It is official. I am traveling the world for a year. Today I brought all of the hand-wringing and procrastinating to an end by buying my first one-way ticket on my round the world tour. I’m going to New Zealand!
As I began putting together my itinerary, it made sense to chase warm weather. First, I wouldn’t have to pack nearly as much gear, as flip flops and board shorts weigh so much less than down jackets. And second, I would get to visit a ton of tropical locales – not an awful existence. Also since I live in North America, I wanted my initial flight to be one of the longest, getting it out of the way early in the trip before I get traveled out.
This narrowed down my possible starting countries considerably to Australia and New Zealand. Many people I have read accounts from, suggest spending at least a month in each, if you have time to spare. The only downside to both is they are expensive compared to most other countries on that side of the world. With my plan to spend a year traveling, I have plenty of time but not plenty of cash. I plan to limit my time in both countries to one month.
I chose New Zealand first, purely out of convenience on airfare routing. I’ve been banking frequent flyer miles and plan to use them to cut down on costs during my trip. I was able to find flights to Auckland, New Zealand from Portland, Oregon completely covered with miles! And in business class! (Maybe I’ll actually sleep on a flight for once)
I leave Portland on the morning of February 2nd, with a 2-hour layover in Honolulu en route to Brisbane, Australia. I then have an overnight stay there before continuing on to Auckland and will touch down first thing after midnight on February 5th.
I can’t wait!
