Another tour around the world by a passenger jet kicked off Monday in Whitehorse, aboard a Boeing 757 owned by Icelandair.

The aircraft stopped in Toronto to pick up passengers from eastern Canada and the United States.

It then arrived in Whitehorse early Monday afternoon to pick up the rest of its passengers who had flown here from across the western U.S. and Canada.

Sheila Dodd, the city's manager of tourism, said the guests were greeted by can-can dancers before meeting for dinner at the Westmark Whitehorse Hotel.

Whitehorse, she said, has been the starting point for the private charter tour for at least the last three years.

Passengers pay $25,000 to tour the world by air over 28 days, she said.

Dodd said the next stop after leaving Whitehorse is Kyoto, Japan, where the charter will spend three days before travelling east to Hong Kong, and then on to exotic destinations like Cambodia's Angkor Wat ruins.

She said they'll be stopping in Egypt to visit the Valley of the Kings and tomb of King Tut.

They will stop in the United Arab Emirates, and in Prague, Czech Republic, and so on, before ending the tour in Iceland.

At each stop, the 86 passengers will spend a couple of days or more, said Dodd.

She said many of the passengers were interested in catching a glimpse of the northern lights last night during their one night in Whitehorse, though the overcast conditions didn't provide much of an opportunity for that.

Some, however, did leave the room numbers with hotel staff, just in case the sky broke and the lights were dancing.

The tour group departed this morning.