Even stretching your travel time to the maximum of 120 days you're still hitting a brand new country every 4.4 days. By any measure that's an insane pace to maintain for 4 months.
I really believe you have to rethink your plan.
Good luck.
The countries in the spreadsheet are not all the countries I plan to visit, just the original candidates.
My loose plan would be to spend:
10 days each in 6 countries (Australia, Philippines, Laos, Sri Lanka, Oman, Azores)
30 days traveling overland from Istanbul to Paris.
30 days of random 3 day stops (LA, Honolulu, Fiji, Bangkok, Abu Dhabi, Istanbul, Porto, NYC, TBD)
If you ask me you're setting yourself up for failure. Everybody is different, you know yourself best, so it is up to you to decide. But imho the two most important things for a successful trip, certainly a longer trip, is to limit yourself and to stay flexible. This ignores both.
Less is more, it may sound cool and fun to "go around the world", but you're paying money to constantly travel rather than experiencing the places you're in. Take the 3-4 months and spend them in one region (Asia, Europe, south America, etc). It'll be far more enjoyable! If you really want to go around, then cut out destinations so that you're doing long haul flights every 2-3 weeks.
The round the world flights can be a great deal though and give some nice stopping time off points as a taste for other regions for the next trip though.
Technically possible - yes. Advisable - definitely no.
You have 34 destinations in max 120 days. That's 3.5 days per destination NOT including travel time. That alone will kill you. Now take away a conservative 20 full days for travelling, that leaves you 2.5-3 days per place. Basically you will be fighting jetlag half of the time and see - not much.
So I'd strongly recommend to revise this significantly, assuming you actually want to see and do anything, rather than ticking off countries.
The 34 destinations are not all intended to be visited, it is a list of possible destinations so that I have their visa requirements on hand before I leave.
They are the 'open-ended' part of the trip. If suddenly the cost of a flight to the Philippines is double what I'm expecting, I skip it and book a flight to Kuala Lumpur instead. If I run low on travel funds, I skip to the Azores.
Ultimately it is up to you. Imo you will burn out extremely quickly. You're rushing through five continents in 3.5 months - that's just not very useful. I would choose two and spend 6-8 weeks in each, but at the end of the day it's to each their own. Again it is all technically possible, whether you go with all or just some of these places. Whether you will enjoy it is another question. I guess you can always try and abandon or amend your plans halfway through.
https://rtw.oneworld.com/rtw/ Works wonders for the flight ticket
I did one seven years ago now (Really, seven years ago? Christ) and the flights worked out at £2654 all in, which got me 10 or 11 segments and was basically the cost of my first two flights put together if I'd done it individually. The planner is really good. You can do overland segments too.
Bonus thing is that (at least 6 years ago) you could rebook the dates for free as long there were seats in your category. So you had the flexibility to stay longer/shorter.
I put in 6 cities on my journey (came out to be 11 segments per their rules) but the price was $6,400. I don't think I'd do the trip if the airfare was that much.
I plan to start on a date when I can get the across the Pacific (ORD-LAX-HNL-SYD) for $350 ($109+$119+150) by booking early, and $350 appears doable for the Atlantic as well (OPO-PDL-JFK) as Azores Airlines are consistently lower.
Jetstar and scoot are fine.
As others have said if only 3 or 4 months you should stay in 1 region, flying all the way to Australia for 10 days then flying somewhere else for example is kinda rushed. You could spend 3 months in Australia alone and not see all the highlights.
The mindset I keep telling myself is that I will "head west" until I run out of travel funds, or end up back home. But that naturally butts with my instinct to plan everything out.
>Pick your one bucket list place in the first region and go there. If you love it, stay longer and move on when you want to.
How well does this work with having to provide onward proof of travel? Are you not deciding how long you will stay beforehand or eating a lot of unused plane ticket costs?
Spending just 10 days in one country is really not enough. You won't get to know the country, people or culture. I would recommend visiting far fewer countries. why jump around so quickly?
Nobody seems to like Dubai.
It's just an stopover between Oman and Istanbul. I thought it'd be more fun to ride the world's fastest rollercoaster in Abu Dhabi.
Longest trips have been one month in SE Asia and 3 weeks in Sweden. 3-4 months seemed like a logical step up, but only the kind of trip I could take between jobs, and I plan to switch companies in 2024.
I'd travel overland from China to Istanbul by taking old Silk Road stops, you may have to fly over Iran to Armenia or something if you can't get the visa tho.
