The traveled route of my world journey
Background
Somewhere along June 2013, I graduated for my bachelor Pharmaceutical Business Administration. I recently experienced an awesome internship and was determined to continue my study career. For me, it was self-evident a master’s degree was the next step, however, it required me to complete a Pre-Master’s program to eliminate my deficiencies. To make things worse, the university I applied for required me to pass a Pre-Master’s assessment. A few weeks later I failed the assessment by a few points on the Dutch subject. The master’s degree I wanted to follow was in English, but okay, the university’s logic for this part of the assessment is that you need Dutch writing skills for the Pre-Master’s program. Up until today, I feel very annoyed by their logic.
I grieved for my failure and after a few days, I regained my motivation and was determined to try the assessment again next year. So did I now decide it was time to start my world journey? Nope. I figured I would apply for a temporary job and work within that gap year and I had two cool opportunities to accomplish that. The first interview went perfect and they really wanted me for the job, but in the end, someone from within the organization got the position. The second interview, at the organization where I also worked during my internship, went flawlessly as well and I got selected for the final round, which was another assessment. Again I failed. Of course, now I was fed up, but it was clear to me I could carry out one of my life dreams.
Planning
And thus I started planning my journey in October 2013. During the job applications, I already played with the idea of a world journey and regularly visited travel blogs, reading stories about the topic. It was after the second rejection that I was sure about pursuing my dream. I had sufficient money in my savings account, I had plenty of time available and I roughly planned which countries I wanted to visit. Thus I started my search for good value around-the-world tickets. Finding those tickets is a huge pain in the ass. My route required me to pay extra, because a stop in Hawaii was expensive. In the end, I decided to book one-way tickets myself with all the different airlines.
The draft of flight scheme, the yellow dotted lines indicated a route overland
Flight itinerary
My first mapped out route ended with Fiji, after Fiji I thought it would be time to head back home. Eventually, I calculated I had enough money to extend my journey and thus the United States were included.
- Amsterdam – Singapore, 26 December, Singapore Airlines, €510
- Penang – Banda Aceh, 12 January, Firefly Airlines, €70
- Bali – Cairns, 4 March, Jetstar Airways, € 290
- Melbourne – Christchurch, 23 April, Jetstar Airlines, €185
- Auckland – Nadi, 21 May, Fiji Airlines, €235
- Nadi – Honolulu, 1 June, Fiji Airlines, €470
- Honolulu – Los Angelos, 12 June, Delta Air Lines, €300
- Las Vegas – Miami, 25 June, American Airlines, €175
- Miami – New York, 1 Juli, American Airlines, €160
- New York- Amsterdam, 15 July, Icelandair, €360
A total of €2755, but I knew I would require more money for national flights. Eventually, I ended up booking two national flights in Indonesia, another one from San Francisco to Las Vegas and changed my flight to Amsterdam to include a stopover in Reykjavik. I guess in the end I paid another € 500, while my total flight budget was calculated at €3500.
Departure
A week before my departure I had this kick-ass goodbye party with friends and family. A huge success in my opinion based on the drunk people and the things that happened that night. Beforehand I planned a cool guess-where-Maarten-starts-his-journey contest. For € 10 a person could guess two starting countries. Five euros would be donated to the KiKa foundation (Children Cancer-free Foundation). The other five euro would end up in a pot, which would go to the winner or winners in the end. The contest was fun and exciting, nobody knew where I was going, not even my parents.
On Second Christmas Day/Boxing day I started my journey. Walking through Schiphol airport was surreal and felt so good. Every Schiphol airport visit that took place after my world journey still reminds me of that day. I remember I bought a set of earphones and had breakfast at McDonald’s. I remember the thought of telling myself I shouldn’t eat fast food a lot during my world journey and create a habit of cooking healthy. An intention I utterly failed at.