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Showing posts from December, 2017

Country #106: New Zealand. The Auckland Bookends

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My plans for this year's vacation went through some changes. Initially, I devised an itinerary that would take me to Cyprus, Lebanon and Iraq. Yes, that  Iraq.All my research pointed to the Northern Kurdish portion being quite safe, welcoming to visitors and easy to get to. I could just fly into Erbil, no visa required. And then the push for Kurdish independence starting gaining steam and the Iraqi government shut down the Erbil airport, meaning I would have to enter via the more treacherous land crossing through Turkey. Time for a plan B. This consisted of randomly plugging in multiple countries into search engines and trying to see where airlines miles could take me. After plenty of false starts, I hit upon one that would work. I had just enough miles to get me to New Zealand if I went from Dec 6- Dec 25. Taking into account the day you lose going over, this would only leave me with 18 days in a country with over 1000 days worth of things to see. It wasn't ideal but it w