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.)