Monday, September 7, 2009

Round the world tickets and travel tips for other wannabe nomads

Preparation for the trip has been a bit of a whirlwind but there are a few key areas we spent time researching that are worth passing along.
  • Around the world tickets: After hours of research, I’m certain that the best, most underpriced deal in the airline industry is the OneWorld around-the world award (OneWorld is the alliance that includes American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, etc). Here are the details. Our ticket includes 16 separate flights and almost 35,000 miles of travel all for less than 200,000 frequent flyer miles each. Obviously you need to have the miles, but if you do, this is an amazing deal.
  • Communications: Skype. We plan to speak to family and friends primarily on video chat and use the VOIP service to make any other calls we need along the way. I put my mobile service on “temporary suspend” status for the duration of our trip but based on our experience so far, it seems worthwhile to pay for international data service. The mobile networks have been robust everywhere we’ve been (no matter how remote), and being able to make plans on the go via email has been invaluable.
  • Medical insurance: IMG Global company came highly recommended for international travel by multiple insurance experts, and a little bit of our own research backed that up. We chose the Patriot Travel Medical Insurance product.
  • Travel Insurance: We chose ProtectAssist from Travel Guard. Covers trip cancelation, interruption and delay; emergency medical evacuation; lost, stolen, or damaged baggage; and baggage delay. Premiums aren’t based on trip duration for NY residents so turned out to be extremely cheap travel insurance for our six-month trip.

2 comments: