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DFW would be my vote as you then as you get to bypass all the baggage claim/recheck and TSA issues that you would have at either SFO or LA - assuming DFW is your final destination.

If you can at all manage the extra time, I would suggest flying in as early as you can to Sydney. Sydney, at least to me, is really a great city to visit and warrants more than a day to visit the primary sites. BTW - To me, the Blue Mountains would not be at the top of my list if I only had one extra day in the city. The good news is that this site has lots of people from Sydney and Australia generally to give you ideas of what to see and do. The one edge I would give to UA and/or DL over QF would be the availability of extended legroom seats for purchase in economy. I think the seat pitch in QF economy is still 32", but if you are tall this is still no fun as compared to getting something more like 34" of seat pitch.

This reminds me of when I was a "journeyman" management consultant years ago. We had a saying back then that only partners and gentlemen flew during the day...

Virgin is a good bet, but I would still recommend flying into London at least a day or two ahead in case of issues with your flights even though the probability of outright cancellation is very low.

Thanks for sharing this trip report link. Your report was very moving and quite interesting to read. I was struck by your statement regarding the "transformative power of travel." While I guess I have known this intuitively, I have never expressed it as such and your family has taken this concept to a whole new level in terms of serving others.

Congratulations. These tickets are really an amazing deal if one has the flexibility to be gone. You might also consider using points for this flight one way at a reasonable price. I just saw some really good business class seat deals on AA for 57k miles in August without a big cash outlay. I would grab one of these quick - assuming I had the miles...

Thanks, this is the kind of commentary I wanted to hear. KL really hasn't been at the top of my list, but it became a necessary stop as part of a longer journey. Yes, I have seen many good things regarding Bali. I think we will focus most of our attention their and make a simple overnight stop in KL before moving on to our next destination.

I also prefer Uber in Mexico for just that reason. Uber makes the price transparent and you are going to get the same rate as a local without any hassle.

For what it's worth, I found this calculator online to help one determine if they are in compliance with the Schengen short term stay requirements: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen-borders-and-visa/border-crossing/short-stay-visa-calculator_en

More than enough to do in one day. There are two main lines: 1) is an outer loop that goes to the botanical gardens, the local wine area, a "township", a fishing area as well as some of the popular beach areas. 2) does an inner loop that includes table top mountains. The inner loop bus overlaps with outer loop bus in the center of town to a great extent and also hits the beach areas. You can pick up both lines at the V&A center by the aquarium. I am not sure about where to store your luggage if you did the hop on hop off bus. As such, I would probably take a ship's tour with airport drop off. I agree with this. The line at immigration departing the country seemed really long and took us at least 45 minutes to get through.

Sure, but your body only feels the 9 hours behind as your circadian rhythm doesn't feel the calendar date. For me, I only consider the maximum number of hours between locations irrespective of the calendar date which at most is 12 hours. Does this make sense to you? Below is an extreme example of a calendar difference of 26 hours while your body traveling between these two locations would only experience 2 hours of time difference from a sleep/jetlag perspective: https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/16528/what-are-the-farthest-time-zone-locations#:~:text=You can see that the,a Wednesday in Line Islands. "you can see that the most extreme time zones are +14 hours at Line Islands (Kiribati), and -12 hours in and around Baker Islands (US). Therefore, the maximum possible difference between times on Earth is 26 hours. That means that at 11:00 PM of a Monday in Baker Island, it is 1:00 AM of a Wednesday in Line Islands." While the flight path is independent of any time zone discussion, many airlines still fly over Russia to get to and from North America. I was recently on a Qatar Airways flight that went right across Russia and over the pole flying from Doha to Seattle.

I have a flight connection in Kuala Lumpur that enables me to split my time between Kuala Lumpur and Bali. It probably isn't a fair request as the two locations are so different. I have a total of 7 days. How would you split the time between both spots or would you simply skip the city and spend time on Bali? Thanks in advance for any comments or suggestions.

I would suggest that you also look for advice on the "Cruise Air" forum. I have found really good advice from the people in that follow that forum. Their are several posters there with lots of good airline information. I actually don't think a stop in CA would materially change the flying time. Google suggest the difference between flights times from LA and Chicago is only 20 minutes. In the end a stop on the west coast will result in a much longer total travel time. The actual absolute time change is 9 hours. This is the same for me as flying between Paris and San Diego. That said, the OP should review dealing with jetlag and come up with their strategy. My understanding is that seatguru.com is no longer maintained all that well and that aerolopa.com has more up to date seat maps. I would look at both. If you have access to a business class lounge and sufficient time this is a nice idea. I will do this is my flight schedule supports it. Especially if I have two long haul flights back to back.

I would say at least one of the principal reason that COPA is less expensive is that the flights all include a stop in Panama before heading to MIA. Some of the COPA flights don't have too much of a time penalty as opposed to the AA nonstop, but it is a smaller aircraft and there is always a possibility of issues on any connection. BTW - my only anecdotal information on COPA is from a friend who flies to Ecuador on occasion and doesn't really like the economy passenger experience. Of course you are looking at business which could be much different.

That's what I thought this coffee was when I saw the picture posted. As a dessert person, I hope I get to at least try something similar.