When the new seven wonders of the world were announced in July, they ushered in a new type of competition as well. Immediately, travelers started quizzing one another: “How many wonders have you seen?” Two, four, none? All of a sudden, people who could have quite contentedly lived the rest of their lives without ever visiting that statue on the mountaintop in Rio de Janeiro, or that marble monument in India, suddenly found themselves checking airfares, all in a quest to check off another one of the wonders.
But visiting a sight whenever you happen to be in the neighborhood — or continent — is no way to win a “seven wonders” competition. If you want that Super Sightseer! stamp on your passport, you can’t succumb to simple tourism and let wonder wannabe destinations distract you. To help you keep your focus, we consulted travel books, websites, tour guides and trip brokers to develop a do-it-yourself seven wonders tour. And to make it fun for everyone, we divided it into trips that will work whether you have $7 million or $700 in your bank account.
Get there
The man who came up with the idea for the new seven wonders, Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber, traveled to the sights via airship. We opted for transportation a little less reminiscent of the Hindenburg.
Posh: It’s certainly not swanky to share your travel accommodations with strangers, even if they are first-class strangers. Why not opt for your own jet instead? According to Elite Jet Charter, an Orlando, Fla.-based booking agent, you can rent a top-of-the- line Bombardier Global Express plane for a three-week seven- wonder tour for a mere $900,000, plus 7.5 percent tax. The plane comes equipped with five beds, couches and chairs for 14 people, plus a crew of two pilots and two flight attendants.
You’ll want to make sure you save a seat for a personal tour guide, such as Shaunee Higgins, owner of The Companion Traveler in Fairfax, Vt., who will provide 24-hour guide/logistics/ problem-solving service for $400 a day, plus hotel and meals.
Budget: If you have way more time than money, a crew-as- you-go boat job will get you to all seven destinations (eventually), and provide cash for a little dry-land sightseeing. There are a variety of websites that post ads for yacht crew members, or you can just hang out at a marina and hitch a job on a boat that’s heading toward the next wonder on your list. The Colosseum, Petra, Chichen Itzá, The Great Wall of China and Christ the Redeemer are all within a two-hour drive of a port, and the Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu are easily accessible via train or bus from port cities.
If you suffer from seasickness or don’t have a spare year or so to devote to a seven wonders tour, a round-the-world airline ticket is your best bet. offers a ticket with stops not only in the seven wonders cities, but a handful of other interesting destinations in between. The price ranges from $4,500 to $6,000, depending on when you book your trip.
Rather than visit the new seven wonders in order of age or architectural splendor or awe factor, we opted for the least travel time. Here’s our tour, starting in Denver.
Chichen Itzá, Mexico
Posh: The closest airport is about 10 miles east of Chichen Itzá, but according to the Moon Handbook travel guide, its license was suspended in 2001 and it now accepts only a handful of charters. But that’s really your pilot’s worry, isn’t it? Your concern is where to find the softest bed, the largest pool and the smoothest tequila to help you recuperate from your flight and gear you up for the next day’s trek up Chichen Itzá’s approximately 4 gazillion steps.
Mayaland Hotel, just a few feet away from the Chichen Itzá entrance, will fit your requirements. Its 100 acres of bird-filled jungle and three swimming pools make it the best hotel in Piste, the town closest to Chichen Itzá. Ask for one of the three-bedroom bungalows, which rent for $350-plus a night.
Budget: Your boat is going to dock in Progreso, a port about 90 miles from Chichen Itzá, and your plane is going to land in Merida, a Yucatan city about two hours away by bus. You can get a second-class bus ticket for about $5, but it’s worth ponying up an extra buck or so for a first-class, air-conditioned bus. The bus will drop you in Piste, where you can find a variety of posadas that rent for around $20 a night for a double room. Even cheaper: bring your own hammock and rent hook space at one of the posadas for about $4 a night.
Chichen Itzá is about 2 1/2 miles from the center of Piste. You can walk, or catch a bus for less than $1. The entrance fee for Chichen Itzá is about $10, so get your money’s worth by planning to spend an entire day at the ruins.
