My trip seemed to come together suddenly: My friend, Bob K., told me about Round the World airfares offered by airline alliances – OneWorld and Star Alliance for example. The cost of a RTW business class airline ticket was about twice the cost of the economy fare to Europe and back. Both airline alliances had online apps to help plan your trip and be certain that your plan met the ticket restrictions. One of those restrictions is that you must travel in one direction – East to West or West to East. A short backtracking layover is permitted but one has to travel in one direction. I compared AirTreks and the alliance business class airfares. Though I had much more flexibility with AirTreks, the business class trip cost a lot more thru them. Sure I could save some bucks with economy fares, but I wanted some comfort in travel. I worked with the Star Alliance online app and my trip became: Boston – Amsterdam – Berlin – Prague – Munich – Budapest – Vienna – Istanbul – Cairo – Amman – Singapore – Perth – Adelaide – Melbourne – Sydney – Auckland – Honolulu – San Francisco – Seattle – Whitefish – Chicago – Boston. It’s a mix of train and plane travel as expected. I will travel the Eastern and Oriental Express in Malaysia and the Indian Pacific across Australia as well as the West Coast train from SF to Seattle and the northern cross-country train route from Seattle to Chicago. Railbookers has given me great service, booking most of my train and hotels. OneBag.com has shown me how to pack a single carry-on for this trip. AtlasObscura.com and LonelyPlanet.com have given me great suggestions of places to go and things to do. One of my goals is to see as many of the most beautiful libraries in the world as I can on this trip. That’s a thread I would enjoy more than hitting all the tourist places.