Booked!

Panic panic panic! Have booked an Emirates flight from London to Mauritius on 20th October! It's all happening a bit fast! Better that than being bored I suppose. It's strange because I haven't sorted out my RTW ticket with BA yet, so I've got one way and then nothing! I'm gonna be stranded in Mauritius. Worse things in life I suppose! So now I have one week to see family and stuff, then a couple of days to pack and get out of flat! Help!

By the way, for anyone planning to emulate my glory, here's some useful stuff:

1. flyertalk.com - this is the place to do all your research. Full of frequent flier gurus who are really helpful and FAQs which will assist in avoiding the usual pitfalls. I've spent most of my time in Forums -> Global Airline Alliances -> OneWorld which is where all the OneWorld Explorer ticket chats go on. My post is the Two DONE3s one!

2. Insureandgo - these guys will insure extra bits and bobs (think camera, mp3 player, laptop even) for minimal extra cost on top of your travel insurance - most insurance has a low maximum value for individual items (say £150 or so).

3. Expertflyer - this is where you can check real flight availability by cabin, so you can see for instance that 9 "A" cabin tickets are available on a particular flight. Very useful, but you have to pay to use it properly (only $10 a month or so).

4. 0044.co.uk - Pay-as-you-go SIM cards for roaming. I've bought one which is an Isle of Man number. They basically have a clever system which means I pay nothing to receive calls anywhere in the world! Fantastic!

5. Airline route maps and Google Earth - just to plan your route of course.

6. Tripadvisor - okay I haven't used this at all for my planning yet, but it's what I use to do hotel research. Check the Pokhara Palace Hotel, I'm the Marketing Director for them!!