Last year, my wife, daughter, and I spent about a month visiting my parents in Slovakia. At some point during our stay, an idea for a safari trip together with my dad started brewing in my head. With dad up for the trip, I burned some ANA miles to book us two tickets from Vienna, the nearest major airport to where my parents live in Slovakia, to South Africa and back.
As I proceeded to book domestic flights from Johannesburg to Kruger and back and my positioning flights between Japan and Europe, I ended up with a mega trip involving 18 flights (19 if we count a flight to nowhere due to a technical issue with an aircraft I was on) spanning a dozen countries across three continents.
Continue reading to learn more about the planning process and what the trip ended up looking like, as well as about the reviews and other content you can expect to come out of this trip.
What an unforgettable trip it was!
Taking Advantage of a Now-Gone ANA Mileage Club Sweet Spot
One of the main reasons I chose South Africa as the destination for our trip was the public health situation in the country – very low risk of malaria (especially in the winter season) and no vaccinations required before travel. Another reason was the ANA Mileage Club award chart, which groups the vast majority of the African continent (except for a few countries in the north) and the Middle East into one zone.
That means that tickets from Vienna to countries like the UAE or Kenya and to countries like South Africa cost the same, even though the former two are just medium-haul flights away while the latter is a ten-hour long-haul flight.
On Swiss, I preordered Zurich-style sliced veal.
I liked the fact that Ethiopian Airlines’ meals looked and tasted like home-cooked meals.
When it comes to sleeping in business class, the now-outdated full-length full-flat seats without foot cubbies are hard to beat.
While both would have been a good deal at just 68,000 miles roundtrip in business class that ANA was charging back when I booked the flights, paying that amount for tickets to South Africa was a steal. Too much of a steal, in fact, as since then, ANA increased the price of award tickets between the two zones by 50% to 102,000 miles.
With the general idea of the trip – i.e. flying between Vienna and South Africa – in my head, I started looking for suitable flights that had two business class award spots available. After playing around with a variety of options, I ended up booking the following:
Vienna to Johannesburg via Zurich on Austrian E195 (originally scheduled as A320-200) and Swiss (A340-300)
Johannesburg to Cape Town on South African Airways A320-200 (originally scheduled as A340-300)
Cape Town to Vienna via Addis Ababa on Ethiopian Airlines 787-9 and 777-200LR
Our flight from Vienna to Zurich was operated by Austrian’s E195 wearing the Star Alliance livery.
An amazing view of Rand Airport and Johannesburg made me glad I switched to a window seat before landing.
South African Airways’ domestic lounge at Johannesburg offered one of the nicest business class lounge buffets I’ve seen.
While I am not sure if I am a fan of the color scheme or not, I appreciated that South African Airways went with something other than black or navy blue seats.
The Main Course: Booking a Safari Lodge and Flights to Kruger
Once I booked the flights to and from South Africa, it was time to book a safari lodge. I looked at a variety of reasonably priced options in the Kruger National Park area and was surprised to find that quite a few were booked out more than half a year in advance. Luckily, though, I was able to book Umkumbe Safari Lodge in the Sabi Sands reserve, which is a part of the Greater Kruger, and which turned out to be a great choice.
Going back and forth between booking two and three nights, ultimately I decided on the latter and, looking back, I am very happy I did so. I went for a “superior room,” which was a standalone bungalow. At just over 700 USD per night for the two of us, it was a bit pricier than a “standard room” but still reasonable given that it included two safari drives and three meals a day.
At Umkumbe Safari Lodge, we stayed in the “giraffe” room.
While the safari vehicle could seat nine guests, on all of our drives at least one or two seats were empty.
Leopard – probably the most beautiful animal we saw during the trip. Although it’s hard to choose one!
Umkumbe is just a half-hour drive from Skukuza Airport, easily accessible from both Johannesburg and Cape Town. While flying there would have been the more convenient choice, I booked Airlink flights from Johannesburg to Nelspruit Airport instead.
While the drive from there took just over two hours (the lodge arranged the transfers for us), it allowed me to log two Embraer types I hadn’t flown on before, the ERJ-135 and ERJ-140. The flights to Skukuza would have been on the E190.
Boarding an Airlink Embraer ERJ-135 at Nelspruit Airport for our flight back to Johannesburg.
