RTW Route & Tickets

Round & round and round it goes and where it stops, nobody knows?

Well, quite simply, it is then probably not 😉

Costa Rica - Argentina - New Zealand - Australia - Indonesia - Malaysia - Thailand - Myanmar (Burma), are the planned destinations on my 7-months Round the World Tripbut I do not exclude to visit also some Pacific islands, Cambodia or China!

The criteria for the route planning was travel safety, the climate and of course I try not to visit countries I have already been to. Since there is always a certain risk for women traveling on their own, I decided not to visit certain countries of Southamerika and Africa.

On the other hand, of course I have to keep my promise with some friends to meet them on my RTW trip: Marcela, Mauri and Valentino in Cordoba, Ben in Auckland, Valeria and Tomas in Sydney, Alan in Melbourne, and Matt in Adelaide.

I also wanted to include some wildlife experiences in the route:

• spot exotic reptiles in the jungle of Costa Rica
• visit the Iguazu Falls
• as a vegetarian to try an Argentinean steak
• to complete the Milford Track
• to dive on the Great Barrier Reef
• to see Tasmanian devils, koalas and kangaroos
• to enjoy a sunset at the Ayers Rock
• to look into the eye of the white shark
• to see Komodo dragons
• to experience the orangutans in the wild
• to dive with whale sharks
• to take pictures of the fishermen on Lake Inle

Tickets & Transport

Have you ever noticed that there are discounted flight fares to go anywhere except to your destination?

Since my route including the dates from the beginning was pretty clear for me, the cheapest option for me was to buy the tickets from a travel agency that offers round-the-world tickets.

I compared the following agencies:

www.roundtheworldflights.com
www.statravel.de
www.roundtheworldexperts.co.uk
www.travelnation.co.uk
https://rtw.oneworld.com/rtw/

All providers except Oneworld sent me an offer within a maximum of 3 days, but you should contact them by telephone because they have so many requests and they give priority to those who phone. In addition they also offer travel insurance, bus tickets and tours.

In general I do not know if these agencies are good in advising you in terms of destination etc. since I decided all the details before talking to them.

The flights with Roundthewordflights cost about 2800 € which I think is a good deal, but most of those tickets oblige you to start in London. Changing flight dates is free but subject to availability. Again, this varies depending on the travel agency/offer and you should clarify that in advance.

Of course there is also the possibility to book the flights one by one, but I do not know the cost for that since you never know inadvance when it is the time to buy the flights.

Within each country, I will probably get around on public transport, buses and trains and for longer distances internal flights. Especially in Asia, you should consider not to include too many stops in the round-the-world ticket and check the flights of the low-cost airline Air Asia instead. With this kind of low-cost companies, it is possible to save time, especially since some bus rides in Southeastasia due to the lack of air condition can be very uncomfortable.