Around the World Travel Ideas-XP from TK

lavet22

DH and I are in the beginning planning stages of an "Around the World" vacation.  It will be around 2-3mths long.  Not sure the time of year, but we are thinking early spring or late fall as we would like to ski the Alps.  We are looking for places to visit.  Places where we can spend a minimum of 5 days and we want "leisure" spots worked in as well, like the beaches in southern spain or GBR off Northern Australia, then maybe a cruise to Hawaii to hit islands like Fiji.  We have been to Europe a few times, but plan on at least 2-3 countries there again.  What we really need help with is Asian and middle eastern countries as we have never really explored them as travel options.  We have been thinking Dubai and Hong Kong, but not sure of others (like Vietnam or Tokyo or maybe even Egypt/African countries, or Moscow).  We need places to get us from Europe to Australia.  Any help with this would be much appreciated!!!

MDGirl

Are you taking your kids? Because that would make a big difference in where would be good to go.

If I was doing this I'd spend a good chunk of time in SE Asia to try to save money. I've been to Cambodia and Thailand and both were great. I wouldn't spend too much time in Bangkok, but the northern cities and beaches in Thailand are beautiful, great for kids (although not all the beaches are), and your money will go pretty far. I think Vietnam is even cheaper.

Hong Kong is probably my favorite city on Earth! Fantastic food, easy public transportation, lots to see and do. If you aren't too picky about hotels it can be done reasonably, too. I also love Tokyo and I think it would be fun with kids, but it's really expensive.

My husband was just in Russia for the Olympics, and he was shocked by how expensive Moscow was. He said it blew New York and Tokyo away as far as outrageous prices.

I'm not sure what you mean by "cruise to Hawaii to hit Fiji." The South Pacific is way too big to cruise between Hawaii and really anything -- you'll just be spending a lot of days at sea. There are cruises around French Polynesia, the Cook Islands and I think Fiji though. If you want to do a few of these islands a cruise might be the way to go because it's not always easy to fly between them.

I've been to Fiji and the Cooks and again your money will go a lot further in the Cooks. It would also be better with kids because you're not just stuck on one little island and a lot of accommodations have small kitchens. That said Fiji is beautiful and we loved the island we stayed on (no kids allowed, though).

We went to Australia and New Zealand on our honeymoon, and we went back to NZ for our 10 year anniversary last year. Oz is great but it's huge, so I'd try to be specific and focus on what you want to see. NZ is gorgeous and again you could spend weeks there, but Queenstown is definitely a highlight and a lot of fun.

Here are some of my blog posts about these trips:
Asia (Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand/Cambodia)
New Zealand
Fiji
Cook Islands

sillygoosegirl

You're going to want to look at where you can realistically get tickets. We thought it would be a good idea to fly to Hawaii on the way to Asia, but it turns out there aren't many flights from Hawaii to Asia. Likewise, we thought it would be convenient to fly from Africa to South America, but most of those routes connect in Heathrow. We saved ourselves a ton of money by flying from Asia to Italy (by way of Egypt--that actually save money), and then home to the US from Istanbul. It made for an odd route, but worth it to save several thousand dollars. (We ended up saving Hawaii, South America, and sub saharan Africa for other trips.)

How long are you planning on going? I would recommend sticking to no more than one region per month. We were gone for almost 6 months, and hardly felt like we scratched the surface on everything we wanted to see. Choose a few places you really want to see, and then fill in the rest with other destinations within easy travel distance of them.