The Bottom Line

I have been asked on a few occasions, “How much does a trip like this cost?”

Not surprisingly, that same question was among the first that I asked our travel agent when we first contacted her. I did have a ballpark figure in mind before I asked it and I had based that figure on a combination of the upper limit of what I felt we could spend and my own swag as to what the cost of such a trip might be. My guess was pretty close.

To ask what a trip like this costs is somewhat akin to asking, “How much are a pair of sneakers?” I’d have to say, “It depends… are we talking about Keds or Reeboks?” Same principle applies here.

The trip we are planning could easily cost less if we chose to make it so. As it is with nearly anything else, it can certainly be done for a whole lot more, too. It all depends on a wide variety of factors, not the least of which involves class of travel, class of hotel and the extent to which you want to utilize guided tours, and which kind. We are looking for the cheapest possible air fare (who isn’t?) and are willing to splurge a bit on the hotels and tours.

For the answer, take a look at the French title of the novel by Jules Verne about a wager made by one Phileas Fogg, and substitute the word mille for the word jours. By the way, for a non-topical comparison, here’s a look at Phileas’ planned route.

click to enlarge

Regardless of how you go about it, an around the world journey is definitely anything but inexpensive. It certainly is not an investment from which you can expect monetary gain, unless maybe you are a talented writer and have some marketing skills. However if you measure the return in terms of lifelong memories and one-of-a-kind experiences, it becomes money well spent indeed. For everything else there's Mastercard...

We are truly fortunate to have the financial ability to take this trip. That ability comes, in part, from having had an upbringing by parents who cared to enough to give their children a solid foundation for learning how to save, how to budget, and how and when to spend money. A stable career with a steady, comfortable income lent a lot to it, as well.

As is the case with many other things in my life, financially, I am not a do-it-yourselfer. We have had help for many years with our financial planning and management from an advisor. Our guy’s name is Chris Allessio and he is with Edward Jones. When I look back at our portfolio value from around the same time as we seriously started planning this trip and compare it to the value today, it has increased enough to cover the cost of this trip.

To anyone seeking a good financial advisor, I highly recommend Chris. If you want to know more about Edward Jones and Chris, here is his home page.

You Can't Get There from There

We, in the U.S., are spoiled. My earlier rant about airline delays notwithstanding, one of the more convenient by-products of all that airline scheduling is that you can fly nearly anywhere in this country on any day of the week. Pick just about any city with an airport and there is probably at least one flight serving it per day. More often than not, there are multiple flights available.

Throughout most of the rest of the world, however, it’s a vastly different story. In fact, nearly the opposite is true. Even between major cities, there is not always daily airline service available. Also, even though there may be more than one carrier to choose from, they generally operate on a single hub and spoke system. So unless your destination is the main airport or one of the spokes for the airline you’re using, you are probably going to go through some other airline’s hub on the way there… even if it means backtracking several hundred miles.

Initially, we had planned to go from Egypt directly to South Africa. Not only were we limited by the lack of available flights, we also ultimately found out that that particular leg would not be included in the alliance fare because it was operated by a non-member airline, even though that flight is scheduled by an alliance member airline and is listed as that alliance member’s flight. Go figure. So we will wind up backtracking to Athens and connecting in Frankfurt to get to South Africa. Although they are not on our itinerary as destinations, we will be passing through Frankfurt once and Singapore twice. Even though Bangkok is on the itinerary, we will be passing through there a second time on the way to somewhere else.

The overall lack of ‘US-like’ flight options along with the scheduling limitations as a result of utilizing an alliance for air travel (which essentially reduces the number of airlines you can choose from) leaves us in a situation where the money saved on airfare is expended on convenience. In our case, we decided that the cost savings would be worth it. If we wanted to, we could book the Egypt to Johannesburg leg separately. However, the cost for that leg alone would be close to a fifth of what the total fare is for all the rest of the air segments covered by the alliance. Convenience ain’t cheap.

An Acknowledgement… Finally

As I set about the task of deciding how to document our travels, I was looking for a way to make things (mostly pictures) available to family and friends, as we went along our way, without encumbering them with emails that have massive attachments. It was suggested by our travel agent that I establish a web album, or a website, or a blog.

Well, I had no experience with, nor any usable knowledge about, any of those things, but at the mention of the word blog, I immediately thought of my friend, Don. Don has a blog of his own, which is listed in the “Links I Like” section in the column to the right. It’s called “Get the Flick.” I have been reading it for nearly as long as he has been writing it.

I have known Don for about twenty-five years. He is easily one of the most intelligent people I know… he’s well read, well spoken and is an excellent writer. Over the years, I have come to value his opinion highly and, although I haven’t always agreed with him on everything, I have found that he is usually right.

I did a little looking into blogging and, as I expected, I came across more information about it than I could filter through alone, so I got in touch with Don and let him know what I had in mind. I felt certain that the answer I would get would be clear, concise and probably correct. I was not disappointed.

Within an hour of hearing back from him, I had created this blog and had it up and running. Although I don’t add things to it with any regularity, I have spent enough time, here and there, tinkering with it to figure out how to write and manage posts, organize pictures, embed links, and add gadgets. In fact, I have gotten sufficiently wrapped up in those aspects that, up to now, I have neglected to publicly thank Don for his assistance.

So…

Thanks, Don! This wouldn't have been nearly as easy without your help!

“Bob”