Here is a marked up map showing a satellite view of the itinerary for my 5 week “About the World Trip – 2013”, scheduled to begin in one week (if I can get my passport back in time with my Russian visa):
1. Flight from Dallas, Texas thru Paris to Helsinki, Finland
2. Flight from Helsinki to Bangkok, Thailand
3. Return to Helsinki
4. From Helsinki to Paris, France
5. From Paris thru St Petersburg to Ekaterinburg, Russia
6. Bus to Chelyabinsk, Russia
7. Flight thru Moscow to St Petersburg, Russia
8. Flight to Paris, France
9. Train to London, England and on to York, England
10. (Train to London) then Flight back to Dallas, Texas
Featured Book by Ray Else
Our Only Chance: An A.I. Chronicle
A different kind of Frankenstein.
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Categories: foreign travel, travel
Books and Travels 
I hope your travel documents arrive timely 🙂
Did you buy some sort of special round the world ticket?
Elizabeth, I started out looking at round-the-world tickets, then variations there-of. What I found was the cheapest way to do this kind of trip (which could have been round the world but I decided to be “about the world instead” with the hope to do a similar trip in another part of the world next year), is to find a hub city within a certain world region, where one can get cheap one-way flights to countries around it.
Specifically for this trip though, I had enough AA mileage for a one way trip to Europe for almost free, and last year I got a United Airlines credit card deal for enough award miles that I could get a one way trip back from Europe for very cheap.
Then I talked my company into paying my round-trip airfare from Saint Petersburg to our software lab in central Russia, a win-win as I wanted to visit that part of Russia and while there I can contribute to the lab efforts.
The three biggest cost busters have been:
1) As things worked out, I had to pencil Paris in for 2 visits, as neither of my writer friends were going to be in town when my brother wanted to be there, so I scheduled a return trip (coming back from Russia) to be able to spend time with them
2) My love of crystals and mines — when I saw there was a Ural Minerals tour I couldn’t say no, even though the cost was high – 3 days for $1,500 (car, driver, interpreter, hotel, meals and 1 night camping in the mountains)
3) My love of fiction writing – when one of my Paris friends mentioned the weekend Literary Festival in York, again I couldn’t say no – though again my wallet said ouch – $800 (get to meet a publishing house editor and an agent of my choosing to discuss my writing [I chose Picador UK editor Francesca Main and UK literary agent Lorella Belli]; attend several sessions on fiction writing Saturday and Sunday; and attend meals with many writers, agents, editors and book doctors)
Thanks for the map Ray, we are all enjoying it. I’m going to hang it up and trace your trip. It was good to see you at Dos Charros. Sorry I was out of it. Between Bailey and the Booster shot I was running on low energy. I hope the while blood cells start behaving soon. Thank you so much for the fruit. I had to fight Bailey for some Blackberries. She took the biggest strawberry too. I enjoyed more of it today and have some left for tomorrow. Good Treat!
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Im patiently waiting for your new travel stories! Be careful & have fun 🙂
The kids already miss you!
Thiis is a great post