All Asia Pass

One of my longstanding travel dreams is to get an All Asia Pass from Cathay Pacific Airways. The All Asia Pass is the Asian equivalent of a Eurail pass, entitling you to fly to 23 destinations in 21 days.

Destinations include Cathay Pacific’s home base of Hong Kong along with Bangkok, Bali, Ho Chi Mihn City (that's “Saigon” to you and me), Osaka, Phuket (naw, too easy), Phnom Penh and Tokyo. The base price for this year’s pass is $1,399, which includes your trans-Pacific flight to Hong Kong from Los Angeles, New York or San Francisco.

Adding in the connection from Austin, I’d be looking at about $1,700 plus taxes if I didn't travel during the peak summer period, which entails a $450 surcharge. I suppose I'd need money for lodging, food and tacky postcards, too. Having just bought a house last year, this won’t happen in 2007, but maybe someday...