Hi. Can anyone advice me on travelling Rtw without prebooking flights. Myself and my wife are planning on starting our trip in Delhi across India, Nepal, Tibet, China, South Korea,Japan,Laos,Vietnam,Cambodia,Thailand,Rest of S/E Asia, Australia, N Zealand and then the US. We hope to travel by land, water and air. Problems seem to be: the need for onward flight confirmation to gain entry into some countries, price of flights from Auz=New Zealand to States, flexibility of visa entry/exit dates. Has anyone done a trip mostly by land and sea using only flights when necessary. RTW packages are limited to 12 months and specific dates, though I know that you can change them for small fee. Is there any way around this. Thinking we don't want to be on tight schedule and prefer to be free as we choose. However don't want to end up paying double for travel home. All advice welcome. Thanks. Gerry

Gerry

Gerry,

Read Peter Moore's book "The Wrong Way Home", in which the author sets out to travel overland from England to his native Australia without stepping on a plane. I don't know how useful it will be to you, but it's a good read and you may pick up some tips.

Pete

Hi Gerry,

My husband and I are travelling around the world at the mo without a RTW ticket. We too didn't want to be restricted by the 12 month deadline, but haven't gone overland from India through China. We bought a single multi-stop ticket from Heathrow to Brisbane with Emirates via Delhi, Colombo, Bangkok surface to Singapore for approx 500 pounds through STA in London. All of the departure dates, except the first, were free to re-schedule.
(In hindsight we realise that it would have been cheaper and more convenient to buy a single to Bangkok via India only and book the other flights elsewhere.)

We're overcoming the visa hassles in Australia by either buying a fully refundable ticket, or booking our flights to NZ with Virgin Blue online before we fly out. We're planning on buying our flight home via the US from NZ (again, either booking online before we arrive or doing the fully-refundable thing again). The NZ STA website is very useful for flight info and prices. Seemingly you can get a flight back to heathrow from Auckland via the Cook Islands, Tahiti and LA/NYC for about 400 pounds.

I hope that helps a bit.

Vic