Around the World- Flights

Finding flights to take us around the world? Sounds exciting. Sounds expensive. Sounds a little daunting. This would be my 3rd ’round the world’ flight ticket and let’s just say, the 3rd time is the charm.

“The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.”- Tony Robbins

My first ’round the world (RTW) ticket was purchased through a travel agent. Shortly after graduating from college, this RTW trip sprouted from the desire to travel the world with my then-boyfriend. The itinerary was mostly his idea, so I don’t remember having to do much in the way of planning out stops. A couple of months out from that trip, and a good old spidey sense revealed some infidelity and the prompt change of dates so as to not be in the same place at the same time. God forbid!

Regardless, I will say that the support of a travel agent was indispensable back then. By memory, it was fairly easy to change dates without penalty, so long as I didn’t change the destination. Keep in mind, this was before the days of having internet on your phone, when most of us traveled without a laptop and with many more challenges to communication than we have now.

Just go!

While this post isn’t about whether to use a travel agent or not, I do believe that a good travel agent is an amazing ally and someone to have on your team. One of my dearest friends is a travel agent, and she is a badass to boot. We have had many adventures together, she makes me laugh harder than a hyena and I would recommend her to anyone!!

This time, I decided, along with my hubby, to string together a series of one-way tickets. My absolute favorite tool for kicking off this process is Google Flights. I love how they display all the date/ price options in an easy to follow manner. For example, our first leg flight from Liberia, Costa Rica (LIR) to Helsinki, Finland was found using Google Flights. I would NEVER in a million years thought that it would be cost-effective to fly from Costa Rica to Finland but our ticket priced out at a little under $600 each, one-way. The winning airline? Turkish Airlines. With a long enough stop-over in Istanbul to see some sights for a day. That’s what I call a bonus city! We never planned on going to Turkey, but the airline worked out the best route, cheapest price, and we get to explore something very different!

“Of all the books in the world, the best stories are found between the pages of a passport”- Anonymous

For the moment, we have planned just our Liberia, Costa Rica to Helsinki, Finland leg, our Marrakech, Morocco (RAK) to Athens, Greece (ATH) leg and our ATH to Singapore leg.

Why on earth did we choose to do it this way? Well, to be honest, it was a simple case of going down the rabbit hole whilst researching the cheapest ways to get to Singapore from Europe! We discovered Scoot Airlines, owned by Singapore Airlines. Their prices? Astonishingly good. A direct, one-way flight from Athens to Singapore ran us $850 USD for the three of us (around $280 each). This includes 20kg (44lb) of checked, and 10kg (22lb) of carry-on. Not bad!

Having a good friend who is a pilot has taught me a few things. One biggie, especially considering my hubby is deathly afraid of flying… is how certain countries have a generally very poor airline maintenance system. Scoot Airlines is owned by Singapore Airlines- one of the best airline companies in the world, if not THE best. We flew Singapore Airlines from Newark to Singapore back when they offered it to the regular peasant-folk and it was a dream. Our pilot friend says Scoot is a huge company, really well run, they pay their pilots generously and have a great safety and service record. Bottom line is, we feel confident to fly Scoot, and we will update you on our experience when the time comes!