simply_angelic

Hi, I hear of a lot of people doing the 'round the world' trek thing, and I was wondering how you went about getting/where you found your tickets. What sort of stuff is out there? I tried googling it, but I'm getting weird results where the airlines kind of book your stop spots for you, but I thought an around the world ticket was just a ticket where you didn't backtrack in your path. So basically, any info you guys could dish, would be very helpful. Thanks!

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~Laura
GO CANADA!!!!

If you walk backwards, you'll find out that you can go forward and people won't know if you're coming or going.

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.
-James Dean

Countries I've Visited: Austria, Botswana, Canada, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy. Malawi, Mexico, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, USA, UK, Vatican City, Zambia

LostFarmboy

An around the world ticket is a series of flights over a certain time period (usually a year) in more or less one direction around the world. These tickets work on milage, you can get tickets to cover 20,000 miles, 30,000 miles, etc, or on the number of continents you wish to visit. So, you can take as many flights as you like so long as you don't cross the same ocean twice, you don't go back to a continent you have already flown to, you don't go over your ticket's milage, and you only go to the continents you specified to your travel agent.

These tickets are used with either the one world alliance of airlines (Aer Lingus, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, LAN, Qantas ) or the star alliance airlines (Air Canada, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian, bmi, Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, Spanair, Swiss, Tap Portugal, Thai, United, US Airways, Varig). So, you can't have an around the world ticket with one alliance and take a flight on your ticket with the other alliance. This kinda sucks because one world covers central and south america but doesn't do such a great job with the rest of the world, and star alliance covers everywhere pretty well BUT south america.

Yes, your travel agent will book all your flights for you before you actually take them, it's not just an open ticket where you can turn up to any airport and say you want to board that flight, you have to actually have a seat booked on that flight. The pre-booking of flights serves a few purposes:
1. Ensures you actually get a seat
2. Lets the travel agent know the milage and continent number of your ticket
3. Allows the travel agent to figure out which airline alliance works best for you.

My around the world ticket was a big one - 5 continent, can't remember if it had a milage limit on it. It had 16 flights on it, most of which were international, and i had to carry a book full of paper tickets around with me for my whole trip...that's right, they weren't digital tickets, dunno if they're all like this.

They are usually pretty flexible with date changes on these tickets, so long as you give them a few days notice so they can check out availability of seats on your new flight. However, they usually charge $100 for a destination change.



Hope this helps

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nemesis331

that sounds amazing...where do you get one?

do you have any sights about it?

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--Bates-- </span>

LostFarmboy

Perhaps the One World or Star Alliance pages might have more info on them.

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My adventures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickt0909/

nemesis331

awesome..i was playing around and priced a pretty extensive around the world ticket over the course of a year and it came up about 4,000-5,000. that seems high. what did you pay?

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--Bates-- </span>

LostFarmboy

Yeah, i paid around $4500 - $5000 for mine. But remember that i had 16 flights and touched on 5 continents, they don't get much bigger than that. So, mine worked out around $280 - $315 a flight. Not bad considering i did some big ones - Sydney to Thailand, Thailand to England, England to Dallas, Buenos Aires to Sydney. If you have less continents or less miles then it gets a lot cheaper. You're also paying for the flexible dates - you can change any date that you fly in to or out of any destination you have chosen any munber of times. You're also buying piece of mind, all your flights for an around the world trip lasting a year are booked and ready to go, you don't have to worry about organising anything. Also, it does work out waaayyyyyyy cheaper than buying each flight individually, i don't know any airline that would fly me from Sydney to Argentina for $300.

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nemesis331

tru..thats amazing. the problem wouldn't be the price of all the flights but the cost of food, hostels and such for an entire year. i don't know how i would do it. that could be who knows how many more thousands and thousands

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--Bates-- </span>

simply_angelic

thanks for the help LFB, that was really informative! you're awesome

__________________
~Laura
GO CANADA!!!!

If you walk backwards, you'll find out that you can go forward and people won't know if you're coming or going.

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.
-James Dean

Countries I've Visited: Austria, Botswana, Canada, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy. Malawi, Mexico, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, USA, UK, Vatican City, Zambia

PlayPal

Seriously, how does everybody manage to pay for these year-long trips? I went to Spain, portugal, france and italy for 2 1/2 months and it cost me about 4 grand, including plane ticket. Multiply that by 5....yikes. I was living pretty cheaply too. I suppose I could have eaten nothing but beans and rice, with some horsemeat for protein...

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Let there be adventure.

simply_angelic

It's not something you just do on a whim...I mean you have to be incredibly serious about doing it. A lot of people sell all of their stuff, others save up for a looooong time. If it's something you want to make happen, you can do it. And don't forget the possibility of working while abroad. There are always things you can do to make it work

__________________
~Laura
GO CANADA!!!!

If you walk backwards, you'll find out that you can go forward and people won't know if you're coming or going.

Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.
-James Dean

Countries I've Visited: Austria, Botswana, Canada, Costa Rica, Democratic Republic of the Congo, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy. Malawi, Mexico, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, USA, UK, Vatican City, Zambia

PlayPal

And when you come home you start ALL over?

__________________
Let there be adventure.

Sabrosa

Like SA stated....so much time and saving is involved. Definitely can't do it on a whim. Also- from what it sounds like...Europe is pretty expensive compared to alot of other continents. You can save alot of money by travelling to countries that aren't quite as developed. Atleast that's what I'm hoping.

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The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences. - Eleanor Roosevelt

PlayPal

Good point Kindra.

__________________
Let there be adventure.

nemesis331

how much would you budget for an around the world trip that lasted a year through SA, parts of Europe (mostly eastern and south-eastern), north Africa, and ton's of Asia!

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--Bates-- </span>

LostFarmboy

Well, my 4.5 month around the world trip cost me a total of (including flights, acommodation, food and everything) $15,000AUD. This covered a short stop in Thailand, western Europe, and central and south america and i went crazy and didn't really budget very well at all, i could have done it for much less if i was smart. How much a trip costs depends mostly on where you go, how many places you go, and how many things you do when you get there. You could quite happily spend a year touring around central and south america for a year on $10,000. However, a year travelling around western Europe would easily cost twice that, probably more, if you were seeing all the sights and not working. Your budget all depends on your destinations. So, considering SA (South Africa or South America???), eastern EU, North Africa and Asia are all pretty cheap places (actually, i'm not too sure about Africa), you could asume it's not going to be too expensive as far as year long trips go. To tell you how much to budget for such a trip would be almost impossible, there's waayyyy too many factors that come into it all. But, if it was me going i'd take around $15,000 spending money, not including flights, and be very careful with my budget.

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My adventures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickt0909/

BelfastFlyer

I've been eyeing up this site

http://www.thegreatescapade.com/planMyTrip.php

seems like an ok deal...