Whoop Whoop!

Alright everyone.  Good news!  Take a look at this little airfare recipe that I mixed up for ourselves.  This is just after a few hours of searching online.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to find even better deals within the next few weeks.

Keep in mind that we were quoted $3523 for a RTW ticket that looked like this:

Seattle, USA -> New York, USA -> Guayaquil, Ecuador -> London, England -> Delhi, India -> Bangkok, Thailand -> Hong Kong -> Seattle, USA

Thanks to my mad (and compulsive) internet searching skills, I've come up with this bad boy. 

Seattle, USA -> New York, USA -> Panama City, Panama -> New York, USA -> Paris, France (connection in Reykjavic, Iceland) -> overland to London, England -> Delhi, India -> Bangkok, Thailand -> Vancouver, Canada -> overland back to Seattle, USA

The grand total for the trip above including taxes and fees comes to $3089.22.  We'll have to find our way to Ecuador, but we've read that there are boats and ships that leave daily to the Galapagos from Panama.  We might be able to weasel our way onto one of those if we're lucky enough.   We'll also have to make our way to England to leave for Delhi, but we figure that we'll be doing a lot of overland travel within Europe and it shouldn't be too challenging. 

I'll keep you updated.  We still don't know the finer details of where we're going which may end up to purchasing a lot of last minute tickets.  I can only pray the prices remain the same- if not cheaper! 

Airfare Wars

I've been a madwoman lately when it comes to looking up airfare.  To be fair, looking up and booking plane tickets is one of my favorite things to do in the whole wide world.  I like it more than sneezing, unicorns (gasp!), pain au chocolats, and mayyybe even slightly more than Anderson Cooper. maybe.

When the boy and I decided to start researching airfare for our RTW expedition we immediately jumped to the conclusion that we'd be purchasing an around the world ticket.  We knew that it'd be cheaper and that we'd probably get more bang for our buck.

I started with Airtreks, Star Alliance, One World, and Sky Team.   I made a sample itinerary and sent it out to each air service to get our starting quotes.   Our sample itinerary looked a little something like this:

Seattle -> New York -> Guayaquil, Ecuador -> London -> Delhi, India -> Bangkok -> Seattle

This way, after our stop in Ecuador, we could hit the major hubs around the world and then travel overland from there.  We know that Europe should be relatively easy to traverse using the train system or airlines like Ryanair or Easyjet.   Easy peasy, right?

Wrong.  Turns out that our cheapest quote (by far) was $3,523/person.  Ouch.  It still wasn't as bad as another quote we received that put our estimated cost at $7,500/person.  My bank account is dry heaving with me just having to type it out.

Okay, so technically $3,523 isn't too bad.  I mean, you are paying to travel across the entire world but we had expected it to be a little cheaper.  We're also traveling during peak holiday season which I'm sure didn't help us out fiscally.

While RTW tickets are good in a lot of aspects, we decided to exhaust every other option we had in order to save money.  We've looked into taking a transatlantic cruise from South America to Europe.  We actually found one that left from Panama City and arrived in Spain (with a stop in Curacao, no less) that was only $450/person.  We found a few other inexpensive transatlantic cruises as well.  Only problem is that most of them end in April and won't start up again until September.  We need to depart in June or else we'll just waste our time and money while waiting to leave the States.

The boy also discovered that some cargo vessels will often take on passengers, much like cruise ships but minus the extreme thrills.  It's an alternate way to travel and would be an amazing story.  Chris sent out a few e-mails and we're waiting to hear back from most of them.  One cargo vessel offered to take us on board but it was for an exorbitant amount of money and we respectfully declined.

As of now, I think we're going to forgo purchasing an around the world ticket.  It makes more sense for our unique expedition.  We won't even really know where we're headed until we collect the letters in the Galapagos.  We might need to take the Trans Siberian, hitch hike the western coast of Africa, jump on board someones yacht, or maybe even catch a cross country train in China.  I'm actually more excited now that we won't have deadlines or specific times that we'll have to reach a certain country. 

We're pretty happy with our decision and hope that we'll be able to offer more tips and tricks as we approach our official booking time.

Here's what our extremely tentative schedule looks like:

• June 16/17: Depart for NYC
• June 18: Attend the Nomading Film Festival (NoFF)
• June 20: Fly out of NYC to Panama or Ecuador (which ever is cheaper)
• June 21-?: Retrieve letters from the Galapagos and deliver any addressed within Central and South America.
• July sometime: Fly or sail to Europe.

From Europe we have an open slate.  It'll be my first time in Europe and I want to see as much of it as possible.  We're hoping that we have a good amount of letters scattered throughout the continent and that we'll be able to find low cost ways to travel.  We'll also attempt to make our way to India at some point, and also end up in Thailand.  We'll make our way home from there.  maybe. 

