A Brave New World in 2022!

It is with trembling pleasure that I announce we have decided on our next grand adventure. (Drumroll, please!) The DH and I have just booked a cabin on 2022 Viking World Horizons!

It's 119 days from Los Angeles to London, but we'll actually be on board for 121 days and won't disembark until the Viking Star reaches Bergen, Norway on May 11, 2022. (The ship is being repositioned and the cruise line threw in the extra couple of days gratis.)

I'll be honest. I've had my eye on Viking itineraries for several years now. It seemed like they were going everywhere I wanted to be! The 2022 World Cruise is no exception. Out of the 48 ports we'll be visiting, 32 of them are new to us. On this voyage, we'll start by saying hello to some old friends--2 Hawaiian islands, Bora Bora, Moorea, and Tahiti. We'll visit both islands of New Zealand (in 2018, we only touched the northern island) and spend time cruising its lovely fjords.

After that, we'll sail across the Ditch to return to Tasmania (a place I fell in love with in 2018) but this time, we'll pull in to Hobart on the south side of the island. Then we'll skirt the eastern and northern shores of Australia where we hope to see the Great Barrier Reef. Last time we sailed around the southern and western coasts of Oz, so this will be new territory before visiting Komodo Island to see the dragons--I kid you not!

We'll spend 3 days in Bali! (There are actually 11 overnights on this itinerary--many more than most voyages.) Then we'll sojourn in southeast Asia, touching Java, Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand.  From there, we slip through the Malacca Strait to sail into Myanmar--a new port of call for Viking. For The King & I enthusiasts, Myanmar used to be called Burma and was the home of the ill-fated Tuptim in the Rogers & Hammerstein musical.

We'll visit Sri Lanka and then three ports in India (Thank heaven, the Indian visas we secured for our 2018 trip are valid for 10 years! If you've followed this blog, you'll remember our trials and tribulations with the online process and the cumbersome paperwork we were required to assemble and send.)

In the Middle East, we'll call at Oman and Aqaba, Jordan. Last time we visited Wadi Rum (filming location for both Lawrence of Arabia and The Martian) This time, we'll make the trip to Petra to visit the Nabatean ruins made famous in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  

The next stop is a HUGE draw for us--Egypt! Can't wait to see the Temple complex at Karnak.

Then we'll have 2 days to visit Israel. I know it will be different than I've imagined it, but just to walk where my Savior walked the earth will be...oh! I can hardly see my keyboard because my eyes have teared up. Suffice it to say, like Emily Dickenson, "my soul stands ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."

Continuing the biblical theme, we'll go on to Ephesus and Athens, 2 of the apostle Paul's stops. We'll visit the isle of Rhodes and overnight in Istanbul.

I actually set one of my historical novels (Silk Dreams) in Byzantium (Istanbul's ancient name) during the time when the emperor hired Vikings to serve as his personal guard. (I know. Sounds so strange I'd never dare make it up, but that exactly what the Varangian Guard was!) It will be interesting to see how much my research and imagination managed to capture of the real place.

Then we'll spend time in Italy, Monaco, Spain and Portugal before heading for Great Britain. The lithe Viking Star will cruise up the Thames to Tilbury for London.

From there it's off to Norway and then flying home--Business Class, which I need so I can plug in my portable oxygen concentrator while we're in the air.

To say I'm excited is an understatement! The only downer is that there are over 500 days until we head for LA. But the flip side of that is, I have over 500 days to research, to plan, to dream...

As always, I invite you to hop in my pocket and come along for the ride. Viking provides free wifi on this trip, so I'll be blogging all our adventures as we're having them. So if you haven't already, you might want to sign up to receive my posts by email. (See the "Follow by Email" widget in the right hand column of this page)

That way you'll never miss a minute!