Planning Our Short Stops in Johannesburg and Cape Town
Our morning arrival in Johannesburg left us with nearly a full day in the city before flying to Nelspruit the next morning. As such, I booked us a half-day tour of Soweto, the city’s township, with a stop in the South African Airways Museum at Rand Airport through Tsalalang Tours for the first half of the day. In the afternoon, I did some plane spotting from Johannesburg Airport’s terminal.
For the night, I booked the City Lodge Hotel OR Tambo International Airport, which is connected to the airport by a covered walkway and is considerably cheaper than the other such option, the InterContinental Johannesburg O.R.Tambo Airport.
As our guide put it, we got to see “the good, the bad, and the ugly” of Soweto.
It was great seeing a Boeing 747SP for the first time in a while.
In addition to a convenient location, the City Lodge at Johannesburg Airport also offered a fairly nice room.
For the two nights we had in Cape Town, I initially booked the Holiday Inn Express Cape Town City Centre. Later, however, I changed it for the nicer but similarly priced DoubleTree by Hilton Cape Town – Upper Eastside.
I booked airport transfers through the hotel and separately, I booked a full-day tour of the Cape Town area through Kasi Africa Safari & Tours. While the Table Mountain cable car and Chapman’s Peak Drive, two of Cape Town’s key sights, were closed due to strong wind, we still had a great time seeing some of the Atlantic Coast and the penguins at Boulders Beach.
The area around Cape Town was beautiful.
Luckily, I had some time for plane spotting on the trip too.
Getting to the Starting Point: Tokyo to Vienna with Five Stops
In addition to the Europe – Africa part of the trip, I also had to book myself some flights to get from Japan to Slovakia where I would be joining my dad. I definitely could have booked a simple roundtrip from Tokyo to Vienna. At least theoretically. In practice, me being me, I ended up stitching together several one-way tickets into an itinerary that had me moving almost non-stop.
I started with a morning Tokyo Haneda – Seoul Gimpo flight on an ANA 767-300ER that I booked as part of an award ticket that I used to get from Tokyo to Niigata before taking Toki Air’s inaugural flight back in January.
The first flight of this trip was also my first international flight out of Haneda Airport’s Terminal 2.
Looking at a variety of different options to get from Seoul to Europe, I found extremely cheap Air China flights to London. Rather than booking a ticket from Seoul, I decided to book Jeju – Beijing – London Gatwick on a 737-800 and an A330-300 for just 260 USD instead.
I did so to fly on Asiana’s non-ER 767-300 between Seoul and Jeju once again. Unfortunately, the Asiana Airlines flight ended up being operated by an A330-300.
Landing at Jeju Airport from Seoul while another Asiana A330 is holding short of the runway before heading back to Seoul.
Air China’s safety video featured pandas.
To get from London to Slovakia, I looked at a variety of options including booking a low-cost flight (Wizz Air or Ryanair) to Bratislava. Ultimately, however, I booked a Eurowings flight operated by an Avion Express Malta A320-200 from Heathrow to Stuttgart and an Austrian Airlines E195 flight from Stuttgart to Vienna.
I booked the ticket using United Airlines miles and sandwiched the flights within Europe between a pair of domestic flights in Japan, taking advantage of United’s program’s Excursionist Perk to lower the overall per-flight cost of the award ticket.
Eurowings was one of the airlines I tried for the first time during this trip. It was also the airline that offered (by far) the least legroom.
Some great views of Heathrow Airport could be had after taking off bound for Stuttgart.
Getting Back Home: Squeezing Turkmenistan Airlines into the Itinerary
At some point when planning this trip, I ran into a couple of videos about Turkmenistan Airlines. At the same time, the airline popped up for some of my searches for flights between Europe and Asia. With the airline offering very cheap fares between Europe and Southeast Asia and it having been a while since I flew on an airline from a country that’s not your typical destination, I could not resist incorporating it into the itinerary.
I reached out to Noel Philips, who made one of the videos I watched, asking him which agent he booked the flight through and whether anything was required to transit through Ashgabat. After he kindly replied with the information, I proceeded to book the flights through Turna, a Turkish OTA.
The two options that seemed to work best for me were either flying from Frankfurt or Milan to Bangkok via Ashgabat. I booked the latter, which had a slightly longer transfer time in Ashgabat, for just 247 USD. The flight from Milan was on a 737-800 and the onward flight was on a 777-300ER, which Turkmenistan Airlines recently acquired from Cathay Pacific.
The Turkmenistan Airlines flight from Milan to Ashgabat was my first medium-haul narrowbody flight in a while.
Ashgabat Airport was very clean. …and underutilized.
Dumping fuel somewhere over Turkmenistan. I should have opted for a window seat.
