When you start dreaming about a world trip, the world is at your feet. Finding your around-the-world trip itinerary can be quite a task. This is not your typical 2- or 3-week holiday and you can’t plan a year in advance. Even if you think you could, we advise against this because this will only cause additional stress.
You have to find a balance between having some idea of what you would like to do but also being flexible if something pops up. The great thing about an around-the-world trip is that you have time. Make sure you don’t fall under the pressure of wanting to see everything. Instead, enjoy the freedom of not knowing what you’ll be doing in two weeks and go with the flow.
That being said, we do have some tips as to planning your around-the-world trip itinerary. Because you have to start somewhere. We’ll share everything we’ve learned and help you figure out your own around-the-world trip itinerary.
Get Inspired
We had so much fun with this first step! As soon as we said we’d go on an around-the-world trip we started watching a lot of travel shows, reading a lot of travel blogs, and just getting our groove on. Nowadays there is so much information, sometimes it can be quite an overload, but in this case, we just couldn’t get enough.
Anything we wanted to see, do or visit ourselves would end up on a list that kept getting longer and longer. But at this stage, it really doesn’t matter. The more you collect, the better you know where to start or loosely start to see a pattern or route you could follow. If you’re traveling together this will also give you some insight into what the other person is looking for.
We bought an enormous world map and put it on the wall of our living room. We bought little stickers that we would put on the map of all the things we found and wanted to do. The additional benefit of this is that you get a better sense of the world and where all countries are located.
Decide your direction
You don’t want to make unnecessary trips so it’s wise to either travel east-to-west or west-to-east. This depends on when you’re starting your around-the-world trip, but logistics and money play a part in this as well. Think about seasons and what kind of weather you’re looking for. Check out tickets in both directions and see what works best. If you’re traveling through multiple time zones consider jetlag as well.
Our world map was a great tool in deciding our final around-the-world itinerary. For us, it made the most sense to travel to the East. Because we took the Trans Mongolian Railway we slowly crossed time zones which was very helpful in dodging jetlag. We did jump back and forth a bit throughout Asia but that just made sense budget-wise.
So travel counter-clockwise or clockwise and try to stick with it as much as possible. Let your budget guide your decisions because if you’re halfway around the world and have no more money… you might have to call your parents and beg them to come home!
Highlight special events
Most of the things on your list will probably be there the whole year round. But sometimes you have to be at a specific place and time to witness something. This might be a festival, a seasonal activity, or something special like the northern lights. If you have a couple of these items on your list, try to find a route that will take you there at the right time.
These will become your have-tos and the rest will fall into place around these items. I’m still upset we missed the light festival in Thailand (Loy Krathong) because we didn’t know about it in time. Even though we were flexible sometimes you have to book in advance because it’s popular and if you don’t do that you miss an awesome experience.
Sometimes you’re lucky to be in the right place at the right time, which is a nice bonus. We got lucky with the Lake June Loop which was just about to change color. Let locals tell you a little bit about things like this because you won’t always find this information online.
Always keep an eye on your travel budget!
Something that’s not sexy to talk about and is often a party pooper but so important when you’re traveling for a long time: your travel budget. This should be part of all your decisions in figuring out your around-the-world trip itinerary. Set a budget for the time you want to spend traveling and keep track of it.
We often let our budget dictate where we would travel next. The cheap flights, the bus connection, or even a train ride, whatever was cheap would be at the top of our list. Sometimes you just can’t do it all and you have to pick your favorites. And sometimes you have to forget about your budget for a day or two to add an incredible experience to your list.
The best way to keep track of your budget is to calculate back from your total budget to a budget per day. We used an app to keep track of all our expenses. Some days we didn’t spend our total daily budget which would allow us to do something spectacular at a later point in our trip. It’s amazing how much you can stretch your budget if you’re creative. Money saved is another day added to your trip!
Our First Around the World Trip Itinerary
After looking at our map and our list of things we wanted to do it was easy to pick a starting point: the Trans Mongolia Railway. It would take us via Moscow and Mongolia to Beijing. That’s where we stopped planning. We had a global idea of where we wanted to go and that was enough.
We would stay a couple of days in one place and see some highlights and in the evenings we’d look at our next destination. We learned to travel at a slower pace, to not be afraid to miss something, and to find our own groove. Nobody is you and that’s fine. You consider other people’s recommendations and sometimes it pays out and sometimes it doesn’t.
In the beginning, it can be quite daunting to travel without a set plan, but when one of your fellow travelers invites you to something and you can actually join them you’ll notice that freedom is important too. You’ll find what works best as soon as you’re on the road and you’ll figure it out. Just to give you an idea of what’s possible here is our around-the-world trip itinerary:
If you’re looking for more information about our around-the-world trip itinerary and all our stops and favorite activities check out our destinations page!
Now it’s your turn!
If you need some help figuring out your perfect around-the-world trip itinerary let us know! We would love to help you prepare and we have a lot of insights that we’d love to share with you! Don’t forget to follow us to see where our next trip will take us. This time we only know we’ll be in Kuala Lumpur for two weeks and we’ll take it from there.
Let us know in the comments if you’ve traveled the world yourself and let us know any additional tips to plan an around-the-world trip itinerary. What has helped you and how did you find the balance between freedom and not missing out on some of your favorite things?
Planning your around-the-world trip itinerary is a lot of fun but going on the trip is the best feeling in the world! We’ve done it once and we’re going to do it again. There are so many beautiful places to visit and we can’t wait to be in the flow once more!
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