BootsnAll Travel Community

Hey I'm thinking about planing a Round The World trip for a couple of years in the future (when I finally finish my studies) but want to see the most of everything so I'm thinking of doing it without any plane tickets. That's not to say I won't fly but only buy tickets for journys I can't do or if I need of want to go some place quickly.

I'm just wondering if anyone has done this and have any information, stories or recommendations about it?

Kim,
It's possible to do a RTW without a plane ticket. Just not very practical. At certain times/places, it's simply quicker, safer and even cheaper to take a plane.
However, since you didn't rule out planes completely, I think maybe what you're talking about is only taking short/cheap/"local" planes. Lots of people do that, at least to some degree. I know on my two year CA/SA trip, the only plane I "plan" on taking is over the Darien Gap. However, having said that, I may still wind up on a plane to get to Roraima, or island hop on LIAT through the islands to get back to the U.S. And who knows, I may end up on a plane just so I can get somewhere else quickly in time for a festival or something. Or (knocks on wood), God forbid, a medevac plane.
Of course, my reason for avoiding planes for the most part, is to keep the costs down. There are other ways I could get over the Darien Gap. Most common method is to get on a yacht crew and sail down. But, since I am a sailor by profession, I'm kinda wanting to avoid boats. So, to me personally, it's worth it to pay for the ticket in that instance. Likewise for Roriama. I *could* hike ... but if I tried to do the whole brutal thing all on my own, I'd likely end up on that medevac plane I was talking about earlier. (well, actually I guess they'd have to find my body first!)
Are you looking at not taking planes to save money or do you have antoher reason? Do you have a basic itinerary worked out? There are ways to do it. And most of the time, depending on your own pace and travel style, other transporation is a better deal. However, completely ruling out planes is pretty limiting. But, it can be done. Just takes more time, patience, and planning.

Oh I don't want to completely rule out planes it's more that I don't want to go with a round the world ticket where it's all planed out.

I just figure that it will be cheaper (generally speaking) and I'll be able to see the widest variety of places and I'll I can change my mind about destinations and lengths of time. It came out of me just lying around thinking about traveling and just the idea that there could be some realy interesting route that could be taken and places visited.

I know that plane travel is inevidable and I don't have anything against it. I was just wondering if anyone had done this? Gone traveling with no RTW ticket or future plane ticket in hand?

the point to point vs RTW planned ticket or open jaw is heavily debated on these boards...there are probably hundreds if not thousands of posts made on this topic alone...Personally your idea sounds cool! I think you could probably do it, but like the above poster said it may end up costing a lot more...I mean for example you could take a bus up the east coast of australia to Darwin and maybe take a ferry to Port Moresby...From there you could take buses and ferries to Indonesia to Singapore or Borneo side of malaysia...then take a ferry to the KL side of malaysia then take a train up to thailand...from thailand you can take a train up to chiang mai, then a bus to chiang rai (or train i believe), take a boat across the mekong to Laos, take the slowboat down the mekong to Luang Prabang, take a bus to Vang Vien take another bus to Hanoi, Vietnam stopping at maybe a homestay on the boarder of Laos before entering Vietnam...The bus would probably stop twice before reaching Hanoi so maybe another overnight in a city i'm forgetting the name...Then to Halong Bay then a bus to Hanoi, another overnight train to Hue, possible train to Hoi an or DaNang (not sure but definitely are minibuses that go to DaNang or Hoi An)...from there train or bus to HCMC...From HCMC you can take a bus across the boarder to Cambodia check out cambodia taking buses, then take a bus back to Bangkok from Siem Reap after checking out that Angkor Watty thing...From bangkok make your way in to burma, then tibet(not sure on the border situation), this might be your first flight...but if overland is possible go to tibet, then Bhutan, then india, then pakistan, go through tajikistan, uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, or make a left at Tajikistan through uzbekistan, turkmenistan in to iran (visa issue), or you going back before the left, cross the caspian sea to Baku, Azerbaijan, armenia, turkey, across the entire country of turkey, in to bulgaria, then you can take trains using eurail when you enter that zone, but trains in to serbia, kosovo, or down to greece, back up in to Hungary, Austria or Slovakia and or bratislava, in to poland or prague, basically picking and choosing your european countries, get to spain finally down cross taking the ferry to morocco, then you can take buses through africa, probably would want to fly from Morocco to eastern africa, then you can make your way down to south africa...check out the bazbus in south africa, maybe pick up a camping trip to check at Southern African countries, you can take a boat to madagascar and zanzibar...and that is basically where I stop...I got you through Australia, SEA, Europe and Central Asia, Indian subcontinent not using one plane...I'm pretty sure everything I said is possible, the only hiccup is the overland boarder with burma, in which you might have to fly out of the country...also I think the major flight you would need would be to get from Africa to South America to USA and back home...So maybe that sort of ticket would be good for you just go to book a ticket through Burma to wherever...from Africa to South America whenever, to the USA and back home...

