Edited: I’ve amended the title as I would love to hear your thoughts on your own experiences and plans for your (future) retirement.

As many of you know, I'm about 2 years away from hanging up my stethoscope for good, and finally joining my wife in the slow lane (she hung up her calculator for good last year).

As a long overdue retirement present for the both of us, we intend to do a round the world trip on First Class travel. I have a rough idea of what I want to do, but I was hoping to solicit some wisdom from the upper crust of society that /k likes to identify themselves as (aka the min RM20k/month standard), so as to refine my itinerary.

Here are some rough sketches of the details:

First Class/Suite Class with Singapore Airlines & Star Alliance partners, departing Singapore.

Here are my continents:

East Asia:

1. Japan (Kyoto, Tokyo, Osaka - but maybe also to Hokkaido, Toyama and return to Hakone)
2. Some nicer areas of China (I've never been to Mainland China per se, apart from visiting my other uncles in Shenzhen and Zhuhai) - especially a visit to my ancestors' village where my grandfather purported still has a house somewhere in Guangdong
3. Hong Kong (family visit - but I intend to do more than just yumcha for a week with my favourite uncle: wanna see Kowloon, go out to some of the smaller islands & visit the New Territories)
4. May or may not do South Korea (we're not big fans, but it may be a case of so near yet so far, so that may be on the cards)
5. Taiwan (never been to Namewee's adopted hometown, so might see what inspired him to write Negarakuku)

South East Asia:

1. Malaysia. This will be a super long overdue homecoming & goodbye of sorts. We intend to spend at least 1 month, visiting all my cousins and family members in Peninsula Malaysia, and catch up on my old classmates. No couch surfing or bunking in with family though, so we'll be living it up and finally putting all the RM we've saved up to good use - afterall, I don't think I'll keep my Malaysian citizenship after retirement, as I intend to ensure I keep Singapore as my base, even as I relocate permanently to Sydney. We might do a visit to East Malaysia as well, as we've never been there either.
2. Thailand - just to a resort somewhere nice & quiet for a week or so, to unwind after that whirlwind tour of Malaysia
3. Vietnam - I hear the barber shops are a must visit experience, and again, we've never been.

Middle East:

1. (removed Turkey - as a forumer pointed out, it's actually in Europe, silly me)
2. Dubai - a good place for me to use up my USD, and also to see what a modern, progressive Muslim country can do that Malaysia couldn't.

Europe:

1. Turkey - this will be likely via one of our journey legs to Europe. I want to visit the Istanbul Turkish Airways (part of the Star Alliance network) lounge again. Then, do the usual hot air balloon, Turkish baths, Salt lake & formation, bazaar
2 Germany (just so I can drive a Porsche on the autobahn as fast as my balls will allow me) - Stuttgart, Munich, Zuffenhausen ... yeah, you get the picture - and get a trackday pass for the Nordschleife!
3. Switzerland in style. This will be a second visit of Switzerland, and we want to do it in far better style than what we did 30 years ago as young travellers on a budget. Grab a couple of matching Rolexes (back when we did our first trip there 30 years ago, all we could afford was to get matching Swiss Army Knives)...
4. Hope over to the Netherlands to visit old friends (they were our neighbours in Singapore and we've kept in touch all these years) & Belgium to visit more old friends (old neighbours) & the retired Belgian ambassador to Singapore (who was my patient in Singapore before he retired)
5. Head over to France - may not skip (thanks to mesothelium) Paris, try to chase down a couple of Michelin star restaurants (since wife and I are into that at the moment) and to do the vinyard tours in Bordeaux. Visit the 5 First Growth Chateaux and catch up with an old Professor colleague of mine who's retired and returned to France with his Neuroscientist wife.
6. Spain - thanks to icemanfx for the tip: San Sebastián for more Michelin Star restaurants.
7. End up in the UK - this will also be a second homecoming of sorts for me, after all, my early specialization studies were done in the UK hospitals, and I'll revisit the Royal Colleges where I received my Fellowships & see if my signatures on their deed rolls is still anywhere to be found (yes, yes, small things make me happy), before spending some time south in Cornwall & retracing the steps of Doc Martin. Before that, I'll try to convince my wife to visit Anfield for an EPL match - or, she can spend time with her niece while I shout myself hoarse at the stadium.
8. Possible one or two Eastern European destinations as someone suggested - but, I think the Nordic countries are also an interesting option... so this will need a little bit more research.

