360 in 365. That was the original name of our around the world trip. It ended up being 493 degrees in 404 days–not the same creative ping.
Planning
Even though for decades I’d dreamed of traveling around the world, we ended up doing it rather spontaneously, with only 6 weeks from decision to boarding the plane. We started out our journey on June 9, 2015. We had nothing planned other than one way tickets to Costa Rica, and a one week condo booking in Jaco, Costa Rica. That’s it. We planned the entire trip on our smartphones as we went. Had I known how manageable it would be, we’d have done it sooner.
Duration
Trip lasted 404 days. We would have traveled longer, but Cali had a robotics camp in Miami she was determined to get back for.
Distance
We traveled over 53,000 miles over land and water, by plane, fast trains, slow trains, car, boat, ferry, double decker buses, with side jaunts on horses, scooters, ATVs, and rafts.
We went 493 degrees of longitude around the world. We started on the West coast of Costa Rica looking across the Pacific to Australia, went around the world to Sydney, Australia. From there we looked across the Pacific toward Costa Rica, and turned around and headed back. Technically we were further west when we were in Houston, so I made calculations from there. We will have traveled 493 degrees around the world until we hit the Pacific, turned around and came back.
Countries
We experienced 32 different countries: Costa Rica, Panama, Canada, Great Britain, France, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, China, India, Singapore, Italy, Greece, Iceland, Monaco, Vatican City, Macedonia (FYROM), Albania, Montenegro, Germany, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria, and various locations in the USA.
School
During our travels we had an 8th grader and a first year University student on board. Between the two of them they completed 17 online high school and university level courses. Much to our surprise, they accomplished more than had we stayed home and been part of the traditional school system.
Airfare
People often ask, so I will tell you up front. We spent US$3,765 per person on airline tickets. We only traveled on well known, well established airlines such as Emirates, Qantas, Air France, Singapore Airlines, AirAsia, and Air Transat.
