It requires a large number of approvals, over-flight and landing permits as well as customs documents in order to travel 18 countries by a private plane. Further, the use of ground handling agents is absolutely advisable in some countries or even prescribed by law. Another difficult part of the planning was to organize AVGAS at approx. 50 airports. This precious liquid has to be delivered by truck in 200 liter barrels at some airports specially.

Most of this work was taken over by FSI (www.fsint.de) a specialized flight service company at Karlsruhe-Baden airport. It has extensive experience in this area and many positive references of similar projects. In Japan we got the support of AOPA Japan. Mr. Imahashi, president of AOPA Japan made contact to Peter Steeger (www.petair.us). He did a great job in paving our way through Japan which is known to be a very difficultly part.

The requirements for visas and travel documents are different country by country. Some countries require the issuance of visas prior to travelling (examples: The USA, Australia, Russia, India and Taiwan). In other countries the visa can be applied upon entry (UAE, Oman and Egypt) or they are totally visa free (Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and Canada). A second passport is absolutely advisable, because some visas have a validity period of only three months and the visa application may last...
(In Germany you may apply for a second passport, if you can provide evidence for need)

Concerning vaccinations we followed the recommendations of our trusted family doctor and the information provided by the German Foreign Office (www.auswaertiges-amt.de) for the respective countries. 

Regarding reservation of hotels and rental cars we simply counted on our experience. The Internet is our preferred tool – or you simply ask people at the airport on arrival. By this we have found many decent and good accommodations in the past (insider tips for excursions included).