My (Next) Dream RTW Trip

Week 44 of the Indie Travel Challenge asks, if money were no object, what would be your dream one-year round-the-world trip?

Well, I’m of course on a one-year round-the-world trip right now. I’m not certain I’d call it a dream come true, although I suppose it should be. We’ve had some rough patches though, so it’s not been quite all I dreamed. However, it is still really awesome.

It doesn’t, however, encompass everywhere I want to go. Someday I would hope to do another trip, one that hits a lot of the areas we’re missing. Here are the places I really want to go.

South America

Iguazú Falls, by Phillie Casablanca on Flickr

There are 12 countries in South America; I know them all thanks to a lot of drilling in high school Spanish class. Since I speak Spanish (at least a little), South America could be a great place to go. I am especially interested in Iguazú Falls and Machu Picchu, though there are so many other places in South America to explore. I would like to do South America overland for about 6 months.

Galapagos Islands

Wanna play with me?, by mtchm on Flickr

The Galapagos Islands would warrant a 2 week-cruise on this no-expense-barred trip.

Antarctica

Antarctica at its finest, by HamishM on Flickr

Who doesn’t want to go to Antarctica? I could take a cruise starting in Ushuaia, Argentina to see that captivating land of ice. This would take about 2 weeks.

 Easter Island

Easter Island Moai, by Ndecam on Flickr

I’d like to see those big heads for myself! About a week on Easter Island should do it.

South Pacific Islands

Fiji, by Light Knight on Flickr

We’ll give a month and three weeks to island hopping in the Pacific. Top places I’d like to see are Fiji, Samoa, and Palau. This gets us through 9 months of the trip.

Australia

Uluru Sunset, by Mark Wassell on Flickr

One month to see Australia is tragically short, I know, but if we’re going to just go for a year there have to be sacrifices. Plus, with unlimited funds, we can fly around the country as much as we want.

India

Farewell India – The Taj Mahal, by Stuck in Customs on Flickr

India is another place that can be hardly seen in a month, but we shall definitely try.

South Africa

Sunrise, by Arno & Louise Wildlife on Flickr

We’ll round out this epic journey with a month in South Africa, to do plenty of adventure sports and see some awesome wildlife.

This would be an amazing Southern-Hemisphere focused itinerary that would be incredibly expensive. I was deliberating about leaving off India and going back to New Zealand for a month instead, but I decided to make it all new places for this dream trip. Of course, there’s yet more places I would like to go in the world. But if I dream big about all the places I want to go, especially the expensive ones, these are what comes to mind.

Who knows, maybe you’ll see me going on this very trip someday!

What’s your dream one-year RTW trip?