AROUND THE WORLD!
It had been a decades-long dream to go around the world, traveling slow for a year or more. After all that time wanting to go, all of a sudden, we were cleared for a short version of our dream trip.
Buying RTW tickets
Around-the-world (RTW) tickets with an airline partner mean picking a direction—East or West—and continuing to move in that direction until arriving back home. Purchasing a RTW ticket with an airline means using the chosen airline’s alliance partners and connected cities, but there are many partners and places to choose from and we liked that RTW travelers are in the care of the alliance if a connection is missed or a flight is canceled. And of course, there are all those accumulating air miles.
We picked a West route with American Airlines / One World Alliance. New Zealand would be the first stop, followed by our final continent–Australia! We wanted to make sure we got to the 7th continent early in the trip, just in case we were called home. This timing also lined us up for a tour of India and Nepal in February-March. Tinkering with the handy One World interactive map helped us decide to add Cambodia and Greece. We sat at our dining room table to make the purchase on a day less than two weeks before we were to leave Chicago. We stared across at each other with giddy smiles, floating hearts, and churning stomachs. In only a few minutes, it was done–and we had dates with six countries. We were GOING!
Preparing to leave
Those next 12 days were a whirlwind of arranging. We sorted through things like who would care for the house during a Chicago winter, which countries required visas and where to get them, places to stay and transportation while overseas, and what to take or leave behind. We piled up things to take…and whittled it down. By the day we left, we’d gotten our stuff into just two carry-on bags each—one overhead-bin-sized suitcase and one under-the-seat-in-front-of-you-sized backpack. On Thursday, 1/11/18, a friend dropped us at the el station for the ride to O’Hare and we were on our way.
FLYING OVER THE DEEP, DARK PACIFIC
Our flight left Chicago on a dark, late afternoon. We flew 4+ hours to LAX and after a 3+ hour layover, boarded the American Airlines flight to Auckland around 11 p.m. PST. How extraordinary things feel when you’re tired! It was like a dream, flying so far from home on that long night. Within a few minutes of taking-off, we left land behind—the lights of Los Angeles shrinking away and the dark, immense Pacific Ocean ahead.
It was an almost 13-hour flight, over nothing but deep, dark water and under a sky full of stars—stars upon stars, and a bright crescent moon smiling down on the water. We passed near small South Pacific Islands and over named trenches and ridges in the ocean, crossing the International Date Line and the Equator. We skipped a day, yet couldn’t outrun the dawn. As we descended through the gray-blue clouds, we first saw New Zealand’s North Island looking like a big, velvety piece of jade sitting in a vast sea of turquoise ink. We landed on the morning of 1/13, about 25 hours after we’d walked out our front door.
Auckland, New Zealand: KIA ORA!
Auckland bookended New Zealand for us. It was a city, much like any other city: people going to work, Starbucks, McDonalds, and traffic—though they drive on the left. We stayed around Queen Street in the heart of the city, near the ferry port, the Sky Tower, several parks, restaurants, and the city’s transit hubs.
Just steps from the airport’s Sky Bus stop, The Scenic Hotel let us check-in early to a bright, L-shaped room with super-fine smelling bathroom toiletries and a small kitchenette. It was a perfect place for our first two days to recover from jet lag, and figure out a few things, like:
- $1.40 NZD = $1 USD. It was going to be expensive here.
- NZ is 19 hours ahead of Chicago/Nashville. It was easier math to add 5 hours and subtract a day.
- WiFi FaceTime calls to Lucy to keep in touch every day.
Walking About
It was hot, humid summer in the Southern hemisphere, and yet, there was a giant Santa and two happy reindeer on Farmers Department Store. Everywhere we walked, we seemed to be in the shadow of the Sky Tower, a Space-Needle-type attraction from which crazy people can bungee and walk the structure’s outside rim on tippy-toes while tethered.
One rainy day, we ducked into the Occidental Bar for coffee. The place is known for its Belgian flair—the mussels and beer keep it busy later in the day. But for us that day, it was empty and welcoming with cozy red velvet curtains, old tile and wood floors, open windows, and excellent coffees. We also discovered Elliott Stables food court, a lovely selection of small restaurants (in what used to be warehouse stalls) surrounding a central dining area. Beautiful light and ambiance made us love the wide variety of tastes at reasonable prices even more. Breakfasts were mostly pastries or some combination of salmon and poached eggs on potatoes or bread. We found small food booths on the street near the hotel and they became a cheaper option for lunches.
Auckland Addendum
When we came back through Auckland a couple of weeks later, we stayed two nights high above the city at the Avani Metropolis. Our room had a balcony, a living room, kitchenette, dining area, and an in-suite washer and dryer. On our last night in New Zealand, we happily did laundry, ordered a pizza, and drank our gift-at-check-in bottle of New Zealand’s finest Sauvignon Blanc on the balcony while listening to the War on Drugs concert happening in the park below.