Summary
My first ever trip report covers a two-week trip from PDX to KTM and back on LH F & C, TG F & C, TK C and UA Y.

About the title:
I’ve been inspired for years by the Trip Reports of Seat2A, so with that in mind (and because seat 2K is a preferred F seat on the TG A380), I booked myself in the F/K window seat of the second row of the plane wherever possible on an epic trip. For me the view of the earth as you wing across great distances is one of my favorite experiences in life. There is really very little like the perspective of our planet you get from 35K feet – and when you are resting comfortably in a luxury seat with a beverage of choice and on your way toward adventure… it doesn’t get much better. I think many of you would agree.

Compared to some of the amazing reports in this forum, this trip report will not contain comprehensive details about the meals and wines on offer, professional photos of each amuse bouche, a list every single thing I ate and drink, nor timings of the take off, landing and in-flight service. What I tried to do in summarizing my journey was to offer my own memories of the experience, provide some insight about trekking in Nepal, and share some photographs I took along the way. I hope you enjoy.

Sections

1: Introduction & Background
2: Leg 1: PDX to AMS – a return to LH F and making the most of an 18-hour connection
3: Leg 2: AMS to KTM – losing my A380 virginity
4: Nepal – Trekking in Langtang National Park
5: Leg 3: KTM to IST - First time on Turkish and a night in Istanbul
6: Leg 4: IST to PDX – The Longest Flight & United’s Welcome Home

Background

Last fall, with the impending great devaluation of United Mileage Plus looming on the horizon I started putting the pieces in place to burn some of my miles to experience what I’d be unlikely to experience, at least at such a relatively affordable level– international first class on United’s Star Alliance partners. This aligned well with my sabbatical – I’m lucky enough to work for a company that gives all US-based employees a six-week sabbatical every four years. It’s an amazing benefit!

For my first sabbatical in 2009, my wife and I took our then 9 month-old son to South Africa for a month. It was an awesome trip, but now that he is 5 and we also have a 1 year-old daughter, a family trip for four was more difficult to figure out. We played around with a number of different possibilities, but ultimately the ease of the trip won out over any other factors (such as getting maximum value for the miles) and we booked a family trip to Kauai over spring break.

That left another four weeks of sabbatical time, and my wife generously agreed to let me take a solo trip for 2 weeks – an early 40th birthday present – so the only question was where to go and how to fly there. The stars aligned and I was able to arrange time to meet up with two old friends in Nepal – where one (OregonOcean) was in the midst of two consequtive RTW trips and the other would be on trips between Vietnam and India so Nepal made perfect sense.

Next came figuring out my routing. One of the benefits of doing an international MBA program in Europe is that I now have friends scattered around the globe, many of whom I haven’t seen for 10 years, so I threw that into the mix along with optimizing the value of the miles and trying to try some new airlines. What I finally ticketed would bring me to a night in CDG, two nights in HKG, 9 nights in KTM and a night in IST.

Once that was ticketed, in November, I vigilantly watched for schedule changes and opportunities to improve what I’d booked. Unfortunately, Thai significantly reduced their flying to HKG due to the ongoing political turmoil in Bangkok, which meant it was no longer possible for me to get from HKG to KTM in a single day – a 16 hour overnight layover in Bangkok was now necessary. Given that I’d only been planning to be in HKG for 48 hours to visit a friend, I made the sad decision to cut HKG from the itinerary and to focus just on Nepal. On the upside, however, that saved me 40K miles and I was able to move my connection from CDG (a city I love, where I have lived and spent significant time) to AMS where I by coincidence could see some friends who were passing through. On top of that, United unexpectedly allowed carrier and routing changes on awards without changing additional miles after February 1, so I was able to move myself to LH F for the trans-Atlantic routing. This is how where I ended up as my trip began.

PDX-SEA UA Y
SEA-FRA LH F
FRA-AMS LH C
CONNECTION
AMS-FRA LH C
FRA-BKK TG F
BKK-KTM TG C
Destination
KTM-IST TK C
Stopover
IST-IAH TK C
IAH-PDX UA Y