How to Plan a Trip Around the World, simplified
Just get started. Plain and simple.
After perusing a map and listing out all the places we wanted to visit, we realized we didn’t have the time or the budget to see everything. So, each of us picked the place we most wanted to visit. James went for New York, Eli picked Paris, Luke was Tokyo, Matt choose New Zealand and I opted for Byron Bay, Australia.
We then mapped them out and connected the dots with locations and spots there were affordable and easy to get to. This left us with #20 stops.
Paris
Amsterdam
Bergen
Oslo
Sweden
Barcelona
Nice
Cinque Terre
Venice
Amalfi
Croatia
Thailand
Japan
Bali
New Zealand
Byron Bay
Sydney
Our biggest expense was going to be transportation so we tackled this first.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles. We looked at individual flights to each stop, traveling Europe by train. The spots we would needs cars and in the end the most economical ticket to cover a majority of the major travel would be by air with an Around the World ticket. Who knew this even existed? Several companies offer these and there are different options. We decided and went with the cheapest ticket which meant we had to begin traveling in one direction and continue that travel for our trip. We started in Colorado and went to NY and would have to continue heading in an easterly direction for the remainder of our trip. With this ticket we also needed to book the destinations and dates for arrival and departure ahead of time. The company we used was Airtreks. They were easy to work with and gave us various options to help save money along the way. We didn’t have any set dates for travel so the only direction was that we wanted to be in each stop 2-3 weeks and could travel around anytime close to that to make it affordable. This process took about 2 weeks with the final step being a three hour phone call to get the details situated and everything booked.
Phew! Now the fun began. Once we had our dates we started looking for accomodations. Airbnb was our go to as we wanted to stay in the neighborhoods and areas to learn more about the people and the culture. This proved to be exactly what we hoped for. We had a budget of $150 a night for lodging (including taxes and cleaning fees). In some areas, this meant the entire house with a housekeepers, in others it was an outdated one bedroom apartment. All part of the fun! Since we had our dates, we booked our accommodations for each area and that was it. We also did a Home Exchange in Sydney.
All activities, museums and places of interested we booked once we arrived at our destination!
xoxo- Jessica