Who has travelled around the world?

In My Humble Opinion
1

There’s another thread about traveling around the world which made me think… I started In Hong Kong, flew to Europe, the US and on to Hong Kong where I completed my round the world trip.
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Well, that is one way of looking at it. Actually I made a trip to HK from Europe one year and another trip to HK from the US a year later. When I arrived in HK from the US I completed my journey around the world which took one year since I departed HK the year before. I had never thought of it in that way though.

That trip was traveling west all the way. But next time I travel to HK from Europe I will complete an eastabout round the world travel which started last time I left HK for the USA. hey, it makes me want to do it that way just so I can say I’ve gone round the world in both directions.

Who else has travelled around the world and how?

2

I haven’t myself, but a close friend has done in what, to me, was one of the coolest ways possible. He:

  1. Took a Greyhound from St. Louis to South Carolina

  2. Hitched a ride on a yacht with a French family across the Atlantic from Charleston, SC to Italy

  3. Instead of going to Italy, got kicked off the boat by the (largely insane) father/captain in the Azores, and ended up flying to Portugal

  4. Travelled via train through Europe, from Portugal to Turkey

  5. Travelled overland via bus, hitching, etc. through Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan

  6. Crossed the Caspian Sea via ferry to Turkmenistan

  7. Travelled overland by train, hitching, etc. through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and China

And then a year later

  1. Flew back from Beijing to St. Louis, thus completing a circumnavigation of the globe.

Me? I’ve been overseas a few times, but I’ve always returned in the direction from whence I came.

3

Uhm, it appears my numbering scheme went a bit coo-coo…there’s actually nothing missing between 3 and 5, I promise!

4

Many years ago I was an airline employee and got passes on Pan American flight numbers 1 and 2. They were round the world flights and the passes allowed me to stopover as many times as I wanted. The flight made a stop in Tasmania and for quite awhile I was the only person I knew who had traveled there. Each leg of the flight was standby so I spent more time in some places than I had planned and less in others. Given the standby circumstances, I didn’t have a concrete schedule to begin with. It was a fabulous trip - I’m going to search the internet to find out the routing that the flights took - it’s hard to remember all the stops so many years later. Oh yeah, this was pre-jet and I think the aircraft was a Boeing Super Constellation or perhaps a DC-6. You have to be extremely young to enjoy a trip like that!

5

Toronto to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Abu Dabbi, Abu Dabbi to Bangkok, Bangkok to Singapore, Singapore to Tokyo, Tokyo to Chicago, Chicago to Toronto.

Okay, so I failed to mention several months of lying on beaches, clammering over ruins, making friends and eating well, but you get the idea.

I made several more trips to Asia but never this routing again. Ever after I went West from Toronto to Asia and returned by going east from Asia back to Toronto, but I dont’ think that counts, by your OP, as going ‘around the world’.

6

[sup]May 1998[/sup] Flew from Cincinnati to New York (JFK). Continued on SwissAir Flight 123 [sub]which on a later flight crashed near Halifax[/sub] to Geneva.

[sup]Oct 1998[/sup] Flew Lufthansa from Geneva to Frankfurt.

[sup]Aug 2000[/sup] Flew Thai Airways from Frankfurt to Bangkok.

[sup]June 2001[/sup] Flew Singapore Airlines from Bangkok to Singapore [sub]the world’s best airport[/sub]. Continued on SingAir via Taipei to LAX. A couple days later flew Delta from Los Angeles to Cincinnati.

Note that I did have some other flights back and forth and out of these countries, plus other means of travel. But always continued East from one city to the next. Elapsed time almost exactly 3 years. I flew business class on all but the last flight, where I upgraded to First class. The only way to fly, especially if someone else is paying.

7

This could be long (it took me six years to do-hopefully not that long to write).

Hitch-hiked to California. Crewed a Trans-Pac as far as Hawaii. Joined the Peace Corps and served in Micronesia. Met some nice Japanese people in a tour group and was invited to Japan-went.

Traveled on regular transport to Korea. Won a freighter ticket to the Philipines in a poker game. Went up the Malay Peninsula deck passage on a Thi ferry (boat not person). Pretty much hitched around Thiland but did some buses and trains.

Could not go overland through Burma so I flew into Rangoon and traveled around the country while there and then flew into Bangladesh.

Traveled by train (second class reserved) from there to Calcutta (flew from there to Katmandu, Napal then after some time there flew down to Agra, India). Train once again to New Deli.

I got a job driving French trucks with french young people aboard from Deli to Istambul (long story here, but I had an international drivers license and they needed to be gotten out-two other drivers on each truck-pretty much drove straight through). Actually the French government wanted me (and the other drivers) to take them all the way to Paris, but I didn’t want to go that far just then. At that time, Pakistan, Afganistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey were letting people go through. We took the same route as the “Magic Bus” (if you have done any traveling, you know about them).

From Istambul took a ferry/freighter to Cyprus where I caught a flight to Isreal. After sometime there caught a flight to Greece. I traveled by ferry boat throughout the Greek islands. Then hitch-hiked up Greece to Thesaloniki where I took the Orient Express (at the time it had seen better days) from Greece to Italy through then Yugoslavia.

Hitch-hiked throughout Italy and then went to Switzerland. From Switzerland I hitchiked to France, Germany and Holland. Caught the ferry to Great Britan. I hitchiked up through England to Scotland and around Scotland. Caught the ferry to Northern Ireland. Hitch-hiked down through Ireland and then caught the ferry to England proper.

Took the ferry to Belgium went up to Holland again then Germany and got to Luxenborg. Flew from Luxenborg via Iceland to New York. Hitch-hiked from NYC to home in Colorado.

I know it sounds unbelievable, but it is true and there were quite a few young people like me at the time doing it at the time. Most went west to east, however.

While on my six-year odyssey, I worked in the following countries.

Micronesia,
Japan,
Thailand,
Nepal,
(the truck driving through the Middle East)
Isreal,
Switzerland,
Germany,
England.

I was legally employed in Micronesia and Nepal. All the other places I worked “black” (which was a term for unofficial employment).

I worked as a teacher, constructin worker, bartender, farmer, dishwasher, fish watcher, clerk in an American-style bookstore and loading-dock worker at a large department store.

I like to say the trip cost me $40 because I left home with $60 in my pocket, and when I hit my home again, I had $20.

I truly loved most of it, but I was frightned a good portion of the time also.

TV