Surviving 80 Hours of Flying Around the World

Today starts over 80 hours of travel to a super remote island in the South Pacific. We'll start with a short flight from here to San Francisco, where we'll pick up some very special guests. And a long flight to Tokyo, where we have a 25 hour layover.

From Tokyo, we fly to Fiji, where we have another 13 hour layover.

Then another flight to the main island of Tonga, where we have an overnight layover.

2:15 in the morning, and finally to the island that will begin our biggest adventure of the year. Some people may look at traveling this long as something to be dreaded, But I've looked at this as an opportunity to turn it into an experience and something that everyone involved will remember forever.

All right, first lounge of the day.

As soon as we went through security, I started the timer on my phone. I'm gonna try to keep it going the entire way to talk to people. This is awesome. I'm gonna beat you.

Nice touch. Timber. Cornhole at the airport.

That's fun for the people who are playing it. Probably not so fun for everyone else in the airport.

So in order to book this crazy itinerary and have a little more fun than we would have had flying direct, I had to book three completely separate flights to get us to Tonga. But thankfully, this first one is the only one that's in economy. So it gets a lot more interesting from here. Here we go.

We know you have lots of choices when it comes to air travel, and again, we'd like to thank you for choosing us here at Southwest Airlines.

So because I booked these as three separate flights, we now have to leave the airport, collect our bags, recheck our bags, and then re Go through security before the next flight.

This is gonna be fun. Okay.

My hair is.

By the looks of these two people, can you tell who they are?

These are our parents. I think the last time we filmed a big trip together was Peru in 2017. Staying in the glass capsules on the side of the mountain. You sure you want to do this?

We're doing it. Let's go.

We're still waiting to be able to check in for a flight. Okay, so I'm gonna tell you the game plan for the next 48 hours. We fly Zip Air, which is like budget business class. We land in Japan, stay in a pod hotel.

Did I get my own pod, or is it me and you? Your own pod. Then we go out, get ramen. Then we go rent a karaoke room.

All right.

Sing karaoke, come back, sleep in the pod hotel. Wa up the next morning, go to Shibuya Crossing, which is the world's busiest intersection. We go to a restaurant where we're served by robots. How do we get it to stop and concentrate and take our order? And then if we have any more energy and room left in our stomach, we go to the sushi and then we fly to Fiji. Three, two, wait.

Go.

Checking in for flight number two?

Yeah.

We're taking James and Christie to their first lounge ever.

The Air China Lounge at SFO might not be the best first lounge experience ever, but there's free food, so you can't complain too much. All right, out of 10, how would you rank this lounge?

10 out of 10. I've never been to one before. No comparisons. I remember the days when just a lounge was a lounge. You know, anything free.

Okay, so I'm just ducking out of the lounge because I feel like I owe you an explanation of how we ended up on this crazy route. A couple months ago, when my parents agreed to join us in Tonga, I told them that we'd be flying business class because they'd never flown business class before. And that's something that I wanted to give them. I figured I would book this on points. Well, it turns out it's really hard to find four available award seats to Tonga. And paying cash for these flights would have cost $20,000. But by booking these as three completely separate flights, I ended up paying half the price by get to visit two new countries that they've never been to before. And we're flying business class the rest of the way. So hopefully I've turned what would be a very expensive, long travel day into an experience that everyone will remember. At least that's the plan. We could all be super exhausted by the time we get there and regret this 80 hours of travel. But we will see.

The board says last call homeowner.

They're getting the true Karen netting spot experience. We stayed in the lounge too long and now we're power walking to our gate. We're flying Zip Air, which is a relatively new airline and they have like a budget business class. Think like the Ryanair of business class. So it's a fully lay flat seat, but you have to pay for any extra amenities. I feel kind of bad that this is my parents first business class experience, but they've never laid flat before on an airplane before, so I think they're going to enjoy it either way.

You don't get to board first if you're flying business class. So this is the line to board the plane and we're at the very back. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Oh, they got to turn left for the first time.

Oh, my God.

I love it. It's black. The one time I'm not wearing black. Oh, I'm ready. No one will be able to.

Home sweet home for the next 12 hours. What do you think? Sweet.

Don't bother me.

I gotta.

