track our trek

we've spent a few months now researching our transportation options. after lots of deliberation, we've decided to book around-the-world tickets with the oneworld airline alliance. what's that? (we didn't know either before we started this whole thing.) there are several international airline alliances made up of 6-10 member airlines and their affiliates that offer different round-the-world airfares! some of them have set prices based on number of miles travelled up to a maximum; others have set rates based on number of continents visited and a number of flights within each continent.  we picked oneworld (www.oneworld.com) because they offer a fare that's based on number of continents, not maximum miles. - 39,000 miles may sound like a lot, but we discovered that miles quickly add up when you're making long cross-ocean and cross-continental flights! www.staralliance.com is another option we looked at, but their fares are miles based.

we considered trying to hunt for the cheapest flights to each destination and buying individual one-way tickets to maximize our flexibility (what if we change our minds somewhere along the way??) - but there's almost no chance that we could fly so many places as cheaply as with the oneworld fare. and ultimately, we only have to know all of the cities we want to fly through - not dates - in order to book the tickets. so we can wing it in most places as long as we eventually make it back to the airports on our itinerary to move to the next spot.

so then comes the task of deciphering the terms and conditions! no small feat, let me tell you! we think we've got it sorted out enough to get us most of the way around the world. with our 4 flights per continent up to a maximum of 20 total flights, our current itinerary is getting us through asia, australia/new zealand, africa, europe, south america to somewhere in central america...then we're on our own from there...jokes! don't worry! that's not as alarming as it may sound. we plan to do quite a bit of rail/bus/ferry/foot travel between flights to see far flung and off-the-beaten-path places  throughout the trip. so it's no big deal if the last part of the trip's a little loose. after all, we don't know where we'll want to call home next, so leaving it open-ended seems pretty appropriate.