rtw ticket or not?????

Hi Guys,

Help if you could pretty please, my partner is losing patience with me because I keep changing my mind.

I have been looking into a rtw ticket. Some seem great value for money but because we wish to visit South and North America it rockets up the price. I'm swinging back to book as we go but nervous of the proof of onward travel that maybe required.

We have 12 months off work

Route something like this -

UK - Bankok

overland Singapore

Singapore - Cairns

Cairns overland Sydney ( By campervan )

Sydney - Christchurch

Christchurch overland Aukland

Auckland - Santiago

Santiago overland Lima

Lima - North America ( still a bit vague on this part )

Any help greatly appreciated

Cheers

Kaz

With an itinerary like the one you have got, you will spend quite a bit more money doing it as you go pretty last minute rather than a rtw ticket one the One World Alliance (continent based ticket is best). Flights from Auckland to Santiago are not cheap nor are ones from Lima to North America. Like you said the proof of onward travel bit is a bit hard to proove when buying one way tickets.

I didn't see when exactly you are starting your trip, but if are still months before it, then go and check as many lowcostairlines as possible.
Theoretically, it's possible to travel around the world for as little as €750, but this means booking well in front (months, not a full year) and als means you have to stick with the travelplan (or hope to book another cheap ticket if you are lucky.

In general, people should think a little out of the normal box, and search the web. Search for airports through wiki, and see what lowcostairlines fly there.
UK-Kuala Lumpur with Air Asia would be a fine start for example.
Also, there are quite a few lowcostairlines serving Oz from South East Asia.
And a few airlines have relatively cheap tickets towards the Pacific Island, including Hawaii.

If you plan on visiting both South and North America, visit North America first, as again further onwards from Hawaii, tickets to north America are not that expensive. Like aharrold45 mentioned, getting to South America via the Pacific is much much more expensive.

From North America, just travel overland to Panama and fly or boat to Colombia (colon-cartagena), making your way down to Peru from there.

Don't spend too much time in Oz,Nz and the US to save a little money. Also not too long in South east Asia. Instead focus on a few pacific islands, and mainly Latin America.

Mike

Hi Kaz

My GF and I recently booked our RTW tickets with the OneWorld Alliance (BA are the ticketing airline)

It just removes so much of the hassle IMO and you can change some of the dates, etc anyways so it's no big deal.

Our route doesn't go through South America but it does include North America, Oz & New Zealand, Asia. It was very reasonable compared to the price TrailFinders were after, basically both of us got to fly with an online booking through OneWorld for the price of one ticket via TrailFinders

Unless you can get it for cheaper by arranging it all now and then sticking to it, I'd say get the RTW.

EDIT: *when i say change the dates, there is a nominal fee of course ($125 US or something)

[ Edit: Edited on 11-Oct-2009, at 05:16 by heda ]