We’ve chosen our route to be:

London-Vancouver-Fiji-Sydney-Auckland-Singapore-Nairobi-London – all in 12 months, starting around 1st August this year.

When we called around flight agents (TravelBag, Trailfinders, Airline Network) today it appears that although it’s possible, it’s going to be pretty expensive because of two things – (1) we’re doing a bit of a backtrack to NZ after Aus, and much more importantly (2) the Nairobi bit is a bit of problem. There are no direct flights to Nairobi from Asia – we’d have to fly to Joburg, and then fly up, and that racks up the mileage (most Round The World tickets are calculated on a mileage basis) which means we move from affordable (circa £1,200) we go into the £1,800-£1,900 band. So we thought some more, and investigated the prices of a flight from London to Nairobi – and that turns out to be £320-ish this May – if we assumed the same next year, it’ll be cheaper for us to do a standard RTW ticket excluding Nairobi, and then when we get to London, turn right around and fly down to Kenya.

We also get another stop option in San Fransisco or LA, so we’re going to add that on and have a look at Yosemite. That leaves an itinerary of:

August – Vancouver (Rockies, Seattle etc)

September – San Franisco (Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, and then perhaps drive down to Las Vegas & Grand Canyon)

October – Fiji for a week

mid-Oct-mid-Feb – Australia (into Sydney, buy a Holden and drive around the East & Southern Coast)

mid-Feb to April – New Zealand (North Island and north of the South Island)

April – May – Singapore (overland up to Malaysia & Thailand, plus a few day trip over the straits to Indonesia to go and see the Orangutan from Medan

May – Nairobi (for some form of African safari – if the kids aren’t travelling well then around Masai Mara – if they are then down to Tanzania fron Ngora Ngora Crater & perhaps Zanibar)

We’ll decide this week and then book flights next Saturday!