BootsnAll Travel Community

I'm planning a RTW, leaving in September/October 2009. For several reasons, my budget will probably not be what I had anticipated. Because of this, I'm going to have to make some cuts.

Although I had planned on a "go with the flow" attitude, I wanted a rough idea of the places I wanted to go. I find now that I'm probably going to have to make some cuts to my quasi-itinerary.

I'm not asking WHERE to go, but more of what is the best way to decide what to cut. I don't want the cost of someplace to be the only factor. I also can't totally base it on what is "most important" on the list of things I want to see/do.

If you had to rearrange your trip for budget reason, what did you cut and why? I'm looking for some input before I put that red pen to my list.

I suppose there's a few way to go about this:

1. Look at your list and put them in the order of where you want to go to most. Figure out how much it will cost to go to the places you want to go to the most (and to travel in-between them) and see which ones you can include.

2. Pick the region that you want to go to the most, concentrate on that. If it's not a region maybe you love art museums or architecture or hiking. Plan you trip around this.

3. Choose the cheapest areas on your list and go there. Your money will last longer.

Sure, I want to go to Bhutan but at the moment the cost won't work for me. If I was studying Bhutanese culture or something maybe the cost would be worth it to me.

Yeah, we decided that it was more important to leave 6-12 months earlier than it was to be able to go to ALL the places we wanted. So we are pretty much going to focus on South America and SE Asia, and maybe add one more region in. We would have loved to go to Australia/New Zealand or Africa or Europe, but we'd rather be gone longer and really get to see and know an area rather than constantly being on the move and spending a ton of money on flights.

Now we have a reason to visit all those other places in the future, too, so it works out well.

I would tend to prioritise what you want to see, and then consider cost of being somewhere vs cost of getting somewhere.

For instance...W Europe is a very expensive place to be, but fairly cheap to get to. So it's somewhere that's easy to visit on a shorter holiday when you have a job and won't be so cash constrained.

On the flip side, Laos is a cheap place to be, but it's not exactly cheap to get to, so working it into to a larger trip makes more sense. You're less likely to do a stand alone trip there down the road.

Then there's some other factors. Some parts of the world are changing fast, so while you may have the chance to see them in the future, they won't be the same place. China comes to mind. Those sorts of places should also be high priority.

Everyone's pretty much answered as I expected.

I've narrowed it down to SE Asia/China, SA/CA, and Turkey/Greece/Egypt/Jordan/Morocco. I've eliminated all of Europe (except Greece,)Eastern/Southern Africa and Fiji/NZ/Australia. I wanted to do the Trans-Mongolian, but that will be the next thing to go if necessary. If I can get to SA cheaply from South Africa, then I may be able to add that back in as well.

Thanks for the help everyone

Glad to see this thread. I was about to post something similar. I am in the planning stages of my trip and trying to work out destinations. Honsetly, it's overwhelming. I want to go EVERYWHERE! I think I could be on the road ten years and still not see it all(this possiblity and how to make it happen has crossed my mind).

I'd leave out as much beach time as possible, since that's probably something you will get enough of later in life anyway. Most holidays typically goes to beaches, which can be found everywhere.

In the same line of thinking; try to cover as many DIFFERENT places as possible. Meaning, if you really want to have beaches on your trip, do either the ones in Brazil OR the ones in Thailand. If you want to see American ruins, pick a good one in Central America (Tikal is a good choice) and a good one in South America (Machu Picchu is an obvious choice), and leave out the others, that sometimes may require some effort and money to get to. And so on.

And I'd probably leave out the Trans-Mongolian as well. A trip like that is something to do on its own at some stage, and not as part of a RTW trip. And you can do it just as well when you're sixty as when your twenty, except you'll probably be more bored by it the younger you are.

There used to be a relatively inexpensive flight between Buenos Aires and Cape Town a few years back. You'll find it through some Internet searching if it still exists.

Happy trails,

Bjørn
http://bjornfree.com/

It's your preference so it's hard for others to place values. You and I live fairly close so we probably both have access to the same things at home. I'm not a beach person when traveling since I can do that anytime. My exceptions are if the beach town is interesting in it's own right. From lots of experience and also seeing trip reports from hundreds, it's better to hit just a few spots rather than lots which just become a blur. Living in California you are used to traveling very fast. I could picnic in Irving Park in no time if sufficiently inclined. But there are lots of places that a journey of 100 miles is a day long exercise. If you are in a city it is OK to do the 10 museums in 3 days gig. But see 10 museums in 10 days in 10 cities might leave you exhausted.

When I first started thinking about a RTW and planning for it, I was dying to go to all these countries. I was seriously over ambitious. I started researching the numbers and the cost astounding me, and then it overwhelmed me.

Over time I've calmed down more and started to be more strategic. I don't HAVE to see everything in one trip. I can go on serveral trips. I'm the kind of traveller who likes to take a small sample and then go back for more.

I leave in October for my 6 mth RTW. I know I'm going to Ireland for 6 weeks and then to Turkey, and India, but after that its up in the air and I love it!

Go with what you're personally comfortable with. If you're a planner, plan. If you generally go by the seat of your pants, then approach travel in the same way and you'll have a great time!

Good luck!

Be practical about it. Decide which countries you cannot miss and figure out how you can make it happen. Then start with the secondary list of countries and so on.

Lets face it, money, political status and accessability will always be a factor.

You can always try again if you can't make it this time.

We made our list of places we were excited to visit, saw that there was a clear Asia preference and decided to focus there for time and money reasons. Cutting out many of the trans-continental flights and getting some overland or short-hop flight in the itinerary is easier on the wallet and minimizes jet lag too.

My boyfriend (now husband) and I had the same problem before my/our dream trip to Africa. He asked me what I really wanted, to cut down the trip or postpone it one year? I really wanted the whole dream trip. We postponed it one year and came up with enough cash to do the 6 month trip. It was definitely worth it to me.

Not sure if this would work for you, but thought I'd share my experience.