Nathan's Insights

So my 2026 world trip with my nephew Harry is now locked in with all flights and tours booked.

We will be visiting six countries over 41 days; Qatar, Jordan, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Morocco. All but Spain will be first time visits, which I can’t wait to explore.

Tours

• Explore Jordan
• Best of Greece
• Spain, Portugal, and Morocco Adventure

While Australia will be in summer while we are travelling almost everywhere we visit will be cold for example; Doha 21c to 30c, Amman averaging 8c to 14c, Athens averaging 14c to 15c, Madrid averaging 11c to 13c, Lisbon 10c to 15c, and Casablanca 10c to 19c.

Flights

For the trip, I’ve managed to book mostly using points in premium cabins, something that can be very difficult to achieve when flying from and to Australia, especially during the peak travel months of November and December.

We got very lucky with Qatar leasing planes to Virgin Australia to get around the limits on the number of flights they are allow into and out of Australia. So while this are technically Virgin Australia flights in reality we are flying on Qatar planes with Qatar flights in Business class using their award winning Qsuite seats.

1) Melbourne to Doha
Virgin Australia (Qatar Airlines wet lease): 14 hours 15 minutes. 
Business class (points)

2) Doha to Amman
Qatar Flight: 3 hours 10 minutes. 
Regional First class (points)

3) Amman to Athens
Royal Jordanian: 2 hours 30 minutes. 
Business class (points)

4) Athens to Madrid
Iberia: 3 hours 55 minutes
Economy class (cash)

5) Casablanca to Doha
Qatar Airlines: 6 hours 55 minutes 
Business class (points)

6) Doha to Melbourne
Virgin Australia (Qatar Airlines wet lease): 13 hours 30 minutes
Business class (points)

I got every flight I wanted on points, excluding the short intra-Europe Athens-to-Madrid flight which is not worth wasting points. I had to work out the release times for the airlines to grab the seats as soon as they were released which surprisingly worked.

Now it’s time to pay off the tours, do research for the days we are not on tours, and decide what to do on the days on tours with free time.

Next Steps

This should be a great trip with the bonus of getting to know Harry even better. I know I cherished the trips with my two neices Darby and Erin and my other nephew Andrew.