I am planning to go on a RTW trip on my own in Sep/Oct 06 and although I know roughly where I want to go I don’t know exactly where and for how long.

I like the idea of flying to China from the UK and almost planning it from there. I presume with a very flexible ticket, with locations, dates and times easily and cheaply changeable this shouldn’t be a problem?

I wondered how many people have done this and with what element of success??? Alternatively, any non-planning horror stories might be good too!

I was going to do a RTW and have now scaled back to a half-RTW, but with it being almost entirely overland. I'm planning my trip to the extent of making sure I know the places I want to visit and how the transport system works, so I don't waste time or miss out unduly, but I'm certainly not planning a specific itinerary and am using the advantage of overland to be more flexible.

I'm sure RTW tickets do offer flexibility to a point, but the ones I looked at required you give provisional dates for every flight before departing. So I had to know where I was going to and from and when! This was a major headache, and I'm glad I've left it behind.

If you wanted to just overland, say, around Asia, then maybe a one-way to somewhere in China would be the best option? HongKong is probably cheapest. That leaves you completely open to get a return ticket if/when/where you feel like it.
However, the restrictions on RTW tickets aren't that bad if you want to see a few more places. Yes, you have to provide provisional dates and places, but all of these are flexible to an extent.
And surely you must have some idea of where you want to go? Eg. I knew I wanted to see some of SE Asia, so I booked into Bangkok and out of Kuala Lumpur, thinking I'd travel down the coast that way. I ended up changing to fly out of Ho Chi Minh 2 weeks later instead. I did get charged for the place change, but nowhere near the cost of another ticket.
Same for changing dates, it depends on the airline. Some don't charge you at all, others charge and admin fee eg. Air NewZealand charges NZ$20.
They are also good if you miss your flight, you just call them up and change it.

The RTW ticket I got was called The Great Escapade. Its the cheapest and most flexible I've seen and I'd definitely get the same one again.

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