Adding S.America or Southern Africa CHEAPLY to RTW

So right now my RTW path is as follows...

Los Angeles to China, working way down to SEA.
SEA to India
India to Middle East region
Middle East to North Africa
North Africa to Europe
Europe back to California



I'd love to find a way to include either S.America or southern parts of Africa in this trip....I don't need both, but one would be very nice. I'm finding adding either to this route is cost-prohibitive. Does anyone know of cheap transport to/from either of these continents based upon my current route? Also, if you have suggestions on how to change my route around to include either, I'm all ears...thanks!

Have you looked into an RTW ticket with one of the alliances, looks like that itinerary should fit the rules to include South America?

I have looked into that a bit. In particular, I've checked out the Star Alliance options. It seems that even with this, it still makes the ticket pretty expensive; around 4k.

I've reserached all segments of my travel (air and overland) from Los Angeles, to every destination on my list, and back to LA, and came in at $2,100. It seems that adding either Africa or S.America will add about 800 or so to this 2,100 dollar figure.

Do you know of any RTW passes that come in around 2,500 or so..and hit all the areas I'm looking? I haven't been able to find anything personally...

When I did my RTW originating city made a difference in the price. Starting my trip in London saved $1200 over starting in Toronto & I could make my way to London for $500 or less depending on deals at the time.

I also found One World Alliance fitted my itinerary best & American Airlines had the cheapest rates on fees & taxes. However that was over 2 years ago & pricing has changed a lot, just a matter of keeping on researching, pricing & if you find a good price book it as ti might change tomorrow.

Good luck.

How about an overland loop from North Africa heading southwards and then back up the other coast to Europe?

Mama-to-many wrote:How about an overland loop from North Africa heading southwards and then back up the other coast to Europe?

Because practically speaking such a trip would be more time than I think the OP wants to bargain for.

I went to South Africa on my first rtw trip, went down from Europe and then back home to the Americas. Second trip I went from Nairobi to Hong Kong- all of these legs were US$500-800 as I recall because I was ok with transferring in the Middle East, and airlines like Qatar, Egypt, Ethiad, Emirates etc sell cheap tickets to people to transfer through there (I'm not sure if they're much cheaper once you're *there* and a captive audience). Once you're on the continent Ethiopian Air does the job well too... so yeah, in conclusion, I don't think finding a decently priced flight from a place like Cairo to Johannesburg is at all unreasonable.

South America gets a lot harder because there's so little demand for any flights not going through North America, plus I really don't see how it would fit into your travels as well. Seeing as you're California based though it shouldn't be too hard to get down there at a later date (especially when compared to southern Africa), so I vote save it for later.

Thanks for the feedback. I've been finding some pretty decent flights from Cairo to Johannesburg. (around $400ish).

My question now is...is there a popular route, or mode of transport (other than air) to take me from Jburg back up the western coast of Africa and on to Morrocco?

I've never heard of one because Angola and DR Congo are in the way and tend to put a cork on any such plans. Safety/crime aside the visas are incredibly difficult to obtain, and the roads are known to be awful even by African standards.

That said I will freely state that by the time you're in that part of the world it would be a crime to just stick around Jo'burg as it's not a great city (not much touristy stuff to do, the crime rate makes you paranoid) but I would highly recommend going overland from Jo'burg to Cape Town at a bare minimum- gorgeous scenery, amazing people, and all around awesome. Cape Town is perhaps the loveliest city in the world too... I spent about three weeks doing that but easily could've spent twice that length.

From there it's very popular to head up to Vic Falls via Namibia and Botswana, and the option from there is either continue on north to Nairobi (and even beyond) or loop back to Jo'burg. The Namibian desert and isolation really is something, and the Okavango Delta is one of the coolest places I've been... and Vic Falls speaks for itself. I hear Mozambique is neat too.

Also not sure about where exactly you're planning to go in Europe, but it might be better to just head down from Spain via the ferry? I can't imagine the flights are particularly straightforward.

Thanks for the tips. After posting, I did some more research. I think I would be much better off visiting eastern Africa. My trip is like this..

Istanbul down into the Middle East, ending in Cairo. From there, I'd like to make it down to S. Africa, before making my back up the eastern part of the continent. I'd like to see Zanzibar if possible, and Ethiopia.

