Ok. Travel deals.
You can't be an international playboy without racking up the air miles. In terms of airline alliances, one world is the best.
* An alliance of 11 airlines
* Almost 700 destinations worldwide
* Nearly 550 airport departure lounges
* Named best airline alliance 7 years running
The round the world trip I am on right now is from here.
http://www.oneworld.com/
Here's the deal. They give you 16 segments which you can use however you like as long as you start and finish in the same city and take all flights within 365 days.
Cost me about 2,500 pounds which is about 4,000 dollars. Works out about 250 dollars per flight which is pretty damn cheap when you bear in mind they are all international flights and a fair few of them are long haul (europe to south america, US to Australia, Australia to SE Asia)
They have an awesome online flash app that you can use to plan your route and calculate how to best use the 16 segments that they give you. You can play around with all the possibilities and even save various route plans before you decide the best one. App here :
http://oneworldrtw.innosked.com/Default.aspx
You will also need the network map to plan as that shows you, if you click on a city, all of the possible routes. Here it is :
http://www.innovata-llc.com/onw/default.asp?show=MAP
Tips to maximise your 16 segments. 16 segments should equal 16 flights if you plan it right. Tips :
* Do not waste a segment by taking any flights that are not direct. If you need to change flights, it will use up an extra segment. Direct flights only !
* Do not take any domestic flights AT ALL ! This will use up an extra segment if you have to depart from the domestic airport as opposed to the international airport that you landed in. So one short domestic flight can cost you 2 segments. It's a total waste. Also, a long haul flight from Europe to South America = 1 segment. A domestic flight from Buenos Aires to Cordoba = 1 segment. It's the same. How you use your segments does not alter the price of the ticket at all. Plus you can easily just buy a cheap domestic flight when you arrive in any country anyway so why waste a segment?
The coolest thing about these tickets it's that date changes are totally flexible and totally FREE.
My trip started in Sept and finishes Sept 2010. Right now I have all my remaining 8 flights stacked up and reserved for Aug and Sept 2010. That way I take my next flight whenever I feel like it. All I have to do is to contact them and tell them to bring my next flight forward to depart in the next couple of days or even tomorrow. If they have a seat free on a flight then you will get it.
If whilst travelling you decide you want to change your entire route. For example if, when I arrive in SE asia next summer, I change my mind and decide I don't want to follow my planned route to India and the Middle East and I want to go to South Africa and watch the world cup, I can do it.
Even if it involves making 6 or 8 changes to my planned route, as long as I submit all of the changes AT THE SAME TIME then it goes down as only 1 change and will be charged as such so I will only have to pay about 80 pounds.
By taking this deal and just buying domestic flights and / or travelling overland by bus you can see way more than the ticket allows. For example, I have only used 4 flights so far and I have already been to :
* Spain
* Ecuador
* Colombia
* Bolivia
* Peru
* Argentina
* Brazil
* Paraguay
* Chile
* Patagonia (ok I know Patagonia is not a country but it feels like another world. I just bought a cheap domestic flight when in Buenos Aires)
Tip : Don't buy the ticket via the website. Just plan your route and get the price. Then contact a local travel agent that offers one world and has a travel butler service and buy it through them. The price should be the same. A travel butler service means that you just email your date changes and enquires about flight availability to the travel agent and they will do it for you. Saves you having to contact the regional office of the airlines whilst on the trip and doing all that stuff yourself. Travel butler should help you out with any other queries you have too and it's free.
One final tip. Make the second to last flight on your itinerary a flight to a region of the world you really want to explore and spend some time in. As I said you have to start and end in the same city as a condition of the ticket. However, there is nothing stopping you from just not getting on the last flight. You can just chose to miss it.
Example. Although my last flight is back to London, my second to last flight is from India to Jordan in the Middle East. I have never been to the middle east and would love to spend a few months exploring places like Lebanon, Israel and places like Dubai, UAE etc.
Unless I have pressing business reasons to get back to London I am just going to miss the last flight. Then I can spend months exploring the middle east then travel overland to Turkey and pick up a cheap flight to eastern europe. From there I can check out all the cool (and cheap as hell) eastern european countries and make my way overland from there back to london. This has several benefits :
* Turns my one year trip into an 18-20 month trip
* Allows me to fly into Jordan a day or two before the 365 days are up thus freeing up more time for all of the previous segments
* This (along with the overland travel tip) allows me to turn my 16 segment, 16 country 1 year trip into an 18-20 month 30-35 country trip at no significant extra cost.
Let's say I hit 32 countries. Divide that by the cost of the round the world ticket = $125 per country.
Pretty sweet huh?