Machu Picchu, Peru
Posh: The Incans thoughtlessly forgot to leave space for an airstrip or helicopter pad when they were carving Machu Picchu out of the mountainous jungle half a millennium ago. As a result, the site is the great equalizer between high-end and low- end travel. Everyone has to get from Peru’s Sacred Valley to Aguas Calientes, the town nearest Machu Picchu, via foot or train, and from Aguas Calientes to the ruins via foot or bus.
That said, there are ways to class up your travel experience. If you’re hiking the Inca Trail from Cusco to Machu Picchu ($350 to $450 for four days, including a return train ticket), you could bribe your fellow trekkers to carry you in a litter a la the ancient Incan kings. Or, more realistically, you could take PeruRail’s Hiram Bingham train (named after the explorer who discovered Machu Picchu in the early 1900s) from Cusco to Aguas Calientes. For $588, you’ll get brunch on the 3 1/2-hour morning journey and cocktails and a four- course dinner on the return trip.
Aguas Calientes is not the most scenic of towns, so take a bus from the train up the road to Machu Picchu, where you’ll find the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge just outside the entrance to the ruins. Opt for one of the suites at $1,320 a night. Although the hotel has a restaurant and spa services, you’re paying for the location rather than the amenities. After dusk, when the last buses leave, you’ll have the ruins to yourself.
Budget: From Cusco to Aguas Calientes, take PeruRail’s Backpacker train. You’ll have to leave at 7 a.m. versus the Hiram Bingham’s more civilized 9 a.m. departure time, but you’ll save a pile of money. Round-trip fare on the Backpacker is $96 as of January.
As you exit the Aguas Calientes train station, you’ll be greeted by a variety of hotel touts. Some offer better deals than the rates quoted in guidebooks — as low as $10 a night for a double. If you prefer to book in advance, expect to pay about $25 for a budget room.
The cheapest way to get from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu is by foot, but the climb is steep and takes about an hour. Bus fare is about $12 round trip. Entrance to Machu Picchu is a whopping $40, so make it count by staying from dawn to dusk, if you can.
Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Posh: Take a private car from the Rio de Janeiro airport directly to Ipanema or Copacabana beaches, where you’ll find the city’s best hotels. Caesar Park Ipanema Beach is considered by many to be the toniest, particularly the imperial suite, which comes with its own butler and boasts three bedrooms, three baths, a living room, office and a dining room with seating for 16. Price is about $3,300 a night.
Start your tour of the Cristo statue via helicopter. Helisight offers a six-minute circuit for $63. You can then take a car or taxi up Corcovado Mountain to the base of the statue, where the entrance fee is about $10.
Budget: The bus dubbed the frescao by locals makes a circuit from Rio’s airports to the tourist hotels. It will stop when requested and costs about $3. Ask the driver to drop you in the Flamengo neighborhood, which is not only at the base of Corcovado Mountain, but also a good option for relatively inexpensive hotels. Budget double rooms run about $55 to $65, according to most guidebooks.
The cheapest way to reach Cristo is to walk, but take into account it’s at the top of a mountain that’s 2,300 feet tall. Your next-cheapest option is a $20 train ride.
Petra, Jordan
Posh: Fly into Aqaba, the Portofino of Jordan. Swanky hotels are being built right and left, so you’ll have plenty to choose from. The new InterContinental hotel’s royal suite not only offers beach access and balconies overlooking the Red Sea, it also has its own sauna. Price is about $1,850 a night.
Hire a car or charter a taxi (about $35 each way) for the two-hour drive to Petra. You’ll want to take your time in this ancient city, so consider staying nearby, perhaps at the Movenpick Hotel, which is right next to the Petra entrance gate and boasts a library, pool and rooftop garden. It’s no InterContinental, but it’s a veritable bargain at about $160 a night for a double room. Inside Petra, you can save your soles by opting for one of the guided horse tours.
Budget: If your boat docks in Aqaba, you don’t need to immediately hightail out for cheaper digs. Check out Zahran Street, which has a few budget hotels with double rooms at about $11 a night. If you fly in, your plane will land in Amman, about a three-hour bus ride from Petra. There are several minibuses a day between Amman and Petra, at about $4 each way.
Petra’s daily entrance fee is steep — about $30 — but you can get a two- day pass for around $35. The guidebooks recommend a two-day minimum to explore the ruins, which are much more extensive than that rock fortress in the Indiana Jones movie. The village outside Petra offers reasonably priced rooms ($15 to $20 per night for a double) in the city center.
