Thoughts Midway Through Transatlantic Journey
- We should do this more often – life is too short to not get out and explore on a regular basis. I'm realizing I've been stuck in a comfort zone doing the same old thing for too long.
- Despite my best intentions to put some focus on the blog and other personal projects I find the time cruising highly inefficient, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We are thoroughly enjoying our time on the cruise. I’m maybe getting 2 productive hours of work done in a day at sea. Its spread out in short bursts in between conversations, people watching, daydreaming, eating, and relaxing.
- For this transatlantic journey the flights were the single most expensive component of the trip. The cruise tickets cost is $819 compared to $951 for our flights. Even though we used airline miles for nearly all the flights the taxes and fees made those components the most expensive. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time trying to determine if flying with miles was going to the be the cheapest way to travel – perhaps next time we consider a big trip like this we need to spend more effort in trying to see if there is a less expensive way to travel.
- For the price a discounted transatlantic cruise definitely has to be one of the best ways to stretch your travel dollar. My wife and I are visiting Spain, Panama, and 3 Caribbean islands over 3 weeks for roughly ~$3k for the entire trip while enjoying excellent fine dining on the cruise for 2 full weeks.
- Perhaps the highlight for me during the cruise is our dinner companions. We are sitting with 2 couples - a couple in their late twenties from Germany who quit their jobs and doing a 1.5 year bike trek through Europe and South America on 20k Euros. The other couple is in their thirties from Oregon who quit their jobs and are doing a 15month trek around the world with a budget of $35k USD. Their stories have been very inspiring to me in regards to taking unconventional paths to fulfill some of their dreams.
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Comments (6)
WOW! $3K for 3 weeks trip is cheap! I am super impressed!
My husband and I spent almost $7k for only 2 weeks trip and that's in Asia (where the dollars go much farther).
Posted by Jenny | December 5, 2011 8:30 PM
Enjoy your vacation! It is very well deserved. Those other couples must have read up on the 4-Hour Work Week!
Posted by SoonerCPA | December 6, 2011 4:49 PM
Cool! I am glad you are taking a break bud you guys really deserve it! My wife and I went on a cruise for our honeymoon and I do remember how fantastic the dining is ;-) Cheers!!!
Posted by Nate | December 6, 2011 11:52 PM
Well deserved vacation. Just a quick question: Is your parent help taking care of your kid while you are away? or did you bring her along?
Posted by Steven | December 7, 2011 1:46 PM
Yes my wife's parents graciously volunteered to keep their granddaughter while we traveled. It was a very, very generous offer on their part and it sounds like she is having a great time there!
Posted by 2million | December 7, 2011 9:54 PM
2million, the other 2 couples you mentioned have really interesting stories. That seems really cool to just take a "leave" from the rat race for such an extended period of time.
Also, the 3 week international excursion for two people at $3,000 is a pretty sweet deal too.
Posted by freedom5 | December 11, 2011 11:29 PM