We are looking to travel to Australua from UK with minimum flying. We have previously travelled there via Russia and also via the Stans. Considering USA Japan SE Asia route for next journey. Any advice...for USA Japan leg? Thanks
USA TO JAPAN
So, travel by sea? If so, I believe cruise ships are the best option. There are options to travel on freighter ships, but I don't believe that's particularly cheap and almost certainly less comfortable than a cruise ship.
Sounds like a grand adventure either way!
Hi.
"We are looking to travel to Australia from UK with minimum flying."
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Do you intend to visit the US and visit Japan or just pass through to the next flight?
- I personally would just fly round trip from the UK to AU but that's me! I usually choose airlines that have an alliance with my primary airline so I can accrue frequent flyer miles. Japan and Nippon airlines I have been on with my FF card.
Being a cheapskate, I would choose the flights that are cheapest. Being older retired, long flights is no big deal. I read all the time on flights until I can't hold my eyes open then snooze for a while then back to reading.
- Long flights, remember to get up and move your legs to cut down on blood clots.
Up to you.
Thanks but we are trying not to fly. Prefer the adventure of the journey!
[ Edit: Edited on 11 Jul 2024, 12:24 GMT by Valfowles ]
There are a fair number of regular cruises from the USA to Austrailia. There is one on Cunard from San Francisco to Australia by way of Hawaii and New Zealand. It is 23 days.
There is a 'world cruise' that starts in New York goes through the Panama Canal to Australia and ends in England - if you took the Cunard trip to Australia, you could get on a cruise like that to get back to England.
Several cruise lines offer repositioning voyages from the U.S. to Japan. From there you might consider this from Rome2Rio: Japan-China International Ferry Co. operates a car ferry from Osaka International Ferry Terminal to Shanghai once a week. Tickets cost $124–155 and the journey takes 47h. Japan has lots of ferries with a wide range of destinations. From China it's possible to travel by rail to Singapore, then onwards by bus/ferry/rail to various parts of Indonesia. See this link: https://www.seat61.com/index.html
There are several cruise lines that offer voyages to Australia, with Singapore and Hong Kong as major embarkation ports. It's also possible to take surface transportation from Southeast Asia all the way to Bali. From there, two short flights will get you to Darwin. On one trip, I flew from Denpasar to Dili (Timor Leste), spent a few days there, then flew on Airnorth to Darwin (a flight of just over an hour). From Darwin I made my way across Australia. One alternative: Take the Ghan from Darwin to Adelaide.
One other option occurred to me and that is looking into yachts that need crews. Obviously much easier to find such opportunities if you have experience on yachts, but sometimes it's possible to get on to them without any experience and just a willingness to help out on board. Just throwing it out there as another possibility.
The cruises from the USA on major cruise lines mostly go to Australia before they end up in Japan. I thought the objective was to get to Australia and not to get to Japan?
Thank you for all the helpful replies. I will investigate repositioning cruises, not sure how brave I would need to be for the yacht crew, but its worth a think! The Japan, Shanghai ferry sounds promising. We have travelled a few times with surface transport in SE Asia and really enjoy it. Last time using tips from man in Seat61 we reached Bali. Indonesia was amazing and I would love to see more.
My blogs are Granny on the Rails. Part 3 is the trip to Australia via the Stans.
https://www.travellerspoint.com/map/#/