Our globe-trotting correspondent took a selfie earlier this week in Phuket, Thailand. By Steve Dinnen The high temperature in Des Moines today is expected to be 41. The temperature in Mumbai, India, will top out at 85, which partly explains why I’m stopping over here on my get-out-of-Iowa winter trip. It’s an annual tradition, but on a grander scale this year. Sure, there’s Palm Springs, which has great weather and is popular with Des Moines people. But I don’t golf. There’s Cancun, easy to reach but overcrowded. So I chose far-off Kuala Lumpur because it sounded exotic and I bagged a cheap fare ($700, barely more than a flight to Acapulco). But it was a one-way ticket, and once I started planning how to get back, the trip ballooned into an around-the-world adventure through 11 cities and five continents. American Airlines turned me over to partner Qatar Airways in Chicago, and they tucked me into a cozy business class seat for the 21-hour flight to Malaysia. Qatar is best in class, both airside and at its lounge in Doha. The lowest temperature ever in Kuala Lumpur was 64, so I made the right choice. It rained for a bit, but the skies cleared and the water was perfect once I reached Phuket, Thailand. (It was a last-minute substitute for Perth, Australia; see the story below.) Phuket was cheap. Singapore, my next stop, is decidedly not cheap, but I found an affordable hotel that happened to be near a street lined with dozens of affordable eateries. Now I’m in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), right on the Indian Ocean where I may go for a swim. Next up is Nairobi, followed by a jaunt to Madrid to visit some museums and then to Marbella, in southern Spain, where I’ve spent a lot of time during the winters. It’s not as warm as the Mexican Riviera, and the water is too cold to swim, but it hasn’t snowed here since a light dusting in 1954. And I rented an Airbnb spot with a kitchen so I’ll go to the local mercado, grab some fish and shrimp plucked from the sea merely hours earlier, and grill a meal that you just can’t get in Iowa. I’ll repeat the dining-in experience in Salerno. Then on to Rome, where I’ll stay at a convent, of all places. They’ll see that I behave and set me on the right course before a nonstop flight to Rio de Janeiro and then, finally, back to Des Moines in early February. I’ve spent around $4,000 on airfare, some in economy, some in business, with that upgraded flight to Kuala Lumpur as a perk from American. I jerry-rigged the entire trip. Lorraine and Tom May put more thought into the process with their own circumnavigation in 2023. Lorraine, a retired attorney in Des Moines, called the global travel desk at United Airlines and stitched together an itinerary, all in business class for around $9,400 each. “We took off from London on April 12, 2023, went to Croatia, Romania, Turkey, Jordan, India, Thailand, Japan, British Columbia and back to London on May 12, 2023,” Lorraine told me. “Too short. And just right.” Of course, it helps to be retired to pull off these multi-week, multi-nation journeys. Larry Eisenhauer, the retired chief justice of the Iowa Court of Appeals, and his wife, Cynthia, a former chief of staff for Gov. Tom Vilsack, set off early this month on a four-month cruise with Viking. They’ll see a lot in 120 days, including Bora Bora, Sydney, Indonesia’s Komodo Island and Zanzibar. You might consider these once-in-a-lifetime adventures. Or you might be like Lorraine May, who’s just about ready to ring up United again and plan a new route through the Southern Hemisphere. One final note for the airplane geeks: I booked DSM-ORD-DOH-KUL-HKT-SIN-BOM-NAI-DOH-MAD-CMN-AGP-NAP-FCO-GIG-DSM. Heading overseas? Don’t forget those visas. For my trip around the world, I wanted to set foot on every continent with a permanent population. That plan got scuttled by a rookie mistake: I failed to get a visa. My first stop after leaving Des Moines (North America) was Kuala Lumpur (Asia). Then I was aiming for Perth (Australia), but I completely overlooked the fact that visitors to Australia need a visa to enter. Never mind that we and the Aussies are old chums; that’s the rule. I applied for an electronic visa at the airport in Kuala Lumpur; it hasn’t arrived and I’ve already moved on to India. Americans have great access to the world, as our passport alone gets us into 186 countries, according to the Henley Passport Index 2025. But there are around 215 all told, so intrepid travelers need to take note, ahem, and get your papers in order. The U.S. State Department posts a thorough list of which countries require what, so all you need do is type “Does a U.S. citizen need a visa to enter (insert country here),” and you’ll find instructions at travel.state.gov. As I’ve noted earlier, Americans visiting the United Kingdom now need a visa-like document called an electronic travel authorization (ETA), even if you’re just passing through. And sometime later in 2025, European nations that participate in the Schengen visa protocol will require yet another visa-like electronic document, called a European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS). I’ll get into Europe on my current trip, before the new ETIAS requirements. And I did get a visa beforehand for Kenya (Africa), and my stopover in Rio de Janeiro (South America) is visa-free for Americans until April 10. So I did some homework. But I should have done more.