Okay. First impressions. Besides the aisle being a little warm? Just a little. Everything else looks brand new. I feel like I'm in a Mercedes Benz. Just like black leather. Smells like a new plane. The seat controls are touchscreen. There aren't TVs, but there is free wi fi and you can watch in flight entertainment on the WI fi. Pretty much the same thing.

It's just so weird looking here and there, not being a tv, but tons of leg room. Oh, I'm laying backwards. That was Weir. Enjoy.

We are officially in the air.

I just love how happy my parents are right now. My mom's tilted her seat back like three inches and she thinks it's the most comfortable flight she's ever been on.

Don't mind if I do.

I. Silk eye mask. This is amazing.

So far, I've been very impressed with everything on this plane, but I don't understand the neck pillow.

They're not having any problem at all without the TVs.

Lunchtime. So this is definitely where it starts to feel more like an economy flight. We pre ordered food when we booked our tickets and our cheese ravioli just came out. It looks a lot more like a free meal that you would get served in economy if you were flying on an international flight on any other airlock.

Kind of tastes like a frozen Stouffer's meal, which I actually love. Cheers.

How good is that?

Foreign.

Here. Spoiler alert. We did end up making it here to the middle of the South Pacific. But real quick, I want to say a big thank you to our sponsor of this video, surf shark, who has been supporting this channel for over three years now. During this trip that we're on right now, someone we were with got their identity stolen. And we saw firsthand just how devastating and annoying that this can be. Which is just another reason that we believe everyone should be using a VPN as an added layer of protection. If you don't know what a VPN is, it stands for Virtual Private Network, and it encrypts all the data set between your computer and the Internet so that no one can steal your sensitive information. But the VPN can be used for more than just security. It gets more fun than that. Let's say you're out traveling and you want to watch your favorite show from back home. It's super easy to change the virtual location of your computer and get access to the content library that you had when you were back in the us. If you don't already have a vpn, we highly recommend surfshark. It's the only VPN to offer one account for unlimited devices. And if you use our code, Karen Nate, you can get three months for free. Plus there's a 30 day money back guarantee so there is no risk to try it out. To get started, just click the link in the description below. All right, back to Nate for the present, who is probably a lot more tired and jet lagged.

Welcome to Japan.

I'm excited to be here.

Did you sleep?

Maybe some.

The plan was to go out and explore the city tonight. We'll see how everyone's feeling when we get there. I think I might be the most tired.

Okay, we just grabbed some cash. First stop is going to be the 711 to grab some onigiri so everyone can try those and then we're gonna hop on the train and head into the city.

So you kind of make it one cohesive unit. You squeeze it, give it a little massage.

Kinda don't fit.

And then you just eat it.

This is breakfast.

It's stuck in my face.

I don't think it was a big hit.

First of as many as I could possibly squeeze in into 24 hours.

Everyone's bodies think it's somewhere around 5am in the morning. But the local time is 10:30.

Hopefully this is the hardest part of the trip.

Let's go people.

Time to go.

It's a good thing somebody stayed awake on this train.

Okay, so earlier this year when Kara and I were in Tokyo, we tried out four different capsule hotels. And I have brought my parents to the best of the best. Kara's also never been here. Like, it's almost so nice you can't consider it a capsule hotel.

Anything is better than the first one we stayed in.

Kara is going to kill me.

Tiny elevators. Okay, so I'm glad, but it's not a true capsule. That is like a coffin.

What do you think? Could be. This is hope, sweetheart. For the night.

How does this compare to the one just taken last time?

This last you took the best one.

I feel a little guilty. I definitely got the best of the capsules. Now even though it is midnight, we're heading out to find some ramen.

This is wild. I haven't been out and about at Midnight in years.

Our bodies think it's 8am so this is pretty much breakfast.

This board right here shows you there's someone sitting here eating people sitting there. That one's being cleaned. And these are open. So you're gonna walk in. But we each have our own cubby. So you just eat by yourself in a cubby. I wonder is quiet in there.

This is our favorite ramen place. Plus, it's just a super unique experience for anyone coming here for the first time. I think this might be the only country in the world where you eat in your own private cub.

Japanese ramen. It doesn't get any better than this. Do you like it?

We were a little worried that place was going to be closed when we got here. Turns out it doesn't close till 6am and then it opens again at 10 the next morning. So I guess the only time where it would be inappropriate to eat ramen in Japan. Fans. And that place is ours to be for breakfast. It's happening.

