World Trip – The Prequel

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Planning

It has been in the planning for some time. Too long – past it’s ‘Best By Date’, really.

Around the World – without flying!

The basic idea condensed into more than a vague theme in 2019:- 2020 was going to be the year. This is when we were to finally realise our dream of circumnavigating the world without flying.

The most difficult bits were to cross the great oceans, the Pacific and the Atlantic. Looking at many possible routes, including joining sailing vessels and cargo ships, the only sure route was to look for proper passenger ships.

The transatlantic was easy – Queen Mary 2 assumes Liner duty once a month between New York and Southampton, otherwise turning to cruise-type work.

The transpacific though was more difficult – no liners there…. The only chance was to catch a cruise ship that happened to be re-positioning from Asia to North America at about the time we needed it. After three attempts, due to Covid cancellations, we secured Queen Elisabeth to take us from Yokohama to Vancouver in late May 2023.

After that, we just needed to fill in the blanks, in-between. We wanted the flexibility to set up camp wherever we liked, but recognising that some element of planning was required, without the option of taking a flight at short notice. And determining an outline route has been a challenge.

What did we find? East and South of Turkey, there were various conflicts and ‘frozen wars’. Southern, western and eastern Egypt and countries southwards was absolutely no-go. Myanmar is in civil war. Russia – well…. Even China was to be avoided, underscored by that they are still not issuing tourist visas.

Even our potential route by rail across Central Europe to Istanbul was stymied by serious reconstruction work on the railways in Romania and Bulgaria.

Bit by bit though, we pieced together a route – unfortunately not avoiding ‘planes altogether. We decided that we needed to ‘hop’ over dangerous areas, and impassable sea routes. So, not flightless – but flight-minimum.

Getting Ready

Preparing for the journey, we dusted off our almost new rucksacks, bought in anticipation of the journey happening in 2020, but tested out in Sri Lanka in October 2019.

Also, we needed to set our affairs in order, arrange insurances, preparing the London flat and French property and grounds for our six months away, and figuring out how to get six months of living stuff in a pack to be carried on our backs.

Our first set-back was the cancellation of our sailing from Manila to Japan 2 weeks before our departure. The offer of a replacement cruise in Antarctica or the Arctic didn’t quite fit the bill.

The final week’s preparation was in France, with a fantastic visit to the Gers, a region near the western Pyrenees, where our friend (and best man at our wedding!) Richard King and his partner, Mary, held a party to celebrate his seventieth birthday.

Back at La Coste, we exhausted ourselves getting the grounds and property ready and in good order for Kirsten and Chris to visit during the summer.

During the week we became increasingly worried about the various strikes unfolding in France – SNCF rail rolling strikes, air traffic controllers’ strikes and also a massive General Strike, borne out by the cancellation of our flight back to London less than 36 hours before we were due to pick up our rucksacks and catch the Eurostar to Paris!