Another long weekend. Another blog. Maybe when I get better organized or have a bit more time, I will get in the habit of blogging more than just once a month. This was a full weekend - Mitchell's 10th birthday complete with party at Fun Junction (loved the laser tag) and Ted's mom Carol was up for a visit. Took in the tulip festival and the gorgeous spring weather. Gave our heads a shake that our oldest child is already in the double digits . . .
Also had a bit more time to read and research and talk to a few people about travelling around the world. Through a colleague at work, I was put in touch with a woman who is about to leave for a 9-month journey around the world. Got lots of great info about the pros and cons of RTW (round-the-world) tickets. After that conversation and reading the websites of the two major RTW alliances (One World and Star Alliance), I think that is the way we will probably go. Because Star Alliance includes Air Canada, that seems like the better choice of the two for us.
The advantage of travelling on a RTW ticket is you pay your chunk of money up front and then don't have to worry about buying tickets all along the way (or worry about running out of money to get home :) The other big advantages are you accrue reward miles with one carrier, such as Air Canada if that is the one you select to assign your points to, and you end up paying less overall particularly if you are flying to far away places like Africa and Australia. There is still considerable flexibility in that you don't have to nail down dates of travel for each country and you can make changes. Another advantage is you have your proof of on-going travel, which some countries require upon entry in order to give you a visa. The main stipulations are that you fly in one direction and your trip must include one Atlantic crossing and one Pacific crossing. It gets a bit more complicated than that obviously, in terms of how many countries and continents you're entitled to visit, but that is the RTW ticket world in a nutshell.
Another great thing that came out of this conversation with my colleague's friend - she told me about a great book which I now have on loan from the good old public library. It's called First Time Around the World (The Rough Guide) . Need I say more? I'm loving all this research! It really does increase the anticipation.
