Tickets, get your tickets!

So apparently you need to buy tickets to go anywhere! We had budgeted approximately $20k for airline tickets for the 4 of us. That was the estimate we had arrived at based on our review of various websites, including some "world traveller" sites. It was now time to meet with a travel agent to discuss airline tickets. It was very exciting to actually sit down with a travel agent and talk about the trip - it made it more real somehow, because all our rsearch until then was done at home on the internet! Also, the fact that they had a huge map of the world on their wall was very cool - we got up and mapped out the trip on the big map!

The agent said the world travel tickets start at approximately $4k per person, not including taxes. You get 26,000 miles of air travel with that type of ticket. Then he suggested we look at one of the major airlines to map out a basic route and then plan side trips. To make a long story short, this is the plan we came up with:

We could fly British Airways from Montreal to Beijing (through London), and return from Delhi to Montreal (again through London). This would be the main trip. We then book flights from Beijing to Hanoi, Hanoi to Bangkok and Bangkok to Bangalore (India), using regional airlines. Flights from Hanoi to Bangkok are $40 per person! You can't even get a bus ticket for that here. Then, once we fly from Delhi to London, we make another side trip to Bucharest, and return from Warsaw. We will probably rent a car in Bucharest and return it in Warsaw. That way we can do the eastern european leg of the trip by car. This scenario ends up costing us approximately $3,000 each, including taxes! Now that is great news! We get to save some money on flights - woohoo! And we can book all our flights right here in Ottawa, with the flexibility to change dates if we have to. We'll have to wait until late January or February 2008 for next year's ticket schedules to be released though.

Going through London is also exciting because we will have a chance to stop over for a few days and do some sight seeing. We may even get to visit some relatives in the area. Maybe drop in on the Queen if she's in town, and have some tea!