The Wanderings of busman7

Had to modify the title as was getting a lot of spam from travel agents LOL

Although planning an RTW must be done personally with hours of research there comes a point when a good travel agent can be of immense help in pulling it all together & arranging the tourist visas that need to be acquired before leaving. “Wings & Waves” in Lindsay is one such agency + they can supply RBC insurance.

Last week we pretty much got it together with the rail portion in Scandinavia & Russia. The major concern was doing all the travel I wanted & still arrive in Kathmandu in time for the last trek to Lhasa on Oct 24.

I was also advised to book the flights found on different sites ASAP as prices were better than the agent had on his booking site. This was good advise as when on returning home to book them I found that “Flight Network” which 2 weeks previously showed 4 flights from Toronto to Iceland on Aug 21 at a very good price now only had 2. When trying  to book the one I wanted on Lan it wouldn’t go through. Upon calling was informed the flight was full but there was 2 seats left on another one with 2 stops, it was either book that one or wait another week for the good price again so it is now booked.

It appears with the economy the way it is when you find a good price for your destination book it before it disappears.

Also found that my super cheap price from Nuuk to Copenhagen doubled when all the taxes & surcharges were added in but still not a bad price.

All is pretty well set now for the first months only have to wait until 45 days to buy the Russian tickets. On good thing is that the Scandinavian rail pass I am using is good for 5 days travel in 2 months so I can use it in Denmark upon arrival from Greenland on my way to Amsterdam.

Schedule is a bit tighter than I like with not much room for spur of the moment changes until Tibet but will make up for that in SE Asia. Just hope that the fact my first flight is on Air Canada (did I mention that I hate that airline) doesn’t jinx the whole trip.

This is the plan Aug 21 AC to Montreal, AA to New York City, Iceland Air to Iceland   YYZ-YUL-JFK-KEF  then my original itinerary to Oslo.

Sept 14  tour Oslo

”     15  train t Stockholm                                 7 1/2 hrs

”     16  tour Stockholm

”      17-18   train via Lapland to Helsinki       26 1/2 hrs

”      19  train to St Petersburg                          7 1/4 hrs

”      20-21  tour St Petersburg  midnight train to Moscow  8 hrs

”       22-27  Trans Mongolian to Ulan-Bator  102 hrs

”       28  tour Ulan-Bator

”       29  Trans-Mongolian return to Ulan-Ude    17 hrs

”       30-Oct 3  Trans-Siberian  to Vladivostok     64 1/2 hrs

Oct 4  Vladivostok

”       5-7  Ferry to Fushiki Japan

”       8  train to Tokyo

”       9-12  tour Japan

”        13  NRT-DEL  on JAL   8 hrs

”        14-23  tour Delhi, Taj Mahal etc & make my way to Kathmandu

”         24-31  trek Kathmandu – Lhasa

Nov 1   Wing it for 5-6 months China & SE Asia

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at 09:56 and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.