Hello travel experts, I am looking for some advice please. I will be taking my wife and two children (age 10 and 12 at the time), on a RTW trip starting in late January 2015. I have a rough itinerary so far but I am looking for advice on special locations I might have missed and methods of travel and/or places we should stay. I have no idea yet about how to travel across the Europe.....rail pass, car, tickets as needed??? Here is our current plan running from Late January until the end of July. Detroit to Costa Rica (2 weeks) to Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Bali, Philippeans, Japan, Korean, (Thailand and Vietnam??), Sri Lanka, Turkey, (then across the Mediterranean to Portugal), then inland through western Europe to Austria, North to Denmark and then finishing in the UK.
Like all families doing this we are on a budget - I am most worried about Europe for cost. Should I try and rent a home in a smaller town and take trains to cities for day trips or stay in city hotels. Also how to I travel across the Mediterranean? Do I take ferries using a Europass or is there a better way? Our main purpose for the trip but we also as Canadians we want our children to see how many people in the rest of the world live. We are planning on doing some missions/building/teaching in Costa Rica and somewhere in South-East Asia. Less than two years left to plan so.....ideas?
RTW Trip with family
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Welcome to Fodors Owen. What a wonderful opportunity for your family. You will probably get some response here -- but the Travel Tips forum is the slowest board on Fodors. Relatively few people read/post here.
I would break your questions geographically -- re-post the Europe topics on the Europe Forum, the SE Asia, Tahiti/NZ/OZ on the Australia & the Pacific forum, etc. Also maybe post on the Air Travel board since there are a couple of real experts about booking RTW air tickets.
One tiny suggestion about "crossing the Mediterranean," which looks like Turkey to Portugal. There may be cruise ships (not my area of expertise) but budget airlines are the cheap, fast solution in Europe. Portugal, by the way, is not a Mediterranean country.
It's far too early to shop ticket prices; in two years some of the small lines may not be flying. www.skyscanner.com and www.whichbudget.com will show you current choices and prices but the big airlines have been forced by competition to offer low prices on shorter routes too. Asia has acquired budget lines too.
I love trains and the basic source of knowledge is www.seat61.com. My inexact rule of thumb is that it will be cheaper and easier to fly when the train ride is more than six hours. Another basic: On both long-distance trains and inter-city flights in Europe, the earlier the ticket is bought the cheaper the price will be. Good luck.
Thanks JanisJ. I will repost parts of this post on other forums. Cheers
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