America: Still not interested

1. From Europe, fly back into Australasia - but I'll try to land in New Zealand first, to spend a month there. We have a spare unit that we've always meant to live in as a vacation home, and this will be the best time to do so. Gotta drain the bank account in NZ as well, because once I'm a tax resident in Australia, that'll also be taxed by the ATO (I don't have enough money in there to warrant ring-fencing it with creative accounting, but more than enough money to know it'll hurt when the taxman comes collecting)
2. Fly back into Australia to begin our next phase of life there.

What does /k think? What would you do differently?

Edited: thank you for the helpful comments. I've amended the list (added some attractions, removed some destinations) as per some of the forum members' invaluable insights!

This post has been edited by hksgmy: May 28 2024, 08:49 PM

Thank you for your kind words. If you have any comments about the choices or any further suggestions on countries that are worth visiting, I would certainly appreciate them!

Well, there are a couple of countries on that list that we already have bank accounts with a considerable amount of money - Malaysia and New Zealand, so we’ll have excess left over, because for example, I honestly don’t think we can burn through RM550,000 (which is all that I have left in my Maybank Premier account in JB) in a month. Same goes for the account in NZ, where all the rental income from our apartment units go into.

We don’t intend to touch our regular SGD/AUD stream of passive income for this year-long retirement travel adventure. Instead, I plan to offload my Macan and W223 S450L in 2 years time (the cars would be around 3 years old by then) and we should get (if we’re lucky) about 60% of our purchase price back, so around SGD500-600k. At worst, SGD400k for both cars.

That’s my budget for the countries listed above, apart from Malaysia, New Zealand and Australia.

Last year, wife and I already did a month-long mini vacation driving our Cayenne from Sydney to Tasmania and back. The total bill of that adventure (including fuel, hotel and fine dining meals etc) was about AUD30,000 (excluding flight tickets). With SQ first class tickets to Sydney, the bill for that month was around AUD50,000.

You can refer to this thread I posted for a snippet of that trip

So, budgeting the same, I expect to spend SGD50,000 per month for that year long retirement vacation - hence, the sale proceeds of the 2 cars in Singapore should cover that with a little bit of spare change (since we won’t need to tap into the piggy bank for Malaysia, NZ and Australia)

This post has been edited by hksgmy: Feb 4 2024, 01:30 PM

Yeah. You’re singing to the choir, mate. Preaching to the converted

Thanks bro. But traveling every 3 months means I won’t be able to do the round the world trip on a single booking. Maybe I’ll just have to spend more time resting between flights to different continents.

Oh yes. Spain. That’s a great tip. San Sebastián. So many Michelin star restaurants there….

Thanks bro!

Yeah. One last push before I’m put out to the pasture to graze …

Within continents, we’ll be travelling domestic or catching the rail. As long as SQ or Star Alliance fly to one of those countries we’ll be fine.

Well, we’ve worked and saved (we’re chronic savers - almost pathological) for all our working lives and we know we can’t take a cent of that away with us so if not when we retire, when? Haha

Approximately SGD500,000 for the whole year long trip

Thanks for your kind words bro. But you know me… I am a slow planner. Took me 3 years to decide on which Porsche to buy, 1 year to plan the Sydney to Tassie trip… so 2 years for this round the world trip sounds about par for the course for me.

But I’ll post photos for sure

2 years away bro. But it’s important for a slow coach like me to get the ball rolling now. 2 years can pass in a blink of an eye before you know it!

We intend to spend at least 5 if not 7 days in major destinations. The most moving about would be the driving that I wanna do when I’m in Germany. Once that’s done and washed out of my system, I’ll slow the pace right down and do what retirees are meant to do… ie take it easy.

That’s also why I bought myself the Sony a7c and the a7iv together with a bunch of travel lenses from Sigma and Tamron late last year.

I’m a rather deliberate person and every small move hopefully helps me manoeuvre the chess pieces into position on the chessboard that is called life.

Right now, my target is to just master the basics and master them well. I’ve moved away from the dreaded “Auto” mode and am now enjoying Aperture priority with ISO control photo taking.

Next on the list is photo composition… baby steps for me. But it should hopefully all come together when the round the world trip starts.

Thanks for the very informative post bro! We can’t book round the world trip tickets via the website - so I’ll call up PPS concierge and get them to arrange it for us.

If you know of any other better way, please lemme know!

Haha. Well, I’ll still be seeing patients and n Sydney but only on a part time basis. My retirement is more about walking away from my full time Singapore career and slow down the pace so I can enjoy the life we’ve worked hard to achieve.

Just started our fifth decade of life

Oh for sure. But that’ll be for another holiday, as I think it’ll be too difficult to juggle a round the world trip with a cruise.

I love the idea of cruise ship holidays.

I can still log in from Sydney also la