perhaps you guys should rent Around the World in 80 days, the original!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048960/
Liz, that is a real classic there...and it's funny as hell, except the part of him thinking he's going to drag the boy along. i do hope between the two of you, your son can find his voice and say NO DAD I'M NOT GOING. that would be real good for him, his self esteem.
the logistics of just getting to japan and back take some careful planning and prep! much less then go to S Africa??? do you know how FAR S Africa is???? (i ask this rhetorically, of course YOU know!). just how damn big the entire continent of Africa is? when my daughter went on the delegation to S Africa from LA i think it took three days TRAVEL time alone. and while they were in Capetown they were under protective guard at all time.
i'm not sure you could make all those stops in two weeks even if you NEVER LEFT the airport, just hit connecting flights!
dude is loony as they come.
ok, couldn't help myself - using How Far Is It - I used LA as the starting point > Tokyo > Johannesburg > Cairo > Seville Spain > LA (i dropped England/Ireland) that is a total of
25,829 miles. Estimated hours of flight for the above using travelmath dot com with a good tail wind would be 46.25 hours, rounding off. that is just from take off to landing, NOT time on the tarmac, time in the airport, delays, customs, baggage claim, getting LOST, language barriers, lost wallet, lost passport, etc.