Round the World Travel: The Complete Planning Guide
RTW Guides(584)
Where Does Wanderlust Come From
Where Should You Stay?
Accommodation choices define your daily experience and budget. Hostels offer sociability but often poor sleep. Hotels provide comfort but reduce interactions. Airbnb splits the difference. House-sitting is cheap if you plan ahead. Rooms in local houses offer authenticity. Luxury hotels exist if budget allows. Where you sleep matters: good sleep improves everything; bad sleep ruins days. Different accommodation types suit different travelers and trip phases - starting in hostels for community, switching to Airbnb for independence, occasional splurges on comfort. Budget travelers might need to prioritize cheap options; mid-budget travelers can be selective.
Why
Round-the-world travel is for people of all ages, backgrounds, and life stages. It's not just for young Europeans or the wealthy. It's increasingly accessible, increasingly common, and genuinely life-changing.
Why They Went (Adam and Megan)
People leave comfortable lives for RTW travel for wildly different reasons - escape, exploration, relationship deepening, spiritual seeking, career breaks, or simple adventure. There's no single motivating narrative. Some travelers spend years planning; others book flights on impulse. Some seek themselves; others already know themselves and want to challenge those assumptions. Understanding that RTW travel motivation varies widely helps you identify your own why without forcing a narrative that doesn't fit. Your reason for traveling is valid whether it's escape, adventure, learning, or just wanting a break from normal life.
Wonders of the Ancient World
Wonders of the Forgotten World
Wonders of the Modern World
Wonders of the Natural World
Working As A Location Independent Professional
Remote work while traveling is possible but doesn't equal freedom - you're trading tourist time for work hours, dealing with internet quality varying wildly, and pretending to work while actually wanting to explore. It works best for freelancers with flexible schedules and async work (writing, design, coding) rather than jobs requiring real-time meetings. Before committing to "work while traveling," be honest about whether you want to work three days weekly in five hours of meetings with time zones that don't align, or if RTW travel is actually about vacation.
Working RTW
You can work while RTW traveling. Teaching English, freelancing online, farm work, and seasonal jobs let you travel indefinitely or extend your trip significantly. Work is optional but extends travel possibilities dramatically.