, it seems that we would be lucky to resume traveling by March/April 2021. We are enjoying Bangkok and still believe that it is the best place for us at the moment.

Update 7/1/2020

We are still in Thailand. Everything has been cancelled. We have to re-plan the RTW trip (sigh). From mid-March until June, we stayed inside (most of the time). Since Thailand has the virus under control now, we have been having a more “normal” life in the city. We expect/hope that we will be able to continue travelling, but that depends on the travel restrictions and my visa at the end of July or August. Hopefully, we can piece together the trip and continue our adventure!

Update 3/16/2020

Covid-19 has spread rapidly. We cannot go to Europe. We have had multiple flight cancellations and narrowly avoided lockdowns. We are going to stay inside for a little while and make a new plan. Stay healthy everyone!

Update 2/27/2020

All Korea and Japan has been removed from our itinerary. It was rushed and difficult (Singapore Airlines office in Singapore works magic, but the Star Alliance Call Center customer service is still the absolute worst), but here is the updated plan…

Jan 2019: New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania

Feb 2020: Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore

Mar 2020: Palau, Phillipines, Guam, Thailand

We have to monitor the COVID-19 virus to see what happens by this time

Apr 2020: Austria, Amsterdam

May 2020: Austria, Croatia, Italy?, Prague?

Jun 2020: Greece, Israel

Jul 2020: Israel, Egypt, Jordan

Aug 2020: South Africa, Namibia

Sep 2020: Brazil, Argentina

Oct 2020: Argentina

Nov 2020: Argentina, Chile

Dec 2020 Return to US

Updated 11/9/2019…

After 5 months of dedicated effort (last couple weeks spending ~3-9 hours per day), we managed to get the Round the World Award Tickets in business class! It was one of the most frustrating, drawn out, and unnecessarily difficult clusterf*** processes that we have ever completed. I will write a post about our horrible experience later. TLDR: I do not recommend getting an around the world ticket through Singapore Airlines Star Alliance with credit card miles, but the value is tremendous. Each ticket is worth over $12,000 (according to the trip planning tool, but it is likely worth much more) for 14 business class flights, and we just paid the taxes/fees (~$750).

I just checked a 1 way ticket from LAX to New Zealand, departing on 12/30 in business class, and it costs $10,956.

We expect to have some modifications, but here is a rough itinerary by date and country.

Jan 2019: New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania

Feb 2020: Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore

Mar 2020: Palau, South Korea, Japan

Apr 2020: Japan, Amsterdam, Austria

We have only detailed plans up to this point….

May 2020: Austria, Croatia, Italy?, Prague?

Jun 2020: Greece, Israel

Jul 2020: Israel, Egypt, Jordan

Aug 2020: South Africa, Namibia

Sep 2020: Brazil, Argentina

Oct 2020: Argentina

Nov 2020: Argentina, Chile

Dec 2020 Return to US

Mar 2021 to XXXX: To be determined…