Tour the World in 16 Days for $1,000

A group of professional flight hackers has found a way to travel around the world on a
backpacker budget and on a workman’s vacation time. The 16-day trek takes off in NYC in January 2017 and stops in Stockholm, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Honolulu and Portland before returning back to New York.

The journey begins with a 7-hour, $139 flight, from NYC to Stockholm, via Norwegian Airlines. After three days in Stockholm, enough time to fall in love with 30 fair-skinned Swedes and spend half of your vacation budget on three beers, it’s onward to Bangkok, again, on the notoriously cheap Norwegian Airlines ($216). There, travelers will have six days to explore the temples, dine in $1 curries, and enjoy something called the “ping pong show.”

Leaving Bangkok, the brunt of the journey begins, with a grueling 20-hour Air Asia flight to
Sydney ($150), with a nine-hour overnight layover in Kuala Lumpur. The nine-hour layover
offers enough time for a much-needed post-flight massage at the 24-hour Ossoto Recreation
Hub. Once thoroughly oiled up, it’s time to complete the journey to Sydney.

The itinerary then allows three sweaty days in the Sydney summer sun, which is then followed by an Aloe-covered, sunburned flight to Hawaii ($310). The trip concludes with four relaxing days on the beaches of Honolulu before leaving for New York. The flight home ($341) includes an eleven-hour stopover in Portland, enough time to grow a beard and look haggard, before arriving back in NYC the next day.

In total, five countries, seven cities and 24,045 miles are covered. A total of three days, three
hours and twenty minutes will be spent flying. And one around the world journey completed
within the standard two-weeks vacation.

Tom is a travel writer, part-time hitchhiker, and he’s currently trying to imitate Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? but with more sunscreen and jorts.