Itinerary

As mentioned in my introductory post, the itinerary for this trip wound up being pretty ideal for us. The basic stats:
* 94 ports
* 31 countries (ish...depending on how you want to define "country")
* 68 sea days
* 82 of the ports are new to us
* 26 of the countries are new to us

All the newness is what makes this itinerary so appealing. We're reasonably well-traveled -- six continents, 34 (I think) countries -- so having this many new countries is great. Since we're schooling the kids on the trip, sea days = school days. So the number of sea days winds up working out pretty well for a half year of schooling.

The flow of the itinerary is:
* Depart Miami and spend a few days in the Caribbean (St Maarten, Dominica, Barbados).
* Go up the Amazon to Manaus with several stops along the way.
* Brazil stops in Salvador and Rio
* Argentina and Uruguay
* Atlantic crossing with a stop at Tristan de Cunha
* Namibia, South Africa, and Mozambique
* Head across the Indian Ocean with stops in Madagascar, Comoros, Seychelles, and Maldives
* India and Sri Lanka
* Indian Ocean side of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Pacific side of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam
* Hong Kong and Shanghai
* Northernmost stop at Nagasaki
* Philippines
* Borneo -- Kota Kinabalu and Brunei
* Indonesia
* Australia for 3+ weeks, going from Western Australia around the south to Sydney
* New Zealand
* South Pacific -- New Caledonia (stability permitting), Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa
* French Polynesia
* Hawaii
* San Diego

Going east we'll be regularly losing hours but will then get them all back when we cross the date line (we get two June 10ths :) )

The itinerary has been constant since we booked, with one exception: the original itinerary had a 3-day stay in Yangon, Myanmar, which was removed due to political instability in the country. I'm sure other changes will happen. Flexibility is a key attribute for good traveling!Leggi altro