The Plan

So, we're taking a trip around the world!  We've been pondering about it for about a year now and it is still hard to believe we're actually gonna do this.  So how did we come up with this idea of 'Around the world - no planes'?     

Last spring our nephew, Grant, was signing up for frequent flier accounts for his upcoming corporate travel and he sent us a link about a guy who traveled around the world using his frequent flyer points.  We thought that was a great idea, but we have traveled enough for work over the years to learn to avoid airports if at all possible.  However, it sparked a crazy idea in Brian's head (he has these a lot, I've learned to embrace them..you never know when it's gonna be a good one!). He wondered if a person could travel around the world only by land and sea...no planes.  You know, actually travel and experience places you wouldn't normally go, not just seeing the airports and big cities?

But how would we travel acrosss the oceans? Would we have to book a passage on a cargo ship as a deck hand or find a gig as a yacht cook? Then we discovered about repositioning cruises.  Every year, in the spring and fall, cruise lines reposition their ships from one destination to another, depending on where the best cruise weather will be.  Most are 14 days long and you get to encounter a few out-of-the-ordinary destinations mixed in with long stretches at sea.  So, this was our starting point - it looks like it was possible.  The next question was, "Are we going to do it?" 

Yes.  Well at least we're going to try.  We're retired, traveling is what we enjoy doing with our life (when we can pull ourselves away from awesome Colorado).  While we are still young enough to WANT to do it...let's do it!

So now the deep dive into the planning phase....  First, where do we go and how long do we stay in each city/country?  Our timeline was already somewhat determined by the ocean-crossing cruises scheduled on both ends of our trip.  Then it was a matter of figuring out how to get from where the Pacific cruise finished in Shanghai to where the Atlantic cruise started in Rome. Plug in a Trans-siberian train trip between Beijing and Moscow and the major legs were set.  Connect the remaining dots and we've got our plan.

Here's our plan in map form, we leave Sept 5th...
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zcjqrXhYNcV4.kSg6E2FYmNuE