wrote:

Originally we assumed that a round-the-world ticket was the way to go,
as we've been told that the discounts involved are tremendous. The
plan was to use the RTW ticket as the backbone of our trip, taking us
from continent to continent, but then use alternate means for local
travel around each RTW stop. This is because the RTW packages we
looked at all had a maximum number of stops far too limiting for what
we want to see, not to mention the difficulty of putting together a
plan that actually goes to the areas we want to go.


Have you looked at the actual RTW rules? Star Alliance allows up to 15
stopovers, durations up to a year and distances of 39,000 miles. It's hard to
see how you travel plans could exceed that - even with some in country travel.

www.staralliance.com

And if you reall think you'll be doing lots of intra region/country travel, you
can still buy the odd local ticket.

I haven't looked at the other alliance RTW rules recently, but I suspect they
are similar.

Now we're wondering if there's a new option, due to the recent
emergence of low-cost airlines, especially in Europe and Asia. From
what we've gathered, it's possible to skip the whole planning-months-
in-advance thing and plan the trip while we're on it -- visit
someplace until we're ready to move on, pick a new place to go, and
buy a ticket the week or day of the flight.


The RTW rules permit you to pretty much show up and go for every leg except the
first one, so there's no benefit to the low cost carriers there.

To get the cheapest LCC tickets, you must buy in advance. This also assumes you
have identified all the LCC options available.

That sounds too good to be true, though, and we fear that the cost of
those last-minute tickets will be immense. Is this more suited to some
regions than others? For example, should we maybe get a package way in
advance for South America but hop around on last-minute tickets in
Europe and Asia?

I'd buy an RTW fare that covers the majority of your travel. You always have the
option of using local train or LCC service.