I'm trying to talk my husband into coming to Cambodia (Siem Reap) with me next year but he dreads the long (25 hours in the air) trip I told him about when I went alone in January. Can anyone recommend an airline/travel route that might shave some hours off that 25? I flew United from Bos to LA to Tokyo to Bangkok to Siem Reap. No, I haven't been to a travel agent yet, thought I would check things out first through you good people. Yes, we would consider an overnight sight-seeing stop along the way if needed but if we tried to go without "taking our time?" Thanks!

Boston to JFK, then Thai Air direct to BKK, then to Siem Reap.

What about the Thai non-stop from JFK ro Bangkok? Of course, you'll have to change planes there to a Bangkok Air plane to fly to Siem Reap, but overall it should reduce your travel time significantly.

The best I think you could do is shave it down to 2 connections instead of 3.

Boston-LA-HK-Siem Reap (on Bangkok Air).
or
Boston(early am departure)-JFK (noon departure)17 hour flight- BKK (5pm-ish arrival)- evening connection to Siem Reap

Or, Boston-LA-Bangkok-Siem Reap. There are non-stops on Thai from LA to Bangkok.

On kayak.com I found flights on Vietnam Air via Paris and Saigon (not cheap) and on Asiana via LA and Seoul. Might be worth looking into these as the TOTAL time is about 30 hours.

The first three replies have the correct answer.

DL (Comair) to JFK, then Thai via BKK. Total time (including the transfer) is 23hr 5min.

rkkwan - Thai does not fly to Siem Reap. In theory, you could connect from the JFK-BKK Thai flight with the Bangkok Airways flight at 6:10 PM though.

Returning you would take the last flight from REP at 8:05 PM arriving BKK at 9:05 and connecting with the 12:40 AM flight to JFK which arrives at 6:35 AM. From there do Jet Blue?

Quite honestly, any of these plans is just one thunderstorm away from ruining your vacation. Personally, I would not try to do the tightest connections shown here and I would favor driving to JFK over flying.

Cookie, we frequently fly from Boston to Southeast Asia and it really is a case of you can't get there from here. Getting from Boston to JFK should be easy, but it ain't. Especially with a lot of luggage.

I would suggest:

1. Continental to Newark. SQ non-stop Newark to Singapore. Singapore to Siem Reap.

2. British Air to London. London to Singapore or Bangkok. On to Siem Reap.

3. Lufthansa to Frankfurt. Frankfurt to Singapore. On to SR.

Craig - You're correct. For some reason, I was thinking about PNH. Probably because my parents are flying in there later this month.

Thanks to you all! I really appreciate this. Yes, regardless, it isn't a quick flight but in order to get him to go with me, I'm trying to find the best routes. (He has to fly constantly for his job and hates to do more than he has to on vacation time)I'm leaning towards the British Air to London maybe as he hasn't been there and we could make that our stop-over for a day or two. Anyway, thanks again to you all!

We live in Boston (actually Cambidge) and have been to BKK 5 times. The quickest way to get to BKK is Delta ti JFK and Thai to BKK. However, I just checked the Bangkok Air website and the latest BKK-Siem Riep flight is only 1 1/4 hours after the scheduleed arrival at BKK. This is too close a connection. You will either have to arrive in BKK earlier or go through another hub, e.g., Hong Kong or Singapore. However, if you are going to stay in BKK at all, the Thai Air flight is wonderful and you could just hop over Siem Riep at your convenience.

Thanks again, Actually Gpanda that flight is appealing because hubbie said if we went via BKK, he wanted to visit the Thai coastline, (making it a mini-vacation either before or after SR) so that would work too. I know there are a ton of daily flights to and from SR so I'm not worried about that at all. Thanks again, you are all so helpful!

air france direct from boston through paris and bangkok....takes one hour longer than the thai direct from NY, but has a long layover in paris, which we really liked---go into the city for the day or out into the countryside...

brit. air also direct from boston via london

or luftansa direct from bos through frankfurt...

btw--plan to come to the boston GTG on october 13???

Cookiew-if you want to go to Phuket, Thai Air has several later flights than can easily link to the JFK-BKK flight. We did this in November. Our luggage was checked through to Phuket and we did not have to clear immigration. The switch was easy.

The Air France layover is 12 hours.

Thanks for even more helpful replies- lets see how things work out for 2008! RHKKMK- I wish I could plan on the GTG but hubbie and I will have literally just gotten home from our 30th wedding anniversary trip to Italy (we got married when we were 10, hahahha) and I have to head right back out to a conference in California. This means I'll be stuck working that weekend in between. Bummer, maybe in 2008.