Round The World Tickets
Local festivals and events don’t always mix well with RTW travel
When you plan your initial RTW route it can be tempting to try to schedule as many famous events and festivals as you can. Certainly a few things like this can and will be unforgettable, but there are also some downsides to trying to be in all the most important places at the absolute peak time while on your RTW.
Let’s say you’ll be going through Spain, France, and Germany, and you’ve always wanted to see the running of the bulls at Pamplona, the Tour de France bicycle race, and Oktoberfest. The first two are in July and Oktoberfest starts in mid September, so it may not be the best example, but the point is that as good as these things sound when you are at home, they can be overwhelming in more than small doses while you are on the road.
By trying to follow the schedule of famous events not only do you take much of the freedom out of your own journey, but you’ll also be spending much of your time moving with massive herds of other people. Worse still, you will be going to places at the absolutely busiest time of their busy season, so finding a hostel or bed might become nearly impossible, and when you find it you’ll have to pay a huge premium in many cases.
As an example, I accidentally found myself in Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval season while on my RTW. It turned out I got a really cheap flight between two other cities and I had locked in 9 days in Rio, but only after it was confirmed did I realize it was during their biggest festival of the year. Sure, it was quite fun, but hotels in Copacabana Beach that are normally about US$50 were charging US$150 for those nights, and on top of that, they were almost all sold out. This sort of thing will happen nearly every time you try to make it to a big event, so your choices will be paying a fortune or staying in a terrible place and still paying too much.
Want to go to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh? It sounds really fun, but some hotels start selling out nearly a year in advance. If you book a bed in a hostel before you even leave on your RTW it will be there waiting for you when you arrive, but that also means you’ll have to schedule your whole trip around the day you’ll arrive in Edinburgh. That might sound okay before you leave home, but a huge part of the fun for many RTW travelers is that they can make up their itinerary as they go.
If you are one or two cities away from something really interesting, there’s no harm in trying to see if you can make it there yourself. But if you plan your route around hitting the top events along the way, you’ll be broke and exhausted before you know it. It might be best to save some of those for a special trip when you can find a cheap bed and a cheap ticket way in advance.
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