I'm doing a round the world trip made by one way tickets with the following stop-overs:
- Los Angeles (12 hours)
- Italy (10 days)
- Indonesia (2 months)
- Sydney (12 hours)
I did something similar last year and I think I might keep doing this for the next years as well.
If you spend enough time on the internet in fact, you can actually find some cheap tickets. Being flexible with dates and booking well in advance both help, of course.
Since I know some of you guys are curious, here's the prices I paid when I booked the tickets in February.
The Maui-LA was on frequent flyer miles. LA-Rome was $556, Rome-Bali was $502, Bali-Sydney was $269, Sydney-Honolulu was $300, Honolulu-Maui was $81.
So the total cost of the trip was $1708.
Last year I did considerably better than that with a total cost of less than $1700 that included also the first leg Maui-Vancouver (and a lovely stop over in Fiji on the last leg).
Doesn't really matter where you book your flights, but my two favorite sites are kayak and google flights. And don't ask me what airlines, because that doesn't mean anything. They keep changing and sometimes you just got to monitor the prices that can go up and down. I started looking at the costs a month before I decided to book. Had I waited another week, I would have saved $150 bucks. But instead 3 weeks after that, the cost would have been $300 more.
It's a bit like gambling with the stock exchange, really.
Enough of that, here's some photos fom the LA stop over.
My friend Gianfranco was healing some cuts and unfortunately couldn't join me in the water, but he was nice enough to come pick me up, take me surfing, take some photos, hang out all day and take me back to the airport.
He's an absolute character and a very creative guy. He patented a hollow carbon stringer technology and here's his FeatherFlash website.
The double ender longboard below is one of his creations. The black lines you see on the deck are the hollow carbon stringers and that is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the usual piece of wood you normal see in the middle of a surfboard.
This was the first early morning session at Manhattan Beach to wash off the poor rest I took on a 5h red eye flight from Maui. It worked.
Low tide, short period beach break meant a lot of closeouts, but I had fun. Chose a peak and surfed it by myself. That's a graceful dismount.
Later on he took me to Malibu, which was catching some long period energy from the south instead (3f 15s).
What a beautiful, fun, rippable wave! Too bad it's so crowded.
It was my second time in the very famous point break and just like the first one it was very difficult to catch a wave. There's always someone already on the wave there, no matter how deep you sit. My only chance was to be the next in line if someone fell. I had better luck with the small ones on the inside like the one below.
A board made in Italy and another one made by an Italian. Being Malibu, I find that peculiar.
This guy didn't mind the drizzling rain.
In this photo you can see that the board has fin boxes on both ends. Sometimes Gianfranco rides it with a single fin on the back and side bites on the front.
Some other times he uses the fin box in the front to mount his FinShot gopro mount. Check it out in this great video he put together.
Back in Napoli I went windsurfing with my old buddies. Scauri is what I used to call my home spot. Now it's Hookipa. Quite a lot better, I must admit, but I had fun planing around nonetheless. Also because my friend Maurizio (pictured below) let me use his Hot Sails Maui Firelight 5.7 and that of course made the experience even sweeter.
This is my lovely niece Laura. I was really happy to have guessed (with the help of the knowledgeable sales women) the right size for the dress I bought her at Hi-Tech.
A bit of a urban, very cement filled background, I know.
But at least the front view is like this.
This is the view from down the harbor instead.
Excuse me the cliché, but a post from Napoli cannot end without a pizza shot. Mine was a delicious "salsiccia e friarielli" one, my other niece Alessia got a very traditional Margherita instead.
I'd pay $100/month to have that in Paia. Same exact stuff and taste though! Oh well, can't have everything.
I feel like adding some very personal considerations.
Every time I travel I notice how pervasive cultures are. Most people behave the exact same way of the people around them. The priceless value of travelling, IMO, is to be exposed to these different ways of living and question the one you're used to.
I consider myself lucky to have been exposed to different kind of cultures (to different extents) throughout my life: Italian, many European countries, American and Indonesian.
All have their good sides, all have their bad ones.
In other words, if you are an attentive traveler and willing to make changes, travelling should make you a better person. Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity if you're somewhere different from your home.
Next post will be from Bali. A massive swell is forecasted for the weekend of June 27-28 and I haven't quite decided yet where to escape. There might well be no escape, actually.
In 5 years that I go to Indonesia, I have never seen a forecast of 14f 18s. Not sure I've never seen that in 14 years in Hawaii, actually.
That's the period map for Friday the 26th. Unreal.
Lovely back to back long period swells for Chile and Peru too, btw.
1 comment:
enjoyed that one. thanks
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