Round The World Ticket

When you are on a RTW trip there is no way to fully research each place you’ll be landing, so you have to kind of make some things up as you go, and take your chances. If you have the opportunity to do one small piece of research before you get to any destination, particularly if it’s a second or third world country, you should research airport transportation. If you don’t, there is a good chance you will be consistently getting ripped off and/or getting a really bad first impression of that place.

This might be one of the most useful and least obvious tips I’ve been able to write about. The fact is, that taxi drivers and many others who work at airports are constantly on the look out for suckers and people they can take advantage of. Sure, it occasionally happens in New York City or Paris as well, but in many parts of the world it happens all day every day. Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia all have many airports where any foreigner arriving on their own has a big target on their back.

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When on my RTW trip or when I just travel in general, I tend to go a bit faster than most other people do. When you tell people you are going to Bangkok you’ll hear some people say you should spend at least a month in the area in order to truly appreciate its diversity. I have a short attention span, so I did Bangkok in 4 days, which is a day or two longer than I’ve spent in many other big cities. Anyway, the point is, that bus tours often offer an incredible value as long as you know how they really work.

I’ve been on dozens of these things and you can find similar ones in most places around the world, but I’ll use Bangkok for this example. I booked a half-day bus tour that left Kho San Road early in the morning and went out to the Floating Market, which is about an hour outside the city by bus. I think I paid around US$6 for the tour, which seemed damn cheap for 5 hours driving around the Bangkok area in a van full of other bewildered Westerners, especially since it also included two boat tours once at the market. And it was cheap and a great deal, for a very good reason: Bus tours like this around the world are gimmicks to get tourists into overpriced souvenir shops.

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When we first consider a ‘round the world’ trip it’s definitely exciting to imagine visiting a bit of everything on your lap around the planet. Everyone who spends more than a couple months on their trip, and who actually crosses the International Dateline an odd number of times in the process, will definitely be seeing a lot, but certainly not everything. If you plan your route the right way you can spend twice as long on the same trip as you would have had you planned it a different way. So if your goal is to stretch your money as long as possible, the best idea is to skip most of the expensive parts of the world and save them for another time.

For example, Tokyo is an amazing place that nearly everyone can appreciate, but if you try to spend a week or more in Japan it will drain your travel funds fast. Just save it for another trip when it won’t mean sacrificing so many other things. A week in and around Tokyo will cost as much as two months in rural India. If you look at it this way, Japan becomes a bit less appealing in the context of this trip.

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If you take a one-week vacation to, say, New York City, then photographing the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building is a perfectly natural thing to do. There’s nothing wrong with this, even though your own photos will almost always be of much lower quality than hundreds or thousands of better photographers with better equipment who’ve taken those photos from the exact same angle in the past. Search the internet when you get home and finding your same photos, except better, is easy. But still, this is what people do on short trips, and again, there is nothing wrong with that.

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The best general advice for bringing extra gadgets with you on your RTW trip, is don’t. You’ll be amazed at how little you can get by with when you are leading a simple life of long-term travel. Many things you just won’t need or use, and other things can be easily purchased for even less abroad than at home, and then left behind when you no longer need them. But there are a few small and cheap things that will be far more useful than you might realize.

A tiny flashlight is one common item that is on many people’s lists, and these are a good idea. You can either get a small, high-quality one like a Maglite, that sells for around $10, or you can bring an even cheaper one, like those keychain lights that are designed to help you find the key hole when you come home at night. Those can be found for around $2 or even at a dollar store. They won’t last forever, but they will probably last for your trip.

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Depending on where you’ve traveled, you may or may not have seen these hotel booking services that are unavoidable in many parts of the world and unknown in other areas. And even if you have seen them, there is a good chance you might have looked upon them with great suspicion, and you could hardly be blamed for this.

In case you haven’t seen them, all over Europe, and in much of the rest of the world as well, every major airport, train station, and city center has a hotel booking service run by the local tourist board. The good news is, these things can be great tools for RTW travelers and others who like to book their accommodations as they go. When you are in a city or airport that has one of these things, they tend to be located in conspicuous places, so they are harder to miss than they are to find.

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If you are like most RTW travelers, you are/will be staying in the cheapest beds you can put up with for most of your trip. This is true for both hostel and hotel people and this shoestring strategy can be as enjoyable as it is necessary for long-term travelers. Staying in cheap places can make for some great stories and it’s the best way to preserve your funds to keep your trip alive.

But just as nearly everything else does, this gets pretty old after a while. You are going to want to treat yourself to something at least a bit nicer every once in a while, just to keep your sanity. This is one of those things that you can play by ear as you go, but a little advanced planning can help make a mini-splurge only a minor extra expense, so you can afford to do them more often.

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There’s more to staying healthy when you travel besides trying to eat right and not get sick. You also want to keep yourself limber and in decent shape, especially if you want to be ready for the large variety of adventure activities that seem to await you at every turn while you are traveling. It’s not an easy prospect, however; small rooms, irregular schedules, and plenty of things to distract you from staying in shape all make it tough to fully maintain your health while traveling for an extended period of time. Here are some tips to keep you from letting yourself go (unless you really want to) while having the adventure of a lifetime. (more…)

Depending on where you’re traveling, you’ll hear lots of different warnings about your health. Whether it’s Delhi Belly, Montezuma’s Revenge, or something else entirely you’re trying to avoid, you don’t have to be paranoid or avoid local food entirely. A few precautions can help lessen the chances that you’ll get sick without making you miss out on some of the best parts of travel. Keep in mind, however, that no plan is fool proof, and you’re bound to get something sooner or later. (more…)

When you’re daydreaming about all the places you want to visit on your trip, or poring over maps creating sample itineraries, it’s easy to get carried away. There are lots of reasons to want to travel to as many places as you can when you take a big trip. First of all, it’s technically cheaper: with one RTW ticket, adding countries is much cheaper than it would ever be to travel to them individually. However, you need to think about how you want to travel, and come up with a travel pace that you can sustain, and that won’t have you burned out, those dozen or so countries you visited in a whirlwind just a massive blur in your memory. (more…)