If you made some money, paid off your bills, had been working way to hard and could take some time off what would you do? I decided to take a year off and travel around the world. I thought of the countries that I would like to see and called the airlines to try to buy my tickets. After getting fares for a couple of countries I mentioned that I was taking a year off to travel around the world and the woman at the airlines suggested I buy a round the world ticket. I had never heard of this before but it was a really great deal. There is a group of airlines that work together to make this happen. United’s group was more mileage based and seemed to be more expensive so I went with the American plan which was based on how many continents you visited.  American also has mileage based plans but I found the per continent plan my favorite. 

The one rule was that you could go east for a year or west for a year and could not backtrack. My ticket was written by my local travel agent and had many pages. It also allowed me to change cities that I flew out of and the dates that I wanted to leave without a fee. I was told that if I could to buy a business class ticket as it was more comfortable and Beijing to London it really made a difference plus those hot towels were really nice plus you could go to the first class lounge in the airports between flights. It has gone up in price since I travled. My plan was to spend 2 weeks in each country that I visited. There were some that I wanted to spend more time in and some that I ended up wanting to leave sooner so this worked out great. I also took advantage of hostels and jump on – jump off bus tours which I will talk more about later.

For information about the current travel options which include around the world, multi continent, and single continent fares you can click this link http://www.oneworld.com/ow/air-travel-options . In the U.S. you can call 1-800-247-3247 to talk to the one world flight help desk. The basic info below is what I was able to get from their website and talking to them. You may want to ask them to make sure it is correct.

• ONE WORLD EXPLORER is per continent with a minimum of 3 continents
  COACH AND BUSINESS CLASS FARES
  3 CONTINENTS COACH $3,900. – 3 CONTINENTS BUSINESS CLASS $8,300.
  4 CONTINENTS COACH $4,400. – 4 CONTINENTS BUSINESS CLASS $9,100.
  5 CONTINENTS COACH $5,100. - 5 CONTINENTS BUSINESS CLASS $10,400.
  6 CONTINENTS COACH $6,000. - 6 CONTINENTS BUSINESS CLASS $12,000.
• It requires a 7 day advance purchase.
• It is refundable if cancelled more than 7 days before or 10% is charged if it is cancelled 7 days or less from the flight time.
• Minimum 10 days and maximum 1 year travel from departure date.
• Airport taxes are added to the air fares and a $125. fee is charged to change the city you are flying into or out of.
• Free to change travel dates if they are available during the trip. Double check this.
• The continent you fly out of and back to is considered one continent.
• 16 segments maximum, check how many flights per continent.

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