Most of you will have traveled by air at some stage of your life so far, but few if any will eve have bought a 'Round the World Ticket' (RWT). These tickets nowadays are approximately £1,300.
These tickets essentially allow you to travel around the world using a single ticket booked in advance. There are many options available when buying these tickets and some are as follows:
Travel in one direction only with a specified number of stops... usually about 5
Mileage limited.. allows you to travel in any direction, but your mileage will be limited to a fixed amount.
Companies such as Trailfinders and Dial a Flight offer a very wide range of packages and will usually recommend a particular type of ticket to you that represents best value. What you need to do before hand is to know where you wish to go... and most importantly look at a map of the world!
A sample flight/travel itinerary would be:
London – Johannesburg– Singapore– Bali – Brisbane – overland – Melbourne – Auckland – Cook Islands – Los Angeles – overland – New York - London
This combination is about £1,220 but don't forget taxes as these can vary from £250-£800!
The way the system works is that several airlines join together to form a group. This would allow for example a passenger who wishes to fly to NY with BA to then catch another linking flight to say Hawaii.. perhaps where BA do not fly to. This 'group' of airlines will obviously dictate where you can fly to as not all airlines fly to all countries. New Zealand being a case in point... many airlines do not fly to NZ and passengers often have to buy a separate ticket to get to NZ outside their RWT.
Once you have figured out where you wish to go to you should then phone around, look on the internet and try to get the best deal possible. Travel agents always have some flexibility in what they charge you so if you don't ask, you won't get!
Finally. I would STRONGLY recommend that you only fly on reputable airlines. Check this out at the time of booking as there are many airlines in the world, particularly in Africa, which have less than acceptable safety records!