The key to making this trip possible was two conferences, two weeks apart - one in the Netherlands (SDGN's the Conference to the Max) and the other in Australia (Informant's Office Development and Deployment Conference). It made no sense to try and travel to each separately - it was easier to just start traveling and keep traveling, all the way around the world.
Round the World tickets are a special class of airline ticket, with certain advantages and disadvantages. Here's how they work:
 | They are limited by mileage and number of stops |
| You cannot backtrack: flying from one city to another and back again |
| You have to decide on your first leg (where you start from and where you're going to), the rest of the trip is essentially open |
| You have a year to complete all travel on the ticket |
| The ticket is priced on the number of miles flown and the number of stops, rather than destinations flown to |
Amsterdam and Sydney were the fixed destinations, the rest was up to us. The idea was to keep flying east, so we had to pick a destination east of Amsterdam and west of Sydney. Ideally it would be a place we weren't likely to get to otherwise - we chose Istanbul, Turkey.
And with family in New Zealand, it was essential to get back there, after the Australia conference. That was about as much time as we had. At the last moment, Microsoft contacted Richard about speaking at a conference in India as well, following the Australia conference, but in the end we weren't able to fit it in.
The links on the left hand pane are a diary (with pictures) of the trip.