Last week I got my passport in the mail, making my tentative vacation plans just a little bit more real.
To break it down as clearly as possible (because I tend to ramble from time to time):
Who? just me (anyone want to join me? 
)
What? 5 weeks outside of the country I call home.
Where? New Zealand… plus 
When? late February to the end of March 2008.
Why? Because I can, and because I haven’t taken a real vacation since Jesus was a baby. 
I have been looking around for a decent price on airline tickets, I have a line on some possible accommodation while I am down there (for part of the time anyway), more tour / travel books than you can shake a stick at, and a bunch of time to make decisions on what I would like to get out of this trip.
Decisions like since I am going all that way, do I want to pit stop anywhere? Air New Zealand has an offer that allows for one stop off on the way out, as well as one on the way back. NZ is my primary goal, so I would like to spend as much time there as possible. However, with options to stop in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga or the Cook Islands… how can I say no?
The other thing I am wondering is airline options…. who should I avoid? who is “the best”? Air NZ seems like the logical choice, but Malaysia Airlines, United, Quantas, and I’m sure more than I have found so far also fly down there, with varying prices and travel times. Is it worth almost 500 dollars difference to get the trip over with in a “mere” 25 hours, or save that money to travel to a one night stop over in Kuala Lampur and “travel” for 79 hours?
Oh well, with about 4 months until I want to leave, I’m sure I’ll figure it all out.
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Awesome Al!! That’s so exciting! Wish I could offer some kind of advive but I’ve never been THAT far away. The long flight is intimidating since I’m slightly claustrophobic.
Stopping somewhere else might be an adventure.
hmmm… as luck would have it I should be off in Feb (c: Perhaps our schedules will line up….
TheGirl: I was in Japan for a student exchange way back in the dark ages (1988), but I had my brother and about 30 other people we did tour stuff with. This is definitely a first
Jon: reeeeeeeaaallly…. how very innnnnteresting. we should talk.
close to a month in NZ followed by around 5 days lying on a beach in Fiji? sounds like a plan to me!
Definitely break up the long flight, and do a different place on the way there and on the way back (if that’s how it works.) And make sure you have 37GB of photo memory
I definitely plan on having many many memory cards for my camera. I take an excepssive amount of photos to begin with, so just exponentially increase that for a trip
I think I’ll go the slightly more expensive route with Air NZ, for simplicity sake. I’ll look once more on the kuala lampur overnight stopover option, but if it involves 80 airports and 200 planes, no deal.
I’d definitely recommend the shortest flight possible… I know that sounds pretty obvious but its amazing how tiring it can be to travel across 13 timezones! If you can do a few day layover in Fiji or Solomon’s or something that would definitely kick ass