Paris-Singapore 2016

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The title of this trip should really be “Around the World in 16 Days.”

Original Plan – Singapore

The plan started as a simple trip to Singapore the week of Thanksgiving. Now that I have 5 weeks of vacation, I’d been trying to figure out what to do with the last few days of vacation I had left. A coworker mentioned he was thinking about going to Hawaii over Thanksgiving. And I realized if I planned something for Thanksgiving I could get a whole week out of my last 3 vacation days. I also thought Hawaii sounded wonderful for a week-long trip. It’s a pretty short flight from Seattle and would be warm and sunny!

However, Hawaii is expensive at Thanksgiving!! It would be at least $2,500 – $3,000 for airfare and hotel. And Hawaii wasn’t nearly exciting enough to justify spending that much money. I’ve already been there four times. So I thought about Mexico. It would also be a short flight and warm. Plus, I’d only ever been on a cruise ship, so it sounded more exciting. However, it was equally expensive!!

So, I figured if I was gonna have to pay a lot, I might as well see where else I could go. I went to Google Flights, which lets you put in an origin and travel dates, and then shows you flight prices on a map for different destinations. And I noticed that flights to Asia were cheaper!

That’s when I got the idea to just go to a big city in Asia for the week of Thanksgiving.That would be way more exciting than Hawaii or Mexico. I normally don’t like to take flights that long for just a week, but now that I’ve been to Australia and Bali, I know that there’s not much jet lag. And the excitement of Asia more than made up for the dread of the long flights.

But I wanted to make sure my destination would be warm. So I checked weather trends for November and finally decided on Singapore! It’s practically right on the equator and there aren’t really seasons. So it would be plenty warm. And I’ve been wanting to go there since I saw it on The Amazing Race a few years ago.

Revised Plan – Added Paris!

About a month before my planned departure, I found out that I would be going to Paris for work, and it was the week before Thanksgiving. I’ve been at Expedia for almost seven years, and this would be my first time travelling for work. And I love Paris. So I was super-excited.

The fact that it was right before my already planned trip to Singapore, made it even better. Because I’d be able to cross something off my bucket list before I’d even thought to put it there. I would be flying around the world! I’ll fly from Seattle to Paris, then directly from Paris to Singapore, and finally from Singapore back to Seattle.

As an added bonus, my flight from Paris to Singapore has a layover in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. So it would be my first time in the Middle East! And, I was flying Emirates Airlines, which has a reputation as one of the best airlines in the world.

Paris Route Map

This in an interactive custom Google Map where you can find all the hotels, restaurants, and sights referenced in the individual blogs. View it in full screen to access a list of all these places.

Zolina's Travels