If you’ve always dreamed of traveling around the world but never thought you could afford it, you may want to learn more about “round-the-world” plane tickets. This economical option allows travelers to pay one price for an extended vacation that consists of multiple destinations.
Get More for Less
Round–the-world tickets come in a variety of configurations and price ranges. A lot depends on where you want to go, how much time you have to get there and what you are willing to spend. You can customize your own trip, or rely on the guidance of a travel agent who specializes in planning round-the-world vacations.
Whether you book it yourself or seek help with the process, the cost of a round-the-world ticket with a variety of intercontinental stops can often be less than that of purchasing a ticket to just one far-away location. This means you’ll get to experience a lot more culture, while also saving money in the process to help pay for all of your meals and lodging, arrange ground transportation and collect souvenirs from the various stops along the way.
Many round–the-world deals also allow you up to a year to complete the trek, and you can arrange from three destinations (which is usually the minimum) up to ten or more places.
Regardless of how many stops you arrange, when you use a round-the-word ticket, you are usually required to travel continuously in one direction (for instance, going further east with each flight). This will require some careful coordination to accomplish this and at the same time, get in everything you want to see along the way.
Plan Your Itinerary Carefully
Many small and large airlines offer round-the-world tickets. When deciding on a carrier, a lot depends on where you want to go and who covers that service area. Since no one airline goes to every single location, some of them have formed alliances with their competitors to serve customers better. The smaller alliances are partnerships made up of just two or three airlines, while some of the larger companies coordinate with as many as 15 or 20 other carriers to make even remote areas of the world as accessible as possible for travelers. In addition, when you select an alliance of carriers rather than working with just one independent airline, you usually have more flights to choose from and can get the best possible price for each leg of the journey.
If you want to make more stops along your journey than your ticket allows, often for an additional fee you can add other destinations. Further, if you are planning a very complicated itinerary, you might look into coordinating a series of point-to-point tickets, rather than one general one, to get the best deal. A lot depends on where you want to go and if you are traveling in the most popular (translation: more expensive) season.
One strategy that experienced travelers use to get the most from their money is to plan to complete some of their travel by land instead of doing it all by air. This means that if you fly into France, instead of flying back out from the same airport, travel by train to Germany or Italy and fly out from there without its counting as another stop. Keep in mind, however, that some carriers do count this land travel between airports as part of the overall mileage limit that you are allowed. This is a very important point, since some of the tickets have a maximum number of miles (anywhere from 25,000 to 40,000 is typical) that you can travel throughout the entire trip.
The more miles you want to cover, the more you can usually expect to pay for your ticket. Some airlines also charge an additional fee for each continent you visit.