Booked: Ricky’s Surprise Round-the-World Bachelor Party (Aloha from Doha)

We’re off on a whirlwind round-the-world adventure in advance of Ricky’s upcoming nuptials this summer.

Ricky will be surprised with flights, destinations, and experiences, and we’ll be updating this article (with the aspects of the trip that are fit to print) as we trot our way across the globe. 

Prologue: Hatching a Plan

Courtenay, British Columbia. February 2023.

Rewind a few months. I decided to pay my good friend T.J. a visit at his home on Vancouver Island for a couple of days. We had some laughs, busted open his Georgian cookbook, and took a rare opportunity to get some work done in person together. A normal week in the life of our fully remote workplace at Prince of Travel.

One night, after we’d wrapped up the work day, we cracked open a couple of cleansing ales, and the conversation shifted to our personal lives.

T.J.

Hey, Ricky’s having a small wedding, and I haven’t caught wind of any bachelor party plans. We should really plan something special for him, something memorable. He only gets to do this once, so we better make it count.

I quickly agreed, and we started scheming.

But what do you do for the guy, the so-called “Prince of Travel”, who can travel anywhere, anytime?

How do you create an outlandish, once-in-a-lifetime experience for the champion of the idea that anyone can elevate their travel to make the unimaginable a reality? What could we possibly do, leveraging the power of Miles & Points, that Ricky hadn’t done before?

We racked our brains, thinking of ways to treat Ricky to an aspirational experience he’d never had before. Weaving in a cheeky boys’ trip, of course – with a destination where we could get up to no good.

And what better way to do it than to make the whole adventure a surprise? We’d whisk him away to a mystery locale, revealing every stop on the itinerary as we go.

And so, T.J.’s wife Ashley rolled her eyes and retired to bed early, as he and I cracked a few more beers, and sat down to start hammering out award searches for the next couple of hours.

Prologue, Part 2: A Turbulent Flight Path

Vancouver, British Columbia. May 6, 2023.

Josh

Fast-forward to the weekend of the Prince of Travel Signature Event in Vancouver.

During a team bonding session in the evening, while Ricky was away with our VIP guests on Bowen Island, we…