We recently completed a research project where we shopped 3 round the world itineraries from 8 different companies who sell RTW tickets. The following is a guest post about the DIY method of buying plane tickets as you go for your RTW trip.
In January 2010 I quit my job, sold everything I owned, and bought a one way ticket from Los Angeles to Bangkok. It was the beginning of a year-long round the world adventure that brought me to 20 different countries on 4 continents.
When I left on my trip I had a vague plan of the destinations I wanted to visit, but it was very important for me to have flexibility as well. I considered buying a pre-packaged round the world ticket, but decided to go the DIY route instead.
The main reasons I chose DIY were the flexibility and the price.
Flexibility
Most round the world tickets limit your travel time to 12 months. In my case this was an immediate deal breaker. I knew I may be gone for over 12 months. Even if you are planning a shorter trip, you never know what might happen.
You might take a job at a bar on the Mekong and linger in Laos for a few months. You may discover your new-found love for ice climbing in Norway and want to stay through the winter. The point is that with extended travel, flexibility is key.
The other main downside to round-the-world tickets is that by and large they require you to pick an itinerary including dates and destinations in advance. Having that kind of structure can only hurt a traveler’s journey.
Price
My trip around the world trip included 12 flights connecting South East Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the United States. I covered a total of 38,000 miles at the bargain price of $3,256. That’s only 9 cents per mile—cheaper than driving! I have yet to find one round-the-world airfare quote for the same itinerary that can beat that price.
My DIY Round-the-World Itinerary
I booked this itinerary using only one-way airfares found by searching the web. While I racked up a lot of frequent flyer miles on the way I paid for all of these trips out of pocket. On average I bought the tickets I used about 2-3 months in advance for long haul flights and up to the very last minute for shorter flights.
The table below shows a summary of my flights. The mileages listed include the stopovers as indicated.
All said and done I took 12 flights and visited 4 continents. A little over half of these flights (7 of 12) were on budget carriers and were short distances. All of my long haul flights were on standard carriers. My most expensive flight on a cost per mile basis was my flight from Bucharest to Kos, Greece. This was probably due to two factors: one, I booked the flight evening before it left; and two, the leg from Athens to the island of Kos was on a tiny prop plane.
Looking back on it I flew a lot, and some of the time it wasn’t necessary. Had I wanted to save a little money I could have easily gone overland throughout South East Asia (skipping the Bangkok-Krabi and Bangkok-Phnom Penh-Bangkok flights and the flight within Indonesia from Denpasar to Yogyakarta). Had I skipped these flights I would have saved $245 on airfare.
Tips for Keeping on Budget
The best thing you can do to stay on budget is to be flexible. Flexibility in time and precise destination will go further and save you more money than any number of hours of searching the web for the cheapest fare.
One possible pitfall to booking independently is the trend towards egregious markups with long haul one-way fares. I found this was the biggest problem with flights between the US and Europe. You can usually find a way around it if you keep looking. Sometimes if you buy a refundable round trip ticket with plans to refund the second leg you can save some money.
While packaged round the world tickets may be perfect for some travelers, nothing beats the flexibility of relying on your own creativity and bargain hunting skills to create a round-the-world itinerary on the fly.
This was a guest post by Briana from Roll Global. For further reading you can look at her monthly budget for the entire trip here. You can also read more about her adventures, traveling, rock climbing and bicycle touring around the world on her website RollGlobal.org.