I'd like to end my African section of the trip in Morocco, before taking the Ferry to Spain and moving on to the rest of Europe.

Sounds like the plan is coming along!

I'm not certain of your timescale, but just want to point out that the utter fastest I've heard of folks getting from Jo'burg to Nairobi is one month, probably two weeks more to get up to Addis, but these are the overland truck companies who do some seriously long drive days (sometimes 12+ hours even). Most of that happens getting across Zambia to Lake Malawi and then racing up to Zanzibar in order to maximize time at those chill spots. Just mentioning it to give you an idea of time frames involved, obviously if you do it with public transport I'd budget twice that time.

Myself I decided I wasn't interested in the Zambia/Malawi part when there's Zanzibar to explore, and I was so right Backpacker bases are either Kendwa or Nungwi, both to the north of the island but are unfortunately lurching quickly towards overdevelopment

Another suggestion is because travel times are so long and often roads are so awful in East Africa don't overlook the network of budget airlines popping up in this part of the world. I flew from Zanzibar to Arusha in about an hour with Fly540 for ~US$90 when the ferry+bus took 14 hours and ~US$70, so I was pretty ok with that.

Thanks for the info. Would it be a complete sin to skip South Africa on this trip? I'm not exactly rushed for time, as I have no schedule to abide by (just a budget), but it seems like SA is so far out of the way.

Would just making it down to Zanzibar, Kenya, and Ethiopia be a solid trip?

Also, since you've been to Zanzibar, how is it? What's it like there? From all I've read it seems like a place I'd really enjoy visitng, and also, somewhere I don't know if I'll ever make it back to.

I wouldn't worry about skipping South Africa, East Africa is definitely a solid trip on its own!

Zanzibar was a rather neat place as it's definitely a mix of anyone who's ever traveled the coast- African but with definite Indian influence, Stone Town is a neat place to wander a day or two and it definitely felt like one of those places characters in James Bond movies and such meet up. I didn't see too much of the rest of the island beyond there and Nungwi/Kendwa to the far north which is sorta the backpacker beach, because as a solo traveler I wasn't interested in say the East Coast where all the honeymooners go. And there are definitely a high number of package tourists coming in from anywhere you go- as I said earlier I think even the north is changing quite a bit as a result, and in even a few years down the road I'm not certain if I'd jump to go back considering the direction they were going unfortunately.

Example, Zanzibar was the first and only place I've ever been where there were "beach boys" who would come up and claim undying love for me. (One told me he'd been in love since he saw me three days before, I said that was very flattering but I'd arrived one day before sort of thing!) The reason is there are a surprising number of Italian women in particular who will come alone and then basically pick up a "boyfriend" for the week- something that has happened on the Kenyan beaches for quite some time apparently, but is a new development in Zanzibar and the guys who do it are non-locals (female prostitution on the other hand isn't really known because the locals are predominantly Muslim). And while it was never threatening at all it was just plain weird!

So yeah now is probably the time to go because one or two such encounters are more funny than anything else, but probably doesn't brood well for what it will be like in ten years time.

Have you been working with an agent when crafting your RTW trip? I am a writer for BootsnAll, and I'm not sure if you've looked at the RTW tickets we offer, but we do have people that can sit down with you and give you a hand to try to craft the exact trip you're looking for. If you play around with our trip planner and submit an itinerary, you can get hooked up with a person to talk to about your trip. Check it out!

http://www.bootsnall.com/tripplanner.shtml

And enjoy the continued planning. Sounds like you have an epic trip planned!

seabass43 wrote:Have you been working with an agent when crafting your RTW trip? I am a writer for BootsnAll, and I'm not sure if you've looked at the RTW tickets we offer, but we do have people that can sit down with you and give you a hand to try to craft the exact trip you're looking for. If you play around with our trip planner and submit an itinerary, you can get hooked up with a person to talk to about your trip. Check it out!

http://www.bootsnall.com/tripplanner.shtml

And enjoy the continued planning. Sounds like you have an epic trip planned!

If I'm not mistaken BNA uses Air Treks, have run most of my trips by them, never had them come within $1,000 of the best price I found doing the planning myself. On my RTW they were around $2,500 more than my price a One World RTW booked through American Airlines.

Just beware of using Qantas for any segments as they refused to honor my booking in a 30 day period.