I can't believe we documented this.

Let the party begin.

Yeah, it does. I cannot think of a better way to kick off James and Christy's very first time in Asia than with ramen and private karaoke. I'll go first and then everybody else will feel better about themselves.

Come by.

West Virginia.

Teardrop in my.

I don't want to fall asleep Cause I miss you I'm just a poor.

Boy.

You can tell me fit my eyes love you.

Morning.

Slept for about four and a half hours last night. Time for another day in Tokyo.

There's a projector in my room.

Morning.

Whoa. That's cool. These capsules are so hot.

I'm so hot.

Okay. We are starting our day at Shibuya Crossing, which is the worst world's busiest crosswalk.

This next place is somewhere I've never been before. So this is the first time experience for all of us. We are currently following a robot to our table where we will be served the rest of our meal by robots. Oh, this is it. Oh, there's another robot. They're everywhere.

You can just press buttons and tell it to dance. And how do we get it to stop and concentrate and take our order?

It's delivered. Not quite. It doesn't wait for the butterfly. This is amazing. Wow. Thank you. Arigato. Goodbye. Is that ice cream on pancakes? So basically the way this works, works is there's a robot that sits beside your table that entertains you and then there's a separate robot that carries your food and I guess another one that cleans up your mess.

Goodbye.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Have a great day ahead. This is our fourth time to Japan, which is crazy. The first three times were all in the winter when it's freezing. So experiencing Tokyo in this summer heat, it just feels like a completely different place.

The Shinjuku subway line and the Oigo subway line.

This is what I am most excited to show Jason Christie. It's our favorite sushi restaurant in the world. It's a standup sushi bar. It's pretty quiet and awkward, but it just reminds me of my first time in Japan. I can't wait to experience it with them. Look at that.

Best sushi of my life.

I'd say we did a pretty good job seeing Tokyo in 24 hours. Now we're heading back to the airport.

It's coming in waves right now.

Goodbye, Tokyo.

Quick stop in the lounge before we board our friend. Was it yesterday we were in those other lounges?

Wow. You gave yesterday a 10 out of 10. What does this one get?

20 out of 10? I'm just trying to soak in this moment because I have a feeling a week from now, I'm gonna think back to this exact place and wish that I was here. Just a little teaser for what's become.

It's all in Japanese. I can't get it to work. Enjoy.

Sweet. So it was 99 degrees in Tokyo today.

And we walked around sweating all day long.

This is why I don't normally wear white. It is cooler, but very obvious how much I sweat.

But thankfully, this lounge has shower rooms for free.

Wow, that was amazing.

Once again, we stayed in the last lawn because. Because guess who took a shower.

Here we go.

Thank you.

What a beaut.

This is home sweet home for the next eight hours.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Is it not a touch screen? I just want to share a quick travel hack.

Marry a travel hacker. That's all.

Just going to leave you right here.

Yes.

This tastes like our hundredth country.

So I definitely did not do this on purpose, but this trip turned out to be really special because we've taken my parents to the first country that we ever visited on this YouTube channel. It was number one of 100. And now we are flying to our 100th country. So they're getting to visit the first and last country that we went to on our 100 country journey.

We have pure Fiji hydrating body lotion.

Oh, it's noni. Noni fruit. When we did our survival in Panama, they had this fruit called starvation fruit, which is noni and it tasted like trash can juice.

This is definitely an older business class product because they don't make make angled lay flat seats anymore. Because who would do that? So these seats don't lay all the way flat. They lay flat at an angle. So.

Not even hungry anymore. I just want to go sleep.

Okay. So we're both struggling to stay awake, but the food looks really good. We both got the salad and I got the cheesecake. What you like? A spoon, fork, knife. Another fork knife or chopsticks?

I'm such a sucker for cute soccer pepper. I just love it.

Believe that it works so well.

This is pretty much live flat. I don't know what all this angled talk is about.

For some reason, watching my dad wearing live masks brought me a lot of joy.

What are you doing?

Turns out Ingo lay flat's not so bad.

That's a little hint as to what's to come. Breakfast. This looks surprisingly good.

It was an absolute pleasure having you on board and welcome to our home.

Wow. I do feel welcomed. Nine hours later, we have made it to Fiji. It was such a special moment arriving here four years ago. Country number.

