Planeless World Circumnavigation Pt.1: Intro

When faced with the opportunity to spend some time abroad, I started to consider the ways people travel throughout the world.

Plane travel has become ubiquitous with the notion of traveling anywhere significantly different recently, but with the recent moves by the US towards a “more secure” – and thereby more stressful – traveling experience, I started considering other methods of travel. Traveling from one side of the world to the other in 14 hours minimizes any feelings of how large the planet actually is, an experience I’ve always wanted to rectify.

So I decided: what would boating across the Pacific be like?

I was heading for Japan, and I was in luck – a few ships left the western United States in October around the time I intended to leave. Based off the eastern United States, I quickly realized that flying to someplace like Alaska only to take a boat to Asia completely defeated the purpose – I would still have to deal with domestic security, and I would miss the size of around 1/3 of my trip.

So I immediately removed boats leaving from Alaska from the list, restricting my choices to western continental choices – and I got lucky. A quick call with a travel agent, some searching on their part, and they found a room – and thanks to the last minute timing, I got a Verandah Suite on a cruise ship leaving from Vancouver – for less than half the market price. The ticket came out to be less than comparative business class travel would be in a plane. While, yes, that’s greater than what it would cost to fly economy, I think the trade-offs are definitely worth it.

Quick interlude: don’t let anyone tell you you need to book months in advance for cruises – you may be guaranteed a room, but you’re also guaranteed the price they wish everyone would pay. Also, remember you pay by the room, not person, though they tend to market “per person” prices – I got torn and paid double what I could have because I was soloing this particular journey.

So I had secured my trip from Vancouver (close enough to Seattle for all practical purposes) to the port of Kobe, Japan. Next, I had to get from the east coast to the west coast without taking a plane.

Car travel would work – except I would end up having to ditch my car when I got there, and I only had about a week before the boat was supposed to leave. That wouldn’t work. My business partner Andrew had regaled me with a horrific tale of a bus trip from Kyoto to Tokyo, and so I wrote off bussing across the country.

This left train travel. It seems like many don’t realize that Amtrak is still a viable means of travel across the country. Granted, it’s not the fastest, but because the trains travel through the night, they ended up being about as fast as if I’d traveled by car, and, best of all, they also had a bus that would take me from Seattle to Vancouver. I booked the tickets immediately.

But I couldn’t at all be prepared for what traveling across the world is actually like. Stay tuned for Part 2: Amtrak!

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