Round the world - which direction?

[MrsMiggins]

Hi all,

I've pretty much decided to chuck it all and find out what the rest of the world is like, but whenever I look at round the world websites to start pricing tickets they all seem to suggest:

Asia
Aus & NZ
USA / Canada
back to UK

That seems a bit odd to me .

I always thought of it the other way round...start off with US & Canada, move on to NZ & Aus and finish off in Asia. That way you start your travels with the familiar and leave the WTF factor until you're more used to it.

What am I missing?

[v15ben]

Two main things that make the standard route a bit better in many peoples' opinion:

- The time zone differences and jet lag you have to cope with are much easier if you go East. However if you are going for several months then that won't be too much of a problem.

- Many more tickets/airlines go East so you'll usually have more choice and find it a bit cheaper.

What dates and route are you looking at? I can have a look at prices and options if you want. Just email me @ [e-mail]

[MrsMiggins]

So it's mainly the jet lag then? I suppose that's logical. From my perspective I'm thinking I'd be better to do the expensive countries first and leave the cheaper ones until the end. From what I've seen money goes a fairly long way in Thailand for example.

I'm in the early planning stages just now - I haven't handed in my notice and I have to give them 3 months! So far I've got the following places on the list:

Vancouver
San Francisco
Vegas
LA
NZ
Australia
Thailand
Japan



I haven't really got a firm plan yet, and the 'running order' will probably depend on when I will be ready to go so I get the best weather - I don't want to be in Thailand during monsoon season! I also need to firm up the timings and the budget to see what's actually doable.

[FPC]

Personally, I find going West much easier to deal with for jet lag.

Also take into account that if you go West you will lose one day of your trip. If you go East then you will gain one day.

Obviously I am not saying that you will time travel, just that when you cross the International Date Line you will either lose or gain a day, depending on direction.

[Puggit]

FPC said:

Personally, I find going West much easier to deal with for jet lag.

Quite right - I suggest v15ben takes some time off selling airline tickets and starts using some

[v15ben]

...and starts taking more sleep
Must be the jet lag from going the wrong way round the world that has addled my brain

[autoholic]

We did one of these a couple of years ago. It went Thailand, Hong Kong, Oz, NZ, USA, Canada and back to US. The flights from Flight Centre were a little over 2k and by going East to West we didn't suffer from any jet lag and as has been mentioned gained a day, especially handy when you land in LA.

Each to his own I guess, but that's what we did. Trip lasted 7 months and was awesome. You won't regret a minute of it. Have a great time.

[skeeterm5]

MrsMiggins said:

Hi all,

I've pretty much decided to chuck it all and find out what the rest of the world is like, but whenever I look at round the world websites to start pricing tickets they all seem to suggest:

Asia
Aus & NZ
USA / Canada
back to UK

That seems a bit odd to me .

I always thought of it the other way round...start off with US & Canada, move on to NZ & Aus and finish off in Asia. That way you start your travels with the familiar and leave the WTF factor until you're more used to it.

What am I missing?

We did something similar a couple of years ago but started in Aus/NZ and then came back into Asia. Caused a bit of a discussion re the tickets as they seemed to want you to travel only one way. But we eventually managed to agree it.

Also, bear in mind that most rtw tickets have a mileage limit on them so you need to think a little bit about where to use your tickets. We supplemented ours with internal flighs when needed.

We travelled for a year and it was the most amazing thing we have ever done. Make good use of local post offices to send stuff back home or you end up feeling like a pack horse!

S

[dcw@pr]

FPC said:

Personally, I find going West much easier to deal with for jet lag.

Also take into account that if you go West you will lose one day of your trip. If you go East then you will gain one day.

Obviously I am not saying that you will time travel, just that when you cross the International Date Line you will either lose or gain a day, depending on direction.

you can cross the dateline as many times as you want, it makes no difference to how much time you have away

[FPC]

dcw@pr said:

FPC said:

Personally, I find going West much easier to deal with for jet lag.

Also take into account that if you go West you will lose one day of your trip. If you go East then you will gain one day.

Obviously I am not saying that you will time travel, just that when you cross the International Date Line you will either lose or gain a day, depending on direction.

you can cross the dateline as many times as you want, it makes no difference to how much time you have away

I didn't say it did!

To be clear (and I speak from experience here), say your trip is 6 months. Normally, that would be say 183 days. If you go West, you lose a day and you will have in total 182 days. If you go East, you gain and it will be 184 days.

However, if you go West some of those days will be longer than 24 hours long. IE if I fly London to New York, my 'day' will be 29 hours long.

As you say, this has no effect of how much time you have away.

[MOTORVATOR]

I'm a bit busy to take a holiday at the moment so am planning on whipping round 14 times to get a spare fortnight. Would this work?

[FPC]

MOTORVATOR said:

I'm a bit busy to take a holiday at the moment so am planning on whipping round 14 times to get a spare fortnight. Would this work?

No, HTH

[havoc]

Puggit said:

FPC said:

Personally, I find going West much easier to deal with for jet lag.

Quite right

Thirded. Medically proven that the human body can adapt to longer days easier than it can to shorter days.

[MrsMiggins]

Bloody work have just gone and offered me a great 18 month position in a new European team, so it looks like I will be doing some more local travel first...