August 25, 2022: I’m writing this from 30,000ft on my way to Cape Town, South Africa, where I will begin my next round-the-world trip. The idea of this trip has been in the works since I came back from the last one.

The goal of this trip is to visit the far away places that would be hard to visit on a short trip. Also, places or activities that require a certain level of fitness or ability to rough it. I came up with Southern Africa, Central Asia, India, Nepal, and Asia. I just got back from South America, so while I’d love to explore Patagonia, it wasn’t the highest on my list.

I just have the basics planned out now. The rest will fall into place depending on how I’m feeling, the state of the world, and recommendations from travelers along the way. First stop is Cape Town, South Africa. Why South Africa? Well I was looking into the best value for airline point redemption and flying from the USA to Cape Town is one of the best uses of points. Another option was flying to New Zealand with a stopover in Fiji. However, when I visit New Zealand and Australia, I would like to rent a campervan and it makes sense to have a travel buddy to split costs. Since I’m traveling solo, group tours in Southern Africa made more sense.

Please skip the next section if you aren’t interested in travel hacking. Airlines and hotels have member rewards programs. You can earn points (miles) from flying or staying at the hotel. However, you can also earn points by using credit cards that are linked to your membership number. If you are able to control your spending and pay off your credit card each month, these can be a wonderful way to earn lots of points and improve the travel experience.

American Airlines points let me book 3 flights: St. Louis to Seattle, Seattle to Doha and Doha to Cape Town. American Airlines is travel partners with Qatar and Alaska airlines. So even though I booked with American, I didn’t fly with them. This wasn’t the most direct route but it was on Qatar airlines which meant qsuites for business class. Doha also has an incredible business class lounge which I was looking forward to spending time in.

Cape Town, South Africa is very far away. It’s like flying to Europe twice. A one way economy ticket normally costs between $700-1000. That’s a lot of money. You could book that ticket with 40,000 AA miles. Or you could book a business ticket for 75,000 miles. These business class tickets range from $4,000-$10,000 so being able to book it with 75,000 American Airline miles is an incredible deal. Plus, there is no way I would ever spend that much money on flights. My whole 4 month trip should cost around $10,000. By putting most of my ordinary spending on a credit card, I work towards sign on bonuses. This doesn’t hurt my credit score and it is much easier than earning points by actually flying. I mostly use the points to book flights, especially business flights, and it saved me thousands of dollars and increased my enjoyment of travel.

It took 2 days to travel from St. Louis to Cape Town. I had a wonderful time. During my layover in Seattle, I was able to meet up with an old friend for lunch and go for a hike with my aunt. The flight from Seattle was 15 hours and went up over the North Pole. I saw the gorgeous mountains surrounding Vancouver, BC, fires burning in the arctic, and then lots of white. The flight attendants handed out pjs so of course I put them on! I had so much fun watching the flight tracker, eating food, and exploring the suite (it had a door!!) that I didn’t even watch a movie. I did read my South Africa travel guide though.

Next blog will include what I get up to in Cape Town. I’m thinking penguins and wine tasting.