So its taken a long time and I’ve bothered a number of different agents but last week I finally bit the bullet and booked our main flights.
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We decided that China, Belize and Patagonia would be our main destinations and that caused all sorts of headaches with routing. In the end, it seems that it will be about £3000 cheaper to come back to London after China rather than completing a ’round-the-world’ trip. The great thing about this will be that we’ll get the chance to see some of the family just before Christmas and of course do some repacking for different destinations.
I got quotes from a number of companies, Chris at TravelNation was really helpful but in the end we decided to go with Tamsyn at RTWExperts. Just as I thought we’d got the route organised, I decided I’d better check out visas. The visa requirements for China made me hesitate and in the couple of weeks it took to get advice and my head round things, the price of the tickets went up by about £1300. To get costs back down, we changed a few direct flights and this has almost doubled the number of countries (albeit in airport transit lounges) that we’ll visit!
So what’s the plan? Well we start by flying to Beijing at the beginning of October (via Rome) and then back to London from Hong Kong (via Paris) mid December. After a day back home, we head to Belize (via Toronto and Cancun) for Christmas with Noah and the chocolate makers. In the new year, we’re hoping to pick up some basic Spanish at a school in Guatemala before heading for Chile. We come home from Buenos Aires in March (via Frankfurt for good measure). Now to fill in some (but not all of the gaps).