Buenos dias everyone, I’m getting ready to take off on my 24 day round-the-world trip for the SAS EuroBonus Millionaire promotion so I thought I’d share a few updates on the final planning stages.

Hotels

At this point, I have all of my hotels booked except for the very end of my trip (Taipei, Denver, and Boston). Since many of the destinations I’m traveling to are fairly inexpensive, I ended up doing a lot of cash bookings, but I do have points redemptions with three different hotel programs scattered throughout.

• London: I used cash to book the London Heathrow Premier Inn Terminal 4, which is inside the airport.
• Copenhagen: I used Choice points to book the Clarion Hotel Copenhagen Airport, which is attached to the airport.
• Bucharest: I used Booking.com to book an independent hotel.
• Jeddah: I used Hyatt points to book 3 nights at a category 2 Hyatt House Jeddah Sari Street.
• Madinah: I used IHG points to book 1 night at a recently converted hotel (New Madinah Hotel) that doesn’t have a brand attached yet.
• Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok: I used the Capital One Travel Portal to book independent hotels and earned 10x Capital One points.
• Guangzhou: I used Trip.com to book a hotel near the airport for $13 (I think I got a discount because I booked my flight to Guangzhou through Trip.com).
• Fuzhou: I used IHG points to book 2 nights at the InterContinental Fuzhou.  When traveling in mainland China, I’ve often found that springing for a higher-end hotel makes things easier with language and cultural barriers, and 16K IHG points / night for an InterContinental is a great deal.
• Seoul: I used cash to book the Incheon Airport Transit Hotel, which is inside the airport.
• Taipei: I have a 1 night booking at the Grand Hyatt Taipei in January that I booked with the Fine Hotels and Resorts credit before I canceled my American Express Platinum Card – I’m planning to reach out to AMEX and see if I can move that reservation to use it for this trip.
• Denver: I’m probably going to use the 85K Free Night Certificate from my JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card to book the Westin Denver International Airport, which is right next to the Denver airport.  It is not the world’s best redemption, but I often struggle to make good use of my 85K Free Night Certificate and I think it’s worth splurging for comfort and convenience at the end of all this travel. However, I’m hesitant to book because they require cancellation two days in advance, so if something goes wrong with my unprotected 2 hour connection at SFO, then I would lose my certificate.

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Packing for the adventure

Luggage

I definitely can’t afford to check a bag given my tight connections and multi-ticket itineraries, so I’m traveling with my Timbuk2 Wingman travel backpack / duffel. I also ordered an ultra-lightweight folding daypack to carry with me when I’m not on a plane – I just went for a small/medium sized one that had great reviews.

Clothing

I’ve got a pretty wide temperature range to work with – daytime temperatures in Bucharest are going to be around 45F / 8C, while in Saudi Arabia, I’m looking at temps around 90F / 32C. Since I’ll be spending most of my time in hotter climates (Jeddah, Madinah, Ho Chi Minh City, and Bangkok), I’m leaning toward mostly heat-appropriate clothes – shorts, ripstop pants, t-shirts and a lightweight button-down – with a lightweight and very compressible Uniqlo puffer for the colder spots (Bucharest, Seoul, Denver, and Massachusetts).

For the sake of weight and space, I’m packing about five days worth of clothes and plan to do laundry pretty much every time I stop somewhere for more than a single night. Given the nature of this trip, I suspect I may just spring for hotel laundry services rather than spend part of my limited time in each city hunting down and using a laundromat. The Hyatt House in Jeddah has a laundry room for guests, so at least I have that one sorted in advance.

What’s in my wallet?

When I’m outside the US, I typically carry my Citi Strata Premier Credit Card for restaurants and groceries, my Chase Ink Preferred Credit Card for travel expenses, and my Capital One Venture X Business Credit Card for everything else. And of course my Charles Schwab Bank debit card for when I need to withdraw cash, since it has no foreign transaction fees and reimburses for ATM fees charged by other banks.

I’ll also bring my American Express Business Platinum Card, Citi AAdvantage Executive Credit Card, Priority Pass cards for lounge access, and my APEC Business Travel Card for priority immigration lines – but those will stay in my passport holder.

And I usually keep my Global Entry card in my wallet as my primary ID when I’m outside the US and Mexico, since it’s in three languages (English, Spanish, and French).

Finally, I’ll also keep a stash of hotel credit cards (Hyatt, Hilton, IHG, Ritz-Carlton, and Wyndham) and a backup debit card tucked in my bag somewhere just in case.

Electronics and Entertainment

I’ll be bringing my laptop, Kindle, Nintendo Switch, and my AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation. My Kindle is loaded up with books that I’ve gotten for free with Amazon No-Rush Shipping credits or borrowed via my local libraries with the Libby app. I’m waffling a bit on whether to also pack my AirPods Max, but given the amount of time I’ll be spending on planes, I think it’s probably worth it. (Edit: I also have a cable that allows me to use my AirPods Max with inflight entertainment.)

For connectivity, in addition to my T-Mobile plan that provides low-speed data in 215+ countries, I’m currently trying out a PangiaPass eSIM which advertises unlimited high-speed data in 145 countries (including all of the ones I’m visiting or passing through). I’ve had pretty good luck with it thus far in Mexico, so I’m optimistic that between the two, I’ll be able to maintain connectivity everywhere I go.

To keep everything charged, I’ve got a generic international adapter and an Anker 733 combination wall charger and power bank, plus a handful of cables. And of course, I’ve got a couple of travel sized toiletries, my Quip toothbrush, medications in their original labeled containers (which adds a lot of bulk, sigh), and a printed copy of my itinerary, Vietnam eVisa, and my Saudi visa application and passport photos for good measure.

Am I forgetting anything? Let me know in the comments…