To get from Vienna to Milan, I used the same United Excursionist Perk to book a non-stop Austrian E195 flight sandwiched between two domestic flights around Japan. I used the first domestic flight of the two itineraries for a quick plane spotting trip to Fukuoka before taking this trip. I still have the second domestic flight of each itinerary and will likely use those for a trip to Sapporo.
With all of the above, the last unsolved piece of the puzzle was getting from Bangkok to Tokyo.
I considered paying cash for a flight on one of the low-cost airlines connecting the two cities. I was especially interested in trying ZIPAIR or AirJapan. In the end, however, I booked a Bangkok Suvarnabhumi – Osaka – Tokyo award ticket on JAL using 12,500 JAL miles. Both of the flights were operated by Boeing 787-8 aircraft.
As I was scheduled to have about 12 hours in Bangkok between my Turkmenistan Airlines and JAL flights, I also booked The Cottage Suvarnabhumi, a reasonably priced hotel near the airport to have a place to relax. While a technical issue and a subsequent air turnback meant arriving in Bangkok over four hours later than originally planned, it was still nice to not have to wait at the airport.
On the last international flight of the trip, I was lucky to have a row of four seats to myself.
Last onboard meal of the trip – a breakfast onboard JAL’s flight from Bangkok to Osaka.
Summary
In the six-plus months between booking the flights from Vienna to South Africa and heading for the airport, the plan went from a relatively simple safari trip to a mega trip combining a safari trip with dad and an avgeek trip. Both of the portions of the trip were unforgettable and I cannot wait to share some of the experiences with you here.
In the next couple of months, you can expect reviews of the following flights:
ANA 767-300ER economy class (Tokyo Haneda – Seoul Gimpo)
Asiana Airlines A330-300 economy class (Seoul Gimpo – Jeju)
Air China 737-800 economy class (Jeju – Beijing Capital)
Air China A330-300 economy class (Beijing Capital – London Gatwick)
Eurowings A320 economy class (London Heathrow – Stuttgart)
Austrian E195 business class (Vienna – Zurich)
Swiss A340-300 business class (Zurich – Johannesburg)
Airlink ERJ-135/ERJ-140 economy class (Johannesburg – Nelspruit – Johannesburg)
South African Airways A320-200 business class (Johannesburg – Cape Town)
Ethiopian Airlines 787-9 business class (Cape Town – Addis Ababa)
Ethiopian Airlines 777-200LR business class (Addis Ababa – Vienna)
Austrian E195 economy class (Vienna – Milan Malpensa)
Turkmenistan Airlines 737-800 economy class (Milan Malpensa – Ashgabat)
Turkmenistan Airlines 777-300ER economy class (Ashgabat – Bangkok Suvarnabhumi)
JAL 787-8 economy class (Bangkok Suvarnabhumi – Osaka Kansai)
You can also expect reviews of most of the lounges I visited along the way, be it using Priority Pass or thanks to flying in business class:
ANA Lounge (Terminal 2 – International) at Tokyo Haneda Airport
Asiana Lounge (Domestic) at Seoul Gimpo Airport
Air China Business Class Lounge at Beijing Capital Airport
Big Smoke Taphouse & Kitchen at London Heathrow Airport (Priority Pass restaurant)
Plaza Premium Lounge (Terminal 2) at London Heathrow Airport
Austrian Senator Lounge (Schengen) at Vienna Airport
Bidvest Premier Lounge (Domestic) at Johannesburg Airport
South African Airways Domestic Premium Class Lounge at Johannesburg Airport
Bidvest Premier Lounge at Kruger Mpumalanga Airport
Bidvest Premier Lounge (International) at Cape Town Airport
Ethiopian Airlines Cloud 9 Lounge at Addis Ababa Airport
Sala Montale at Milan Malpensa Airport
The Coral Finest Business Class Lounge at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport
Turkish Airlines Lounge at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport
Air France-KLM SkyLounge at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport
Miracle Business Class Lounge at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport
Oman Air First & Business Class Lounge at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport
The hotels I plan to write reviews of include:
City Lodge Hotel at OR Tambo International Airport Johannesburg
Umkumbe Safari Lodge
DoubleTree by Hilton Cape Town – Upper Eastside
The Cottage Suvarnabhumi
Lastly, I also plan to write a couple of articles related to plane spotting at some of the airports I passed through, about the National Aviation Museum of Korea and the South African Airways Museum, as well as about my impressions of safari in general.