Around the World With Starwood Hotels in 30 Days. Preface

Preface 

Many people have told me I am crazy for wanting to go around the world in thirty days.  Quite a few wonder why I do not sit and enjoy a location for a few weeks before flying on somewhere else or instead simply doing all of these trips on separate occasions.  I am not certain why I was so drawn to doing the trip in such a short time frame, but one part of the explanation lies with the fact that I have a company to run back in Seattle, Washington and Victoria, British Columbia, and while I can run it remotely to a large degree, it is certainly better that I not take too much time away from my home base.  I had initially planned on starting this trip in September 2014, right when my divorce was finalized, it seemed like a good way to get away from the life I had built over the last ten years and try to rediscover the person I was in my twenties.  In my way back youth I had been fortunate to have gone on two trips around the world with family at ten and twelve years old, each trip lasting around two months.  Then in my university/college days I went on two backpacking trips around the world at eighteen and twenty-one, with these trips lasting several months since I was studying at the University of Western Australia in Perth for six months on the first trip and on the second I was doing my Masters thesis research in Germany.  I know, I know, a spoiled life!  I have a great family and the tuition freeze days for university back in Canada and British Columbia specifically kept many of us from racking up huge student loans and still allowed for students to do exchanges with amazing schools overseas.

At any rate, I formulated my new trip with a plan to fly through Asia first, then fly to Europe and travel by train there, visiting friends and family primarily in Germany, then back to my starting point in North America.  When work pressures made September 2014 impossible I postponed the trip until April 2015.  I had decided to use up as many of my airline and hotel miles as possible to keep the costs down. Now I find myself at Vancouver International Airport ready to begin.  Technically I started at 9:05 am this morning on my flight from Seattle to Vancouver after a great UberX ride to the airport in a BMW X3, but taking the Alaska/Horizon Q400 out of the mix, from now on the planes only get bigger!  If all goes according to plan the trip should have me staying in twenty-one Starwood Hotels across eleven countries and taking twelve flights in total, from the previously mentioned Canadian made Bombardier Q400 on Alaska/Horizon, to my next flight on Japanese Airlines on their Boeing 787, a plane long tested right in front of my eyes in Seattle, and on three different Airbus A380’s on Emirates and British Airways.  I hope it makes for an interesting read for those who love travel and especially those who love SPG!