Budgeting well for a RTW trip means more than just making sure you get a cheap flight. It includes thinking about whether you’ll be spending the “high season” in a place that’s extremely expensive, and planning your route so that you’re staying long periods of time in places that are notoriously affordable. Unless you’re a spreadsheet junkie, this is the stuff that you’ll put off until you absolutely have to think about it – and midway through your trip is too late.

If budgeting is proving to be the bane of your existence, then be sure to sign up for the Round the World Ticket Watch newsletter – this month’s issue focuses entirely on money, so you won’t want to miss it.

Now, back to the fun stuff! RTW tickets!

Here are the new special deals on multi-stop airline tickets available through BootsnAll – these deals are good through September 30, 2010:

• SE Asia & Europe Budget Ticket: San Francisco or Los Angeles – Manila – Borneo (Kota Kinabalu) – Singapore – Angkor Wat (Siem Reap) – surface – Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City – Bangkok – surface – Kuala Lumpur – London – Amsterdam – surface – Paris – San Francisco or Los Angeles, from $US1299 plus taxes
• Oceania Explorer: Los Angeles – Fiji – Auckland – Sydney – Bali – Hong Kong – Los Angeles, from US$1949 plus taxes
• 4-Continent World Tour: New York – Los Angeles – Shanghai – Beijing – surface – Hong Kong – Singapore – Bali – Bangkok – Delhi – surface – Bombay – Nairobi – Cairo – Istanbul – surface – Athens – Rome – surface – Milan – Barcelona – surface – London – Reