Yesterday I embarked on my 105 day summer vacation, which will take me through 11 countries on 4 continents. The basis for this trip was to try something different. Last year, I went to Southern Africa, and loved it, but I felt that I was missing out on the experiences that people my age (i’m 21) often had in a big trip to SE Asia. I have done a lot of Europe since my family is partially from here, but I had never been to Asia, except for a trip to Japan in December. With that, a trip was born.
My whole itinerary was based solely on United routing rules. I started by booking a double open jaw/stopover itinerary for 80k miles that would allow me to leave my home, Denver, fly to Chiang Mai. From Chiang Mai, I would overland to Singapore, (open jaw used here) where I would catch a flight to Poland to see family, utilizing my stopover. After some time in Europe, I would fly to Boston to visit grandma #2 for her birthday. I like to combine trips, so it makes sense to see everyone on one big trip instead of 4 smaller trips. Award availability was wide open, since it was late September.
I booked this ticket via phone, since it was a tad complex, and the routing ended up looking like this:
UA Award: DEN-DFW on UA, DFW-FRA on LH, FRA-BKK-CNX on TG, SIN-FRA-POZ-FRA-BOS on LH.
I could not fly across the Pacific due to a clause stating that you cannot fly across both oceans on the same ticket, thus, a routing through Europe was born. This worked out better anyways because I wanted to take my A380 virginity, which will be done today on Thai from FRA-BKK, and again on SIN-FRA on Lufthansa.
Once I had my hard dates in place for the big flights, it was time to book some smaller ones, and decide what I would do for ~7 weeks in SE Asia and for a month in Europe (sorry Babcia, I can only handle being in Poland for so long). Air Asia was having a sale, so I impulsively bought a ticket for $44 round trip from Kuala Lumpur (KL) to Kuching for four days, in hopes to see some wildlife in a brief sampling of Borneo. Aside from that, I didn’t know what else I should do, so I let everything sit for a good four months.
At this point, my mom was full of jealousy and demanded that we go to Peru together in August. Looking at tickets, I found a $300 ticket one way on Copa from Boston to Peru, where I also forced a 22 hour layover in Panama City, in hopes to see the Panama Canal. It made no sense to fly back to Denver for $200, so why not just utilize a decent priced ticket from a place that I already was going to be? I bought one for myself and my dad.
To get back from Peru, I thought it was stupid to use miles (and they weren’t really available) to get all the way back to Denver. After some research, I found that you could fly from Peru to the Caribbean, as well as anywhere in Central America, for 10k United miles. I booked a ticket to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where I would stay 2 nights and then fly from there to Denver on a $153 one way ticket. 10k miles +$200 all in to see another place, and get me from Arequipa to Denver sounded like a decent gig to me, especially since you would be valuing the 12.5k UA miles at 1.6 CPM, not that great, in my opinion.
From here, mom had hard dates to plan her trip, so she took over the planning for Peru. People ask me if I am hiking Machu Picchu, and I have no idea. This is her trip, she is planning it, I just book the plane tickets, (Avios are THE way to go in Peru).
PTY-LIM on Copa, LIM-CUZ-PEM-CUZ on LAN, AQP-LIM-MDE on ?, MDE-PTY-SJU on Copa
Anyways, I now had a way to get some places, and then a way to get back, conveniently timed to leave 1 day after finals and return home 1 full day before school starts (that is an improvement from last year, where I flew in at 8:30 AM for my first class, or the year before when I flew in 12 hours before I moved into the dorms!).
Filling in the rest of the itinerary happened in the past month or so. Europe was pretty easy because I looked at the current exchange rates, seeing that the Scandinavian countries were actually beating the Euro, from a value standpoint. I also had friends in the UK that I wanted to visit, so I threw 10 days in the UK there. Right now, I will be flying Wizz from Szeczin, Poland (again, more family that my grandma wants to see) to Bergen, Norway, where I will take 2 weeks to get to Stockholm, via Oslo (to see some more family). From Stockholm, I got a flight to London on SAS, where I will visit more family, and some friends, then head north to do some camping, with friends that I met in Africa. After 10 days in the UK, I will fly Ryanair from Edinburgh to Poznan, where I will catch my flight to Boston. The entirety of my Norway trip will be mainly camping, with a hostel or two thrown in. I don’t really know where I am going yet, so we will figure that out someday in the next 2 months. Any suggestions are always welcome.
Detail of Europe Flights, SZZ-GDo is with Wizz Air, ARN-LHR is with SAS, EDI-POZ is Ryan Air and FRA-POZ-FRA is with Lufthansa.
Now, to SE Asia where we can add some more confusion to the planning process. I really wanted to go to Myanmar or Laos. I had some hesitations since I would be going by myself, and it seems that there are not many “pure hostels” in Myanmar, meaning you gotta spend about $25 a night for a private hotel room. I am trying to minimize costs, so it was looking far fetched.
All of a sudden, about a month ago, my dads plans changed. He was supposed to serve as crew on a sailboat from St. Thomas to Portugal this summer. The crew situation got a little messed up, and he did not like the experience and attitude of the other people involved. Anyways, he asked if he could come with me. Excellent. Within 24 hours, we had an AA award for him to Oslo one way, then a ticket from Oslo to Chiang Mai, and Bangkok to Madrid, so he can meet my mom for their Spain trip. Yeah, she is going places too while this is all happening (including a week in Greece with her mother, who I will go and see in July, and my dad will see in June!).
Dad was now coming, so we sent in our passports to get visas for Myanmar, and started to plan our trip. We will be spending about a week in Thailand, then crossing the land border into Myanmar and doing some trekking in Kengtung. After a few days, we will fly on Myanmar Airways to Heho, near Inle Lake, where we will spend 3 nights. From here, it is off to Bagan for 4 nights, then Mandalay for 3 nights where we will catch an overnight train to Yangon. We will spend 2 nights in Yangon, then fly to Bangkok, where I will see my cousin for 2 days before dad flies to Madrid.
From Bangkok, I will carry on to a
G Adventures trip, (not my doing, mom, so she “did not have to worry while in Spain.” If she is paying for it, ill take another 2 weeks to soften my budget!). Our trip goes round trip from Bangkok, so once I am back there, I will catch an Air Asia flight to KL, spend about 5 days around there, go to Borneo for 4 days, then get back to Singapore where I will catch my flight to Poland.
BKK-CNX on TG, KET-HEH on Myanmar Airways and the rest are Air Asia.
Confused yet? Good. Here is a summary:
I will be landing in Chiang Mai, and take a week to get to the Myanmar Border at Tackileik. We needed visas in our passports to cross here, so we applied for those through a painless process. From there we will continue to Kengtung and do some trekking, where we will eventually fly to Heho. You cannot take ground transit to Heho, as it is closed, so flying is the only real option. From Heho, we will go to Inle Lake, spend a bit of time, where we will then head to Bagan, followed by Mandalay and Yangon. From Yangon, we will fly to Bangkok, which is where dad is leaving from and I will be on my own.
From Bangkok, I go on a 2 week G Adventures trip through Cambodia, returning to Bangkok, where I will then fly to Kuala Lumpur. I will spend 5 days or so around KL, hopefully getting to the Cameroon Highlands, or the beach. From KL, I fly to Kuching for 4 days, then back to KL where I will catch a bus, train, elephant or something else to Singapore, which will wrap up my time in SE Asia.
From Singapore, I fly to Poland, where I spend 5 days in Poznan, then take the bus to Szczecin, where I catch my flight to Bergen, Norway. From Bergen it is into the fjords to go camping, eventually ending up in Oslo, and continuing to Stockholm. From Stockholm, I will fly to London, spend a few days, then head to Scotland to go camping with friends, I think. This is tentative. From Scotland, it is back to Poznan for 2 days, then off to Boston for grandmas birthday. From Boston, we leave for Peru, via an overnight in Colon, Panama. In Peru, we will be going to the macaw clay lick near Puerto Maldonado, Cuzco and the Colca Canyon, where I then fly to San Juan for a day at the beach before heading home. Boy, that was a lot of “I’s.”
Anyways, that is the rough idea for this trip. I am starting this TR now, because in reality, it would be impossible to recount 3.5 months of fun into word form at the end. I will focus on destinations instead of airlines/lounges/airports. I will throw a few things in about my flying experience, like our flight in Myanmar, but in reality, you can only read so many coach TR’s and still have a good time with it. With that, I hope that this TR will be semi live, and updated weekly, internet pending of course. If you are after first class cabins and lux resorts, this is not for you, but, if you are up for a good time with a bit of a different perspective (the hostel life) than what is usually on FT, stick around! Hopefully you will enjoy it, and as always, any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
The whole shebang!
Next Up: A Week in Chiang Mai, Thaton and Chiang Rai