Wow that was fun and killed some time at work...

In your very broad definition, yes I have. Twice. I try to travel by land as much as possible. It's slow and you spend a lot on ground transport. However, you do see interesting blending of cultures traveling that way.

There's some places you'll have to fly over. I tried to head from Egypt to Ethiopia via Sudan but Americans weren't being issued visas. I flew and then continued by road to Kenya. Now that was one serious overland journey and I don't recommend it. I would fly if I went again, no more 24 hours in a cage on the back of a pickup!

I don't really understand what kind of advice you want. It's not such a novel idea. You don't need to have an onward ticket if you're entering by land most places. I've flown on one-way tickets to a lot of places and never been questioned except in London, where I had to provide an onward ticket.

In short, leave yourself a lot of time and adapt a very patient attitude.

We've just bought (today) one way tickets to Singapore (to at least get us out of NZ!!!)
Our plan is to train/bus/boat our way around SE Asia, up through China, Mongolia, across to Moscow, on to London via St Petersburg/Estonia/Stockholm/Copenhagen, then buy a van and caravan to trip round the UK and Europe.....I'm sooo happy we don't have a return ticket.

That sounds so great. Exactly the sort of thing I want to do. I'm so jealous.

If you don't mind me asking how much have you saved to fund this most exillant adventure?

Edit: That's per person. I can't see myself funding a trip for so many in the near future.

quote:

Originally posted by Mama-to-many:
We've just bought (today) one way tickets to Singapore (to at least get us out of NZ!!!)
Our plan is to train/bus/boat our way around SE Asia, up through China, Mongolia, across to Moscow, on to London via St Petersburg/Estonia/Stockholm/Copenhagen, then buy a van and caravan to trip round the UK and Europe.....I'm sooo happy we don't have a return ticket.

Oh my....The WE here is a huge family ...wow really admire you parents. I can barely take care of the details for just one person.

Good luck and happy travels.

We don't know how much money we have yet! After our initial three years living abroad when first married we returned home adn finished studies, got real jobs, had lotsa babies, built houses (all those things *some* people on this forum look down on!!!! - but to us it was all aprt of the adventure of life)......we paid off our own home and got a few rentals....our very first one has just gone on the market this week - whatever it sells for minus the tiny mortgage left on it is what we will have to spend (and whatever we continue to save in the next six months before we leave). We do not anticiapte spending it all though. We will continue to be frugal. I really hope at the end of a year hubby will be loving life on the road so much that we will stay put in Europe for at least another year (getting a job in Poland) - but ATM he is planning on us all reutrning - his job is being held open for him. We'll see.

Sounds great. I'll have to keep an eye on your blog to see how you go.

I've been on the road a year. Never purchased tickes more than 30 days in advance.

Yep. Thats how I did it.

I think it depends on your goals. If your goal is to actually GET around the world, then having a ticket in hand might encourage you to actually do that. On the other hand, if your goal is to simply get there and travel, and it's OK if you get bogged down in one area, then not having a ticket might be a good thing. I've never actually gone all the way around the world on one trip - I tend to focus on South America or Africa or Asia or whatever.