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