- How I Researched
- Shots
- The Ticket
- Visas

How I Researched
I started out with my major goals of the trip: sun, sand, sea, some diving and seeing archaeological sites. After I made my initial list of countries that fulfilled this criteria, I added every country I could think of that sounded remotely of interest.

Armed with a list of 45 countries I began my research through Lonely Planet's web site. Countries that remained after that initial round, I then researched more via various web searches which, by the way, helped me find BootsnAll!

BootsnAll was great because I could not only read travel stories, but send emails to people who either lived or traveled there, asking specific questions I couldn't get the answers too elsewhere.

A web search engine I found particularly helpful was www.37.com – it's a vehicle that searches 37 search engines.

I spent a fair bit of time making use of the comfy chairs in Borders to thumb through travel guides, and I contacted several friends who had done the RTW backpacking thing to ask them what their favorite and least favorite places where. And of course, having had an aunt who spent five years traveling the world was also a major bonus.

I finally pared the list down to 22 countries and then began researching climate (best/worst time to travel), visa requirements, what things could kill me – you'd be surprised how many times mugging was listed as a health risk – and what shots I needed. I made this huge spreadsheet out of it and kept jostling it around until I figured out how to hit the most places in the best weather seasons. Back to top

Shots
Just by accident, I found out Chicago has a travel clinic that helps you prepare for overseas travel. Had I known about it earlier I would have saved hours of time! I can't say enough good things about the clinic (call Northwestern Hospital for the number) or the people who work there.

I only had to come in with my list of countries, and then they ran them through a computer that spits out a list of all the needed and recommended shots, a list of all the diseases and illnesses you can contract and statements from various US agencies with a country-by-country overview including the danger quotient, crime stats, travel info, etc. They also provided a list of first aid supplies, and you can even buy a kit from them (which is really cheaper to do on your own). The nurse also went through the country-by-country list to see if I was going to health risk locations during or after certain seasons; by doing this I was able to avoid two shots, and since I needed seven shots that was a big relief for my poor arms!

They filled out my yellow fever certificate and counselled me on how to treat various annoying illnesses.

So, now with two sore arms, about 60 pages of material on 22 countries, a complete pharmacy to deal with the worst scourge of all – Montezuma's ultimate revenge – I was ready to buy the 'round-the-world ticket. Back to top

The Ticket
I chose to go with United Airlines and their partners for one simple reason: I had saved up 220,000 frequent flyer miles so I could use them for upgrades. I'm willing to sleep on floors, suffer through cold showers, pick bugs out of my sleeping bag, but I can't handle economy for more than 6 hours!

It was about the same price as a ticket with American and its partners but, frankly, the American package would have been better and less restrictive. Cheaper still would have been flights through a consolidator, but they were definitely more restrictive and I wanted flexibility to change things without hassle.

On United I'm able to change dates of travel without penalty and locations for $75 each change. It's also a B-class ticket, which means there are more open seats on flights and, of course, it's upgradeable!

After about 12 phone calls to United to work out a routing that came in under 39,000 miles (you buy tickets in 32K, 36K or 39K blocks), I managed 15 stops in 38,700 miles. The folks at United were very helpful and tried to help me devise ways to get to the most locations within the mileage limit.

So now shot up, ticketed and researched out, I only had one thing left get: my visas. Back to top

Visas
Getting visas was proving to be a chore, with each location needing about 3 days for turn around – and I only had about 4 weeks left and a million things to do with selling my condo, packing my house, buying last-minute backpacking gear... so I decided to spend the money to use a visa service. It was expensive, but eliminated all the hassle. I just gave them a list of countries I was visiting and they told me which ones I needed visas for (another 10 hours of research I could have saved!)

Unfortunately, unless you want to buy one-year visas (not available for every country), most expire within 3 months of issue. So I was only able to get two visas, but they provided me with a list of which ones I could get at port of entry or where I could get the remainder while I was on the road. They also took care of getting me extra pages in my passport and took a set of bad pictures of me to use in getting my future visas.

Whew! Now all set to travel, I only had to figure out how to get all my gear for one year's travel into my backpack... Back to top

If you'd like more info on United's or American's RTW ticket programs or costs of planning this trip please feel free to email me.

Questions?
If you want more information about this area you can email the author or check out our North America Insiders page.