Taj Mahal, India
Posh: You can fly directly to Agra, which has the benefit of being adjacent to the Taj Mahal, and the minus of being polluted, industrial and unscenic. Fortunately, there are some excellent hotels. The best is the Oberoi, with its beautiful terraced lawns, fountains, reflecting pools and Moorish architecture framing Taj Mahal views. Opt for the two-bedroom Kohinoor suite, which goes for $3,300 a night and offers panoramic vistas of Shah Jahan’s marble monument to love, even from the bathroom.
Entrance to the Taj Mahal is about $19, and be prepared to pay that fee more than once. One of the pluses to having an unlimited travel budget is being able to come and go throughout the day, watching the monument’s white marble color subtly shift from cream to gray as the light and shadows change. Dawn and dusk are the most spectacular times, and if you’re at the Taj during a full moon, make sure to take a moonlight tour. There are guides available inside the monument for about $25 a day.
Budget: If you travel to India by boat, you face a 650-mile trip from the Mumbai port to Agra. You’re in better shape if you fly into Delhi, which is about five hours by bus (about $2) or two hours by the fastest train (about $19) from Agra. Once in Agra, you’ll find budget hotels in the Taj Ganj section of town. Double rooms range from about $4 to $6 a night, and many offer views of the Taj Mahal from their rooftops. Pony up the $19 entrance fee, though, but save money by walking to the monument, which is less than a mile from Taj Ganj.
Great Wall of China
Posh: The easiest way to see the Great Wall is via a day trip from Beijing. There are a variety of independent guides who will take care of all the arrangements; one option is , which offers private Wall tours for $117 to $168 per person per day. Or you can hire a private car and driver, which runs about $55 to $80 for eight hours.
Like any huge city, Beijing has opulent options for overnight stays. One of the classiest is the St. Regis, a little slice of London that offers a bowling alley, putting range, spa with its own natural hot springs and 24-hour butler service. Try out the presidential suite, which reputedly rents for more than $3,000 a night.
Budget: Getting to the Great Wall by bus is easier than it seems. At the Qianmen tour bus station, which has routes and timetables in English, you can catch a bus to Badaling, the most touristy section of the wall, for about $13 round trip, including your entrance ticket. Or try a minibus trip to a more rugged and less populated section, Simatai, for about the same price. If you understand Chinese or are just feeling adventurous, take a regular city bus to the Wall (the Lonely Planet China guidebook tells you how) for about $1. Some of the backpacker hostels arrange cheap Wall trips as well.
You’ll find those hostels in the city center, near the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Doubles with bathrooms range from $8 to $27 a night. Some hostels will rent you bikes for around $3 a day, if you want to pedal the 40 or so miles to Badaling or 70 miles to Simatai. If you’re really strapped for cash, you can camp on the Jinshanling section of the wall, about 75 miles from Beijing.
Colosseum, Rome
Posh: If you’re feeling that the low prices in some of the seven wonders destinations have crimped your spending, you can make up for it in Rome. There’s a banker’s dozen of five-star hotels near the city’s Spanish Steps, but they seem like youth hostels compared with the Westin Excelsior’s Villa La Cupola suite. This two-floor, 8,000-square-foot suite is reputedly the largest in any European hotel and includes a frescoed cupola, private cinema, fitness area and seven terraces. The price for all this dolce vita? $24,000 a night, according to Travel + Leisure magazine.
Although La Cupola may seem like a world wonder, it’s not actually the one you’ve traveled to Rome to see. That’s the Colosseum, which costs a mere $16 to enter, $80 for a private guide and $50 an hour for a private car and driver to get you there.
Budget: There’s just no way to avoid it — the weak dollar has made Rome an expensive city. The train from the Fiumicino Airport to the Termini station only lasts 30 minutes but costs about $16. At least it takes you to some of the cheapest hostels in the city, but even those cost around $80 to $110 a night for a double room. A hostel dorm bed can run $35 nightly. The good news is that you can save $150 or so by declining to have your photo snapped by one of the (aggressive!) faux gladiators who try to pose with you in front of the Colosseum.