There you have it.  Our weeks of research summed up in a wee blog post.  It's going to be an interesting ride and we're thrilled that you're coming along with us!

Preparing to Launch.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHH!!!  (That's really the sound I'm making).  It's becoming more and more official.  Today, we unveiled our big RTW to the public.  Well, even more so than before.  This is something that's been close to our hearts for so long and we're glad that we can finally share it with everyone. 

Check us out on IndieGoGo.  We have our new promo video as well as all of the sweet perks you get with your donation.

Want to support us even further?  Head to our IndieGoGo site, grab the widget code and paste it on your blog and/or website.  The more we put ourselves out there, the better!  Thanks for coming with us on this awesome adventure!

Busy Bees.

Oooh we've been so busy over here ("bidgee bidgee" as one of my students would say).  Planning a RTW trip is a lot more challenging than I expected it to be.  I thought we could just hop on a plane to wherever and take it from there.  I mean, I guess we still can but now that we've got a budget we've got to plan just a little more carefully.  Budgets.  Gross.

Want to know what we've got so far?  Too bad, because I'm going to tell you anyway.  Close your browser if you wish. 

Well, we're planning on starting off in Seattle.  We leave Korea in May and want to spend some time with our families and friends.  We're hoping that we'll be able to jet off to NYC in June for the NoFF Film Festival then depart from there to Ecuador (or Panama depending on our mood).  We might be able to even get a free trip to Brazil and Argentina if we win Filmmaker of the Year on TripFilms.  (clickity click here to get in your last minute vote for Captain and Clark- we'd love you to the moon and stars)

From there we'll head around South America (after the Galapagos, of course) to deliver whatever letters are addressed around the area.  Once we're finished, we'll hop on a plane and head to EUROPE!  Ahhhh Greece!  Italy!  Spain!  France- oh mon dieu!  It's a shame that this girl has her Bachelor's in French and has never even stepped foot in the country- or Europe as a whole for that matter!  Don't worry- I've been brushing up on my français.  Ahem... Excusez-moi mais... savez-vous à quelle heure ouvre la Louvre? 

I know that Europe's going to be the most expensive leg of the journey (champagne and pain au chocolats on the daily), but we've got a number of friends there and I'm crossing my fingers that we'll have accommodations for the majority of the trip.  (Hear that friends?  I'm showing up at yo' doorsteps) 

From Europe we'll head to India- whether there's a letter addressed there or not.  The boy has been there before and I'm just itching to see the Taj Mahal and experience the Delhi Belly.  Well, maybe not the last one so much, but you best believe I'm going to stuff my face with as much curry and naan as humanly possible. 

After India we'll hopefully catch a flight to Bangkok and spend the remainder of our trip trolling around Southeast Asia.  If we're lucky, and not too poor, we might try to hit up Australia.  Again, the boy's been there but we both want to get our scuba on- Great Barrier Reef style. 

I'm sure there will be a lot of changes made to this "itinerary" over the next few months but it sure is fun to map this whole journey out.  Let us know if you have any advice on what's the best way to go about purchasing our airfare, or any advice in general (like how to make a turkey out of kimchi).  And while I still have you here; check out the latest video that the beau made for the newest addition to our family.  It's so purdy.

Watch more Seoul videos at tripfilms.com

The Big Reveal

Well after much deliberation and a few consultations with close friends, we finally came up with a name for our RTW expedition.

Drum roll please...
 

I love it.  LOVE it.  Almost more than cheese and Anderson Cooper and Thanksgiving and puppies.  Almost.  The boy actually came up with the title and I came up with the tag line.  How's that for team work eh?  "Message in a Barrel" is the perfect name for our trip as we'll be taking messages from a barrel that are addressed to various people (see: strangers) around the globe.  Those that have put their letters in the barrel do so in good faith that someday they'll be delivered to their rightful owners.  "Destination Delivery" is a very fitting tag line as our main goal is to make sure that we hand deliver these letters to whatever country they're addressed to- and we won't know where that is until we have the letters in hand. 

Oh I'm so excited.  Things are starting to fall in to place and now I have something to distract myself from our imminent departure from Korea.  We've got budgets to set, flights to plan, things to pack, and samgyupsal to eat.  Yes.  I fully plan on stuffing my face with all things Korean before we leave.  Judge me not.

Thank you for coming along on our journey.  Who knows?  We might be able to deliver a letter for you!


Oooh! And if you would be so kind, could you pretty please with a turkey on top vote for Captain and Clark over at Tripfilms.com?  We've got some stiff competition in the Film Maker of the Year, Destination Profile, and Getting Local arenas.  Being nominated was definitely honor enough, but I would literally cry tears of sweet joy if we were to win.  We wouldn't be anywhere without you.  Thank you so much for your support.