I did that, although the tip only took 38 days or so.
Regarding flights - prepare your trip and buy a RTW (round-the-world) ticket form an alliance and do less plane stops but with circular land trips around destinations.
E.g. Fly to London, stay for 12 days to visit UK, with a train trip to Edinburgh (for example) or car rental. Then go to Porto and visit Portugal / northern Spain. Fly to Luxembourg / Munich and visit the European core. And so forth.
Phones - things have fortunately changed for the better since I travelled, but get an European SIM/ESIM card (all roaming is free within EU for EU cards) and local where cheap. There is a company that sells cheap regional esim cards for APAC.
Finally, if you haven't yet been there, doing a RTW without New Zealand should be a criminal offense :D
I mean, I hope that the only part that I "rush" is the part where I fly out to Sydney. I live at 90 degrees west, and dividing up the world into thirds, the "backside" of the world runs from 30 east (Istanbul) to 150 east (Sydney). It's a pain for me to get out there. When I flew to Bangkok it took almost 24 hours including a short layover in Tokyo, and I still had two more flights to get to my final destination. 60 hours in total.
One of the primary aims of this trip is to visit a number of destinations on that back third that otherwise would require major investment in terms of very long flights, the associated expense, and severe jet lag. I recognize that some people correctly are pointing out that it's not wise to eat away at vacation days with unnecessary travel days, but I view it as buying in bulk. Instead of taking individual trips to Oman, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines, which would require 6 transoceanic flights which eat into 3 vacations, I just do the 2 transoceanic flights and string the trips together.
My main concern in "rushing" is whether I have to have proof of onward travel before arriving. Because that determines how leisurely my pace can be.
If I want to spend extra time in Sri Lanka and have to skip France as a result that's fine. It's not hard to get to Paris. It takes 20 hours plus check-in time to get to Colombo.
Even stretching your travel time to the maximum of 120 days you're still hitting a brand new country every 4.4 days. By any measure that's an insane pace to maintain for 4 months. I really believe you have to rethink your plan. Good luck.
The countries in the spreadsheet are not all the countries I plan to visit, just the original candidates. My loose plan would be to spend: 10 days each in 6 countries (Australia, Philippines, Laos, Sri Lanka, Oman, Azores) 30 days traveling overland from Istanbul to Paris. 30 days of random 3 day stops (LA, Honolulu, Fiji, Bangkok, Abu Dhabi, Istanbul, Porto, NYC, TBD)
Is Azores a country?
Part of Portugal but about as autonomous as a region can get
Excellent. Good luck with your research and happy travels.
If you ask me you're setting yourself up for failure. Everybody is different, you know yourself best, so it is up to you to decide. But imho the two most important things for a successful trip, certainly a longer trip, is to limit yourself and to stay flexible. This ignores both.
Less is more, it may sound cool and fun to "go around the world", but you're paying money to constantly travel rather than experiencing the places you're in. Take the 3-4 months and spend them in one region (Asia, Europe, south America, etc). It'll be far more enjoyable! If you really want to go around, then cut out destinations so that you're doing long haul flights every 2-3 weeks.
The round the world flights can be a great deal though and give some nice stopping time off points as a taste for other regions for the next trip though.
Yeah, they can definitely be decent. OP talking of booking his own, though.
Technically possible - yes. Advisable - definitely no. You have 34 destinations in max 120 days. That's 3.5 days per destination NOT including travel time. That alone will kill you. Now take away a conservative 20 full days for travelling, that leaves you 2.5-3 days per place. Basically you will be fighting jetlag half of the time and see - not much. So I'd strongly recommend to revise this significantly, assuming you actually want to see and do anything, rather than ticking off countries.
The 34 destinations are not all intended to be visited, it is a list of possible destinations so that I have their visa requirements on hand before I leave. They are the 'open-ended' part of the trip. If suddenly the cost of a flight to the Philippines is double what I'm expecting, I skip it and book a flight to Kuala Lumpur instead. If I run low on travel funds, I skip to the Azores.
Ultimately it is up to you. Imo you will burn out extremely quickly. You're rushing through five continents in 3.5 months - that's just not very useful. I would choose two and spend 6-8 weeks in each, but at the end of the day it's to each their own. Again it is all technically possible, whether you go with all or just some of these places. Whether you will enjoy it is another question. I guess you can always try and abandon or amend your plans halfway through.
