On Going Round the World and Needing Some Advice

[danieldwilliam]

My lovely wife and I are planning a round the world trip next year.  It started out as a plan to go and visit my brothers in Australia. When I remembered that you could go to Australia via the USA and realised we could fit in a visit to MLW’s best friend and my spiritual twin in Oregon the trip rapidly became a round the world excursion to visit various friends, relatives and well wishers.

The proposed route is

New York

Portland, Oregon

New Zealand

Sydney

Adelaide

Home.

Ideally I’d like to avoid any flights longer than about 8-9 hours on account of having a four year old as a travelling companion.  I think we can do – get on plane, have some food, sleep for six hours, wake up, have some food, get off plane. But I don’t think long periods of being awake on a plane would be fun for anyone.

So – a question. Or two.

Is there anywhere we can break the journey between Portland and New Zealand?  How practical is a stop over in Hawaii?

On the way back, where is good to stop over with a small child and a teenager?

Comments

[fiendish-cat.livejournal.com]

No idea how practical it is, but Hawaii is lovely. (Though Honolulu is not it's best part.)

Coming back: well I lived in HK for six years, so I'd recommend there ;-) Teen will love the shopping. Lots of countryside and beaches as well though. And fun things like getting onto ferries to visit outlying islands. Plus heaps of temples and other more trad things. In fact a lot of the fun of HK is the juxtaposition of the very traditional up against the very modern. And trams. (There's also Disneyland if that kind of thing appeals.)

Singapore is also good though, and less frenetic. If you have a bit more time than just a one night stopover I'd recommend going up into Malaysia - go up into the hills to the tea plantations.

Personally I wouldn't stopover in Dubai or elsewhere in Middle East if I could help it. Though day trip out into the desert might be fun. And I might make an exception if Oman were the proposed stopover place.

Air New Zealand do some pretty good round the world tickets. (And serve delicious wine.)

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this. Very helpful.

Hawaii looks do-able. Air New Zealand fly there as part of their Round the World ticketing offer. But they also go through the Cook Islands which might be even more fun. In any case the plan would be to only stop off over night mid-Pacific, mainly to avoid jet lagging a toddler.

When I first went out to Australia at the age of 10 we went through Honolulu but only to refuel.

Disney Land in Hong Kong is a good shout. The 15 year old daughter might go for that plus a bit of shopping. Although, again, we’re only planning to touch down for a day or so, so we might be better off spending the day seeing Hong Kong and going to Euro-Disney next year. Singapore also sounds lovely.

We have some friends in Abu Dhabi so we might pop in to see them. Mainly, because it would be nice to see them but being able to stay with friends keeps the cost down and means we can extend the holiday or go and do something lovely. To be honest I’m not mad keen on stopping off in the middle east on its own merits. I’ve spent some time in a desert in Australia, not a great fan of deserts. Or people who live in deserts. The wind makes people a bit odd in my experience. If places like Dubai weren’t on the route home at a convenient distance they wouldn’t make my short list of stop overs.

[fiendish-cat.livejournal.com]

There's also Ocean Park in Hong Kong. Which has fun swimming pools (the kind with wave machines). And roller coaster. And pandas.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

In Hong Kong you can see PANDAS.

[fiendish-cat.livejournal.com]

In six years living there and numerous trips back and forth both before and after I never went to see the pandas. Maybe next time.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

It would be the first thing I did, even before clothes shopping and Stanley Camp.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I can see pandas in Edinburgh.

You can see pandas in Edinburgh.

We keep them next to the penguins.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Some pandas =/= enough pandas.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Would all the pandas in the world be sufficient?

Next to penguins?

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

No, there aren't enough.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

That’s because they are a fundamentally ridiculous animal.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I think mostly it is because they won't have sex, which might equate to the same thing in your book.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

It’s not just the not having sex.

They’re bears, with the digestive tract of a meat prefering omnivore but they attempt to live on bamboo so lacking in nutrients that they basically can’t live close enough to each other to see each other, let alone have sex.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

But they're so pretty.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

That’s camoflage so they can creep up on unsuspecting stands of bamboo and tear their hearts out.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Just like cats. Oh, no, wait.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

A lot like cats.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Cats are somewhat better adapted for survival.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Not if I catch them crapping my garden they're not.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I'd be very surprised to learn that's true.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Who’d win in a fight?

Dan with an air rifle vs a cat.

Next round – winner of round 1 vs a fully grown panda.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I would bet doubly on the cat, because (a) I don't believe you'd do it, and (b) you'd have to be a pretty darn good shot. Cats move fast and with cunning.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

How likely I am to do it is a function of how likely the Captain is to find cat mess in his garden, contract toxoplasmosis and go blind.

No one is that agile when they are taking a dump and I only have to get lucky once.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Even though it's against the law?

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

As Legal Realist, specifically in this instance a German one, it’s only against the law if you get caught, tried and convicted.

I would not want to hurt the hypothetical cat and would take steps to avoid having to do. There are a range of non-lethal counter-measures (few of which work on pandas).

I should not have to supervise my son in his own garden more closely than the owner of the cat is supervising it.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I don't think this conversation can go anywhere good so let's stop it now.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Okay.

[fiendish-cat.livejournal.com]

Ack - grocer's apostrophe. Can't believe I did that. I hang my head in shame. (And blame autocorrect.)