Now that we’ve wrapped up the bulk of the planning, I finally pulled together the numbers — and thought I’d share in case anyone else is curious.
Okay so the total hours of planning was an estimate, I didn’t actually keep track, but I actually think that 1,100 is under selling it. I figured 10 hours a week for the last two years was a pretty reasonable representation. In reality we have not worked on every week, and we did start the early conversations and research over 4 years ago. Not to mention in the last 2 weeks I’d estimate an additional 100 hours. But sure, we’ll call it 1100 hours for sake of putting the right ball park.
Our total path crosses 5 continents (North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceana). We’re already dreaming of a second sabbatical and we’ve got our sights locked on South America (and maybe Antartica?!).
When we started planning, the whole concept was to slow travel. I’ve mentioned in some of the other blog posts. We’d sit still, join a community, not constantly be exhausted by packing and unpacking and learning new neighborhoods and transit systems. Yes, well, as evident by the accommodation stats, we didn’t exactly stick to the plan. For example, in Paris, our very first spot, we stay in 4 accommodations in 10 days! I don’t know what to say… we have an Airbnb in particular neighborhood we wanted to be in, and then we wanted to get out of Paris for the weekend and stay somewhere south of the city, and then we wanted to stay at Disneyland Paris resort to really get the full experience and the last nail in the coffin was an early flight driving the need for a hotel near the airport. It really got away from us. I think by the end, we’ll have a trail of lost unpacked items across the planet, but we’ll also have a very streamlined system of packing and unpacking.
Also of note in these numbers is how expensive our accommodations came in as. We’re in Thailand for 2 months, which in part was because it was going to be so inexpensive. We were there pre-kids and I recall staying at really great places for $30 a night. That was 10 years ago, and while I do think those places still exist, I got really picky when it came to picking the places we would stay at. I researched best neighborhoods, easiest to get around, kid friendly, pools or gyms were a bonus, safe areas, looked for places with 2 bedrooms if we were there over a few days. So I guess not surprisingly, our costs reflected that. I’m also hoping the comfort and easy of our stays will reflect that as well?
While accommodations came in higher than expected, I was thrilled with our flight costs. Early on, I looked into Around‑the‑World (RTW) tickets — one‑ticket, multi‑continent passes sold by major airline alliances. They come with rules, including traveling in a single direction around the world (ex. all flights must go east). I plugged in our itinerary, which actually met all the criteria, just to see what the cost would be. The price came in at about $10,000 CAD per person. At first I thought, “No way, that’s crazy expensive.” But then I wondered if it was actually a pretty reasonable representation of what flying around the world costs — you can easily spend thousands just flying to a single destination.
Ultimately, I decided to book all the flights individually. One of the benefits is that you can use smaller regional airlines instead of being locked into one alliance. It was undeniably more work, but absolutely worth it: $4,500 CAD per person for all 16 flights. Our first flight (Toronto → Paris) was booked largely on points, which helped, but we still would have landed in roughly the same ballpark.
Also of note is our longest flight, which comes in at 10.5 hours — Tokyo to Auckland. The fact that this is by far our longest travel leg is impressive considering we’re traveling all the way around the world. That’s partly because we’re hopping east, breaking up each leg, and partly because the would‑be longest flight (Australia → Canada) is being handled by a 32‑day cruise. Since our flight costs were so low, we decided to splurge on the Air New Zealand Skycouch. These special seats turn a row of three into a couch big enough for an adult and child to lie down and sleep (at least according to the ads). I’m excited to try it, and we’ll definitely report back on how it goes.
The numbers are in, the bags are almost packed, and the adventure is about to begin. Ready or not — here we go.