100.

I can't believe it.

It was also right before the pandemic, right before the world shut down. And we had no clue how lucky we were to be stepping in to our 100th country in that moment. With all that said, I was trying to arrange a big surprise for the family. Like this very fancy day out to the island with the seaplane.

All fell through. So we've showed up. We have a 12 hour layover and we have no clue how we're going to spend.

All right, Mama Zip Air or Fiji Airways?

Fiji Airways was awesome.

That was the full business class experience.

It was amazing. It just made the trip a pleasure instead of a drudgery.

No, thank you.

You've actually already talking and doing that twice.

You want to go?

No, you're good.

Our strategy for finding something to do at Fiji is looking at this wall of brochures. All right, a decision has been made. From here, we're hopping in a taxi, going to the port, getting on a boat, and then heading to the most perfectly circular island that I've ever seen. At least that's what it looks like on the brochure.

We dreaming.

Well, this looks like a pretty good place to spend the day. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

I just cannot get over the fact that we are on a layover right now.

Life is good.

Back to the airport.

Everybody.

There's two hours to Tonga.

We also have the entire business Class, cabin, all to ourselves. This is kind of a miserable time for our last big flight of the trip.

68 hours since we've started moving. They have not slept in a real bed or not had a backpack on.

Life has been pretty amazing. If we just flew home right now, I would be happy. And we haven't even made it to our destination yet. So.

Pooped. We're supposed to get a meal on this flight. He asked me to look at the drink menu and I just don't think I can do it anymore. I think I'm just going to have to do this thing.

The only one still alive before takeoff. It's been a long three days.

We made it. Entry number 106. The kingdom of Tonga.

It's 2:15 in the morning and we're going to sleep.

During construction right outside the hotel.

All right. Packing up to go to the airport for the last time. We have one more short flight until we reach our final destination.

Last night.

I don't think we did a good job capturing it because we were so tired, but it was so funny. The taxi driver that brought us here literally went and jiggled everyone's handle trying to find an open room for us. People were coming out of their doors.

We just received our first handwritten boarding pass of the trip. This next flight is a charter flight flight. Very small plane taking us to a very remote place. All right.

This is it. Our last flight of this whole journey from Denver to California to Tokyo to Fiji to Tonga. Now to our island that's going to be our home.

Except we got to go around the cones this way. Oh.

Sorry.

The smallest of all the planes.

Look how cool it is. I usually don't like small planes, but this one's cool enough that I'm excited.

Plane sounds alive.

Alright, from Here we have 30 minutes to the island of Ha'. Pai. And I have my favorite seat on any small plane. How's it going?

Good.

Wow. So cool.

Can't believe we're boarding our last flight. This is crazy.

You have a surprisingly good attitude to be on such a small plane.

You know, I'm feeling maybe. Maybe it's the jet lag. I'm pretty excited about it. I feel like the views are going to be really good.

My time across to up I will be expecting 45 minutes. And for your safety.

I'm a little more nervous now. The plane's making some weird noise and it has a weird ass. Like it's leaking. 16 is getting real friendly and laughing out.

Oh my gosh. That is our island.

Thank you. Okay, from the plane now we get on a boat.

So I don't put all my weight on this.

All right, 85 hours and 52 minutes later, we have officially made it. This is actually not our final destination. From here, we get on another boat and go to an undisclosed island that has a lot less comforts than this. We are doing another desert island survival challenge just like the one we did in Panama last year. Highway.

We're doing it here in Tonga this.

Year with James and Christy.

With my parents, we're going to attempt to do it even longer than last time, and it's gonna be a completely different environment.

I feel like we started surviving four days ago, if we're being honest.

It's been a good warmup.

And it's country number 106. Yeah. I hope you don't mind me interrupting one more time. I just wanted to quickly let you know, if you like these shirts that we've been wearing throughout the video, you have a chance to get one for free. Right now, all you have to do is become a member of Fair Drop, which is the app that we created to help you save a ton of money. So hard to concentrate on your next flight. Plus, you can save $50 off your membership right now, which is the biggest discount we've ever offered. If that sounds interesting to you, I'll leave a link in the description below where you can learn more.

Oh, you're not shooting things. You're taking photos. This is so deafening.

Have slept in days.

I hope. I hope so.

E4. Yeah, that's you.