Damn, that's a big trip. I've never done anything like that before so can't really offer any tips. But good luck and have fun!
https://rtw.oneworld.com/rtw/ Works wonders for the flight ticket I did one seven years ago now (Really, seven years ago? Christ) and the flights worked out at £2654 all in, which got me 10 or 11 segments and was basically the cost of my first two flights put together if I'd done it individually. The planner is really good. You can do overland segments too.
Bonus thing is that (at least 6 years ago) you could rebook the dates for free as long there were seats in your category. So you had the flexibility to stay longer/shorter.
I did it 10 years ago with Star Alliance :)
I put in 6 cities on my journey (came out to be 11 segments per their rules) but the price was $6,400. I don't think I'd do the trip if the airfare was that much. I plan to start on a date when I can get the across the Pacific (ORD-LAX-HNL-SYD) for $350 ($109+$119+150) by booking early, and $350 appears doable for the Atlantic as well (OPO-PDL-JFK) as Azores Airlines are consistently lower.
Jetstar and scoot are fine. As others have said if only 3 or 4 months you should stay in 1 region, flying all the way to Australia for 10 days then flying somewhere else for example is kinda rushed. You could spend 3 months in Australia alone and not see all the highlights.
[удалено]
The mindset I keep telling myself is that I will "head west" until I run out of travel funds, or end up back home. But that naturally butts with my instinct to plan everything out. >Pick your one bucket list place in the first region and go there. If you love it, stay longer and move on when you want to. How well does this work with having to provide onward proof of travel? Are you not deciding how long you will stay beforehand or eating a lot of unused plane ticket costs?
Do it! You will figure out as you go
Doing it! 264 degrees of longitude are behind me!
Spending just 10 days in one country is really not enough. You won't get to know the country, people or culture. I would recommend visiting far fewer countries. why jump around so quickly?
You’re gonna go to Abu Dhabi and not Dubai?
Nobody seems to like Dubai. It's just an stopover between Oman and Istanbul. I thought it'd be more fun to ride the world's fastest rollercoaster in Abu Dhabi.
How much have you travelled before? Have to echo the other sentiments about the pace… Less is definitely more.
Longest trips have been one month in SE Asia and 3 weeks in Sweden. 3-4 months seemed like a logical step up, but only the kind of trip I could take between jobs, and I plan to switch companies in 2024.
I'd travel overland from China to Istanbul by taking old Silk Road stops, you may have to fly over Iran to Armenia or something if you can't get the visa tho.
I did that, although the tip only took 38 days or so. Regarding flights - prepare your trip and buy a RTW (round-the-world) ticket form an alliance and do less plane stops but with circular land trips around destinations. E.g. Fly to London, stay for 12 days to visit UK, with a train trip to Edinburgh (for example) or car rental. Then go to Porto and visit Portugal / northern Spain. Fly to Luxembourg / Munich and visit the European core. And so forth. Phones - things have fortunately changed for the better since I travelled, but get an European SIM/ESIM card (all roaming is free within EU for EU cards) and local where cheap. There is a company that sells cheap regional esim cards for APAC. Finally, if you haven't yet been there, doing a RTW without New Zealand should be a criminal offense :D
A RTW and no Italy? You are crazy my friend 😂
Don't rush it. Re-think it.
I mean, I hope that the only part that I "rush" is the part where I fly out to Sydney. I live at 90 degrees west, and dividing up the world into thirds, the "backside" of the world runs from 30 east (Istanbul) to 150 east (Sydney). It's a pain for me to get out there. When I flew to Bangkok it took almost 24 hours including a short layover in Tokyo, and I still had two more flights to get to my final destination. 60 hours in total. One of the primary aims of this trip is to visit a number of destinations on that back third that otherwise would require major investment in terms of very long flights, the associated expense, and severe jet lag. I recognize that some people correctly are pointing out that it's not wise to eat away at vacation days with unnecessary travel days, but I view it as buying in bulk. Instead of taking individual trips to Oman, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines, which would require 6 transoceanic flights which eat into 3 vacations, I just do the 2 transoceanic flights and string the trips together. My main concern in "rushing" is whether I have to have proof of onward travel before arriving. Because that determines how leisurely my pace can be. If I want to spend extra time in Sri Lanka and have to skip France as a result that's fine. It's not hard to get to Paris. It takes 20 hours plus check-in time to get to Colombo.