Alright now, how’s this sound? We’ll start by flying First Class on Cathay Pacific from San Francisco to Hong Kong. After three days spent enjoying the delights of the “Pearl of the Orient”, we’ll take the T98 fast train up to Beijing, spend a couple of days there and then board Train # 3, the westbound Trans-Mongolian Express for a seven day, 4,735 mile journey across Asia to Moscow. We’ll spend two or three days in Moscow, check out the Kremlin, maybe even take in a concert with the Russian National Orchestra before continuing on up to St. Petersburg for a few days. Then it’s on to Helsinki aboard the new high speed Allegro train. Later that week, we’ll board the Swedish ferry M/S Silja Serenade where a comfortable stateroom awaits for the overnight journey across the Baltic Sea to Stockholm. After a couple of days in and around Stockholm, we’ll fly Business Class back to Hong Kong and pick up the next leg of our First Class award ticket from Hong Kong to Johannesburg. From there we’ll board the all-Suite Premier Class train for a ride across the Karoo to Capetown. After that, well, we’ll figure it out as we go.

I thought this was one of the better itineraries I’d come up with of late and, as originally planned I would have taken this trip nine months ago in March. In February however I decided to accept United Airlines’ Premier Status Challenge and so spent the month of March in pursuit of my eventual 1K status. After years of having my First Class award travel limited to British Airways and Cathay Pacific, I wanted to broaden my horizons and check out the First and Business Class offerings of the Star Alliance carriers.

Taking advantage of the Premier Challenge this year was also a good call given United’s plans to go with a revenue based tier system in its Mileage Plus program starting in 2014. Had I waited until next year to earn 1K - much less even Gold or Silver status – it would have cost me substantially more money. I suppose I could have delayed the aforementioned itinerary until April but that time was reserved for earning MVP Gold 75K status on Alaska Airlines.

As a result of having spent this past spring and fall earning rather than redeeming miles, I am now in a better position than ever before to cash in some of those miles towards premium accommodations aloft.

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Trip planning is easy for some, harder for others. For me, it is often a convoluted journey from concept to reality but oh, what a fun journey it is! Most people I know like to set their sights on a destination, come up with a general idea of how they’d like to go about their time there, and then off they go. I on the other hand like a little freer approach. I may start out with a specific destination in mind, but it’s a small world these days and if something comes up that sounds good beforehand or along the way, even if it’s on the next continent over and I can pull it off, why not? For me at least, this is the stuff of which adventure is made!

Most of the time my changes occur in the planning stages, but not always. I'm generally open to radical departures from "the plan" even in the middle of the trip. A good example of this occurred back in 1994. In November of that year I’d flown down to Chile and Argentina for a couple months of touring and backpacking through the Andes. I arrived to find, however, that unseasonably heavy spring snows had rendered much of the high country inaccessible. After a couple of weeks spent down in the lowlands between Bariloche and Puerto Varas, I came across a great roundtrip airfare on Lloyd Bolivian Airlines between Santiago and Miami. Not only was the airfare exceptionally affordable, but the routing was also quite attractive featuring enroute stops in Arica, La Paz, Santa Cruz and Panama City on the way to Miami. The return trip routed through Caracas, Manaus, La Paz and Arica.

Touring around the beautiful lakes district of Chile and Argentina was all well and good but a number of factors combined to make a short detour up to the States more than a bit alluring. For starters, keep in mind that I live in Alaska so places like Florida are about as far away (and almost as foreign in culture and climate) as Central Europe. I had friends working in Everglades National Park whom I hadn’t seen in a couple of years, so it'd be nice to visit them. Secondly, I was able to purchase a very affordable All Aboard America Pass on Amtrak that allowed me my first ride aboard the Sunset Limited, at that time the country’s first and only transcontinental train operating between Miami and Los Angeles. As an added bonus, the Grateful Dead just happened to be playing a two night gig in Denver. I knew people who worked within the Dead organization and I had no problem scoring tickets to both shows for myself and a couple of friends. After the shows, I caught a ride down to Durango, Colorado and then hitched down to Gallup, New Mexico where I caught the westbound Chief out to Los Angeles and then back to Miami aboard the Sunset Limited. In all I was gone just seventeen days and by the time I’d returned to Chile and ferried down to Puerto Natales the snow had melted sufficiently to allow me to commence the 65 mile trek around the Torres Del Paine in Chile’s Patagonia.

In any event, when it comes to travel I’m wired this way. Not everybody is. In similar circumstances most people would have just stayed in South America. Though it’s great fun to travel and share new adventures with others, if this trip had included friends or family I’m pretty sure the mere suggestion of a detour such as I just described would have been greeted with shock and disbelief. You want to do whaaat?!!

When it comes to traveling with others, I totally accept and embrace the art of compromise and sometimes even "go along - get along". Believe me, in a case such as this I would never have even thought to bring up such a crazy diversion. When you’re on your own however, you can do whatever you want. A friend of mine once pointed out how many well-known travelers and travel writers often traveled alone. Theroux, O’Hanlon, Stevenson, Danziger, Cahill, Bryson et al. Some of the crazy (and impressive) things they did on their travels might never have been accomplished had they been obliged to arrive at a group consensus beforehand.

As I mentioned earlier, for the majority of my trips the changes happen in the planning stages. Often times the original concept bears no resemblance to the final plan. This trip is no different. What originally started out as a trip across Asia and then down to Africa was reborn as a simple round trip to Madagascar that since has morphed into an epic journey through Spain and Portugal before continuing on to northwestern Scotland for a ride on the West Highland Line, often said to be the most beautiful train ride in all of Great Britain. From there it’s back home to Fairbanks for three days before resuming the journey with a pair of flights aboard Emirates First Class through Dubai to Johannesburg. As much as I’d have liked to visit Madagascar, getting there and in particular renting a car proved to be more expensive than I’d envisioned. Instead I’ll rent a car in South Africa and visit a few out of the way places not so easily reached by public transport.

From South Africa it’s back to the rarified realm of a suite aboard Cathay Pacific’s 747 nonstop to Hong Kong. From there I’ll switch from the front of the 747 to the back as Korean Air’s model delivers me to Seoul where I’ll take advantage of United’s very affordable intra-Asia Business Class awards, travelling down to Singapore via Asiana, Air China and Thai. The return trip to Osaka will be aboard Singapore, EVA and ANA before returning to a First Class suite aboard Cathay’s 777-300 across the Pacific to Los Angeles and home to Alaska.

In all, this trip will comprise just over 70000 miles of travel aboard fifteen airlines.

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Now, please bear with me for a moment as I take a completely different tack, one that's more relevant to actual trip reporting - specifically how and why I do it the way I do.

As a schoolboy back in the early 1970s, I spent many an hour writing letters to airline sales offices requesting brochures about their new widebodied jetliners and the innovative and exciting inflight services inspired by all that extra space onboard. At other times you could find me climbing trees, building forts and tearing around the local dirt tracks on my bike. I wasn’t a total geek, though I did like the sound of those cards in the spokes.

It sure was a lot of fun to look over all those pictures of nicely dressed passengers mingling over cocktails and hors d’oeuvres in spacious and stylish onboard lounges or enjoying seven course meals served seat side from the trolley. And of course, it was ever so easy to imagine myself as one of those passengers, climbing the spiral staircase up to the upstairs lounge or watching with anticipation as pretty stewardesses served up plates of delicious food from the trolley.

Many years later, my passion for the good life aloft still burns bright. I was just starting to get a touch of grey in my sideburns when I discovered FlyerTalk in early 2001 while searching the internet for information on First and Business Class services aboard the world’s great and not so great airlines. Most of what I’d found at that point was through the airlines’ websites or via no-nonsense reports published in magazines such as Business Traveler. Imagine then my surprise and delight to stumble upon this beautifully written trip report detailing First Class travel aboard American Airlines’ Flagship Service between San Jose and Tokyo. More than just a basic description and assessment of the services offered, this report captured the writer’s excitement and passion for the First Class experience as he anticipated and experienced every aspect of American’s once quality International Flagship First Class Service. Perhaps most amazing by today’s Trip Report Forum standards was that the reporter accomplished this without the use of even a single photograph.

The writer was tfung. There were no pictures in his report because back then the ability to imbed photos had not yet been established. Given the descriptive quality of his writing however, no pictures were really necessary. After my second or third read of his report, I quickly headed over to the Trip Report Forum title page where I discovered dozens of other written reports on inflight premium services, some of them very nicely composed as well.

My favorite trip report writer was David P. Morgan, the longtime editor of Trains Magazine. In 1973, Kalmbach Publishing Co., which produced and published Trains Magazine, embarked on a new magazine dedicated to commercial air travel. It was called Airliners International and David P. Morgan also served as its editor. Although Airliners International only lasted through four issues, each issue included at least one lengthy trip report covering a multitude of flights all over the country or the world. DPM traveled and wrote about all but one of those trips, often accompanied by his wife Margaret. His travel was usually in First Class and the focus was clearly on the flights, not the destination. What most impressed me about DPM’s writing was his obvious passion for the subject combined with a writing style that was accessible to even the most casual reader, not just the hard core foamers.

More than anyone else, David P. Morgan inspired not only my desire to write trip reports but also the style in which I write them. However, kudos must also go out to tfung for rekindling that desire with his fine reporting from the early days of FlyerTalk.

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I’ve always had an appetite for actually going somewhere, i.e. flying there, riding there on a train or driving there in a car. In particular I’ve always been fascinated with the style of travel - or perhaps more to the point – traveling there in style. Given my passion for the First Class travel experience, what I really enjoy writing about most is getting there. If I could be said to be any good at writing these trip reports, I think it’s primarily due to my passion for actually travelling. As for writing, well, aside from the compulsory English classes I had to take in elementary and high school, I’ve never formally studied it. I know I certainly never enjoyed writing reports in school and university. It’s different though when you’re writing about something you really enjoy. Somehow the words just flow.

It was back in February of 2002 that I submitted my first trip report covering international premium class travel for FlyerTalk. That report was titled Alaska to New Zealand ~ The Long Way and it involved First and Business Class travel aboard Alaska Airlines, British Airways and Air New Zealand traveling via Los Angeles, London, Singapore and Melbourne. Though the report did not include any photos, it nonetheless received positive reviews from many people who clearly appreciated the descriptive power of the written word.

So – where am I going with all this? Well, it goes without saying that all of us trip reporters appreciate feedback in the form of comments and questions from you the readers. I know I certainly do. At the same time I can’t help but be surprised and indeed flattered when the occasional reporter goes out of their way to thank me for having even taken the time to comment favorably on their report. Therein lays the crux of my problem.

I’ve really dropped off on my visitation to the Trip Reports Forum. These days there just aren’t all that many actual written reports detailing the premium travel experience. Oh sure, there are a few scattered here and there but mostly I find that I’m spending a lot of time during my visits to this forum wading through exciting sounding trip report titles only to find it’s an as yet unfinished incremental report or a pre-trip report or a whole bunch of photos with the occasional descriptive sentence or paragraph - and for the most part I’m not really enjoying that. The result is that over the years it’s gotten to the point where I simply don’t visit here that often anymore.

Mind you, I’m not here to complain so don’t any of you go getting your knickers in a knot. The Trip Reports Forum is percolating along quite nicely with or without my participation as a writer or a viewer. I also recognize that submitting trip reports here at FlyerTalk is all in good fun and that nobody should feel under any constraints to follow a set formula. Participation is more important than style. I get that. I simply prefer a good read over looking at a bunch of photographs. I prefer photographs as a spice, placed here and there to augment the written description, much as you’d find in a magazine article. I also prefer reading someone’s report all in one sitting. Mostly however, I find myself waiting days or weeks for an incremental report to either start or finish in its entirety. In the process it’s often easy to completely forget about some of them.

Given then the scarcity of my Trip Report Forum participation of late, I reckon I’d have to have a lot of gall to expect any of you to read, much less comment on this and/or future reports from me. That’s alright. I’ll understand if you don’t. I’m not that good of a photographer anyway. At the same time I know there are a handful of trip report diehards who’ve been waiting patiently with their unopened bottles of 12 year old scotch, vintage wine, quality bourbon or even a cold six pack to accompany them on yet another of my written trip reports covering the best of (or at least some reasonably entertaining) international Premium Class travel.

Yes Sir! Gettin’ drunk and readin’ Seat 2A trip reports – it just don’t get much better’n that!

Well, that might be overstating the level of enthusiasm just a wee bit but hey, if I can sit here in an Emirates’ First Class Suite drinking Woodford Reserve while pecking out this report, I would be absolutely flattered if any of you would care to join me in a drink or two from wherever you now sit. (Update: Dec. 06 9:20am EST: Then again, I see 520 hits and only two comments. Looks like most readers are looking, then choosing to read about something more interesting and drink elsewhere. Oh well, it's just you and me then! Pour me another, will ya?!)

The caveat of course is that it’s gonna be a couple of months from now before this report’s eventually published. While I’ll miss out on all those self-esteem boosting “attaboy” comments that accompany the ever trendy pre-trip and incremental report posts, those of you who’ve patiently waited (and even PMed me!) over the past year and a half for my return to international First Class will be treated to a complete trip report that you can sit down and read in its entirety – all in one sitting or a bit at a time. That'll be your call - not mine.

So that said, let’s head on out to Fairbanks International and get on with this journey. It’s a long one and I fully expect it will be a very good one as well.

Cheers!