It's taken nearly 18 years but I was finally closing in on my goal to visit every country in the world. Of course that wasn't my intention when I started out my major travels on January 1, 1998. I had only been to 10 countries by then and had only visited 1 new country since 1988. Over the years I've gone on dozens of trips, solo, with travel buddies and with my wife/girlfriend (usually the same person ). I've joined up with other intrepid Flyertalkers, ironmanjt, DanielW, Tychian and FlyIgglesFly for some of the harder countries in Africa. After visiting West Africa with ironmanjt and DanielW in January and a family trip to Cuba in March, that left me with only three remaining countries to visit: Samoa, Tuvalu and Nauru.

Originally I planned a trip over 4th of July week. Last November, Qantas had a 50% off award sale to Australia. I booked a one-way DFW-SYD-LDH (Lord Howe Island) at end of June for only 28k QF points and crazy fuel surcharge. The Nauru flight schedules change constantly and weren't yet published for June, so I wasn't yet able to fully plan the trip. Flights to Tuvalu are also notoriously unpredictable as SUV-FUN is at the limit of the aircraft range, the flights only go a few times a week they can be cancelled due to weather.

In March after visiting Cuba (still need to write that report..) I started playing around with the flight schedules again. I just couldn't make anything work out that was convenient. Also flight prices coming from Auckland/Sydney in July had started creeping up again, they were as low as $580 from Auckland to Houston at one point, but now were about $800. I decided to push my trip forward a month and go in late May. I was able to book an award ticket HNL-APW-NAN using my Qantas points. A friend of mine owed me 50k DL miles from an award I booked for him several years ago, I finally called in the favor and booked a return BNE-LAX-SAT. Unfortunately Austin wasn't available at the time (it did open up later as it turned out). Tuvalu flights never seem to be available on points so had to book an expensive return from Nadi, hoping that the flights would go out as scheduled. Nauru Airlines is the only airline that flies to Nauru. They run Brisbane-Nauru return flights several times a week, and a milk run Nadi-Nauru-Tarawa-Majuro-Kosrae-Chuuk-Pohnpei on Friday and return on Sunday. It's actually possible to book the Nauru airlines flights on Orbitz but playing around with the Nauru Airlines website I found it was several hundred $ cheaper to book on their website and pay in Fiji dollars vs USD or AUD.

Looking at Samoa, it seemed a shame that I would miss visiting American Samoa as it was so close. There's actually a Hawaiian HNL-PPG that goes on Fridays but wasn't available on points. The other option is flying from Samoa (FGI-Fagali) airport to Pago Pago. Polynesian Airlines runs several flights daily. The trick is they are on opposite sides of the dateline.. booking a same-day return FGI-PPG-FGI is actually booked as a PPG-FGI-PPG, illogical as that must sound. I had contacted a tour company in Samoa to do a day tour of Samoa island and book my Pago Pago flights (They are bookable online but I didn't realize the trick to book a same-day return). The tour company said it was about $100 for a driver/car day tour around Upolo island and $215 (with their fee) return to American Samoa.

Nauru supposedly requires a visa. It's possible to arrange the entry permit via email with the consulate in Brisbane. They need the flight booking info, hotel booking, copy of passport, etc. They send an entry letter permit a few days later. No money is required at the time as the visa can be paid on arrival. I'd heard varying reports if a visa was even required for under 3 days, but I figured having the entry letter would be helpful.

So finally my flights and hotels were booked. I didn't really have any wiggle room in my schedule. Unfortunately I didn't have the vacation time to spare to add extra pad days in Fiji. If Tuvalu flights fell through then I still had the flight to Sydney in late June to visit Nauru.

Flights:




Nauru entry permit