Following my early 2015 journey to Iran I had planned to use my last remaining 2015 days off exploring the wonders of Bagan (Myanmar) and have an expedition somewhere in the shadows of Mount Everest (Nepal). Along the way Nepal suffered its tragic earthquake and while the Nepalese tourism industry and its people certainly needed visitors I didn't feel the country would be fully recovered by November.

FLIGHTS

Soon after, a (mistake?) fare from various cities in America to Iguaçu Falls popped up for $270 on LAN. I booked a quick three-day trip to visit the falls from both the Brazilian and Argentinian side and an over night in Lima. Still leaving me with about two weeks of time off I was on the hunt to find a way to travel across some of the current and former CIS. I had always been fascinated by the mix of new and old that Baku, Azerbaijan offered. Plus who doesn't want to visit the world's lowest capital by elevation? And one of only two below sea level. I originally found a Priceline fare for $1100 on a BA direct from TPA to LGW connecting on PS (Ukraine) for a flight to GYD (Baku) and back that maximized efficiency. I figured for that cost and distance however I should see what else the region had to offer. Armenia and Georgia seemed to interest me for a variety of reasons.

Fast forward about a month or so and I stumbled upon a $550 BA fare for a direct TPA>LGW round trip (with a little side trip via MIA to YYZ added in for good measure). While that extra leg worried me, should there be a flight disruption on the return, it turned out to be my first blessing in disguise. I quickly got to work piecing together a trip that would allow me to see Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. In that order mind you. Little did I realize how complicated traveling those three countries, due to their political relationships, would prove to be. I'll get into the details later, but long story short, Armenia hates Turkey so flying TK was out. Azerbaijan hates Armenia so no direct transit there. Georgian (A9) didn’t offer any practical flights from EVN (Yerevan) until just weeks before when they finally opened their winter schedule. That doesn't even account for the disputed territories such as Nagorno-Karabakh and what troubles having those stamps in your passport could cause. I ideally wanted to visit Azerbaijan first for immigration reasons but flights just didn't play nicely.

Ok, just like my travel planning I'm getting carried away. Back to my route. I found a PS flight via KBP (Kiev) to EVN which allowed 26 hours in Kiev and enough time to visit Chernobyl. After spending a few days in Yerevan I booked two segments to get me from EVN to BUS (Batumi) via TBS (Tbilisi) on Airzena (Georgian Airways). Their non-peak schedule wasn't released until a month out and I wasn't very confident in its reliability, but figured trains or marshrutka would really slow things down. After exploring Georgia by train/marshrutka I had a flight from TBS to GYD on a Qatar fifth-freedom flight. Not wanting to fork out the cash and undergo the hassle of a full Azerbaijani visa I took advantage of the three-day (seven in reality) transit visa. TK offered a reasonable route via IST to get me back to LGW for my return flight to TPA. Although with a somewhat tight connection in IST.

Likely idiotic, I had less than a day on the ground before heading south to Iguaçu from MCO on the day before Thanksgiving! Between this trip and some work travel I would spend 5 nights at home during November. Not sure what I was thinking there.

Relieved I had found an optimal routing between the three countries, I mostly neglected any additional planning and focused on all of the logistics for my upcoming 2016 Kilimanjaro and African safari trip. (Stay tuned on that one). Less than a month out, and still dreading 20,000+ miles in economy, I realized I needed to focus on hotels and other logistics. With lots of travel for work around then, planning time was at a premium.

However for some reason, the airline gods looked favorably upon me. BA offered its $2,000 round trip business fares but for some reason it priced out ~$1,600 before the 10% off and $400 AARP savings. So for just about $1,000 I could do the two dreadful Transatlantic segments in business. This is a fare that nearly never changes in price and goes for an exorbitant ~$7,000 round trip. But was that worth a $500 premium? The AA 25,000 mile TATL bonus promo sweetened the pot but I still couldn't rationalize it. While having lunch later that day I recalled an email AA had sent months back about that unnecessary MIA>YYZ flight landing about three hours ahead of schedule. That was all the motivation I needed to call AA and cancel my IB codeshare on BA metal for no penalty! That pesky little tag flight that originally made my flight so cost effective also gave me the out I so desperately wanted, rationalizing booking the exact same flights but in business.


Original plan


Actual route

VISAS

Fortunately the visas were rather simple. Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia and Peru were visa free. That left the need for Azerbaijan, Brazil and Argentina. Hoping Argentina would remove its reciprocity fee (like Chile) I held out on forking over the $160; which would be another blessing in disguise. Brazil, also $160, was simple besides having to jump through a few silly hoops and follow their sometimes-unstated rules to a T. Thanks to a fellow FTer for arranging the courier services to the Miami consulate. Azerbaijan while not extraordinarily difficult certainly is among the more undesirable application processes. Requiring an LOI and a $140 fee I was happy my travel plans satisfied the transit visa requirements. Travisa is the required agency and charges a $20 dollar fee on top of the $40 double-entry transit visa. When I began researching the trip a single-entry version was available for $20, but not at the time of my application. All visas were returned on schedule with no issues.


Azerbaijan Visa

With visas verified, flights finalized and accommodations arranged I was all set to hit six new countries and clog my arteries with Khachapuri. Mid trip, a family matter presented itself and made it necessary to skip the South American portion of the trip. Upon arrival in TPA I headed to STL the next day rather than IGU. Avis and Airbnb were more than accommodating with a full refund, however LAN proved to be overly difficult and I just wrote the trip off. Otherwise the trip and its logistics were marvelous. Stay tuned as I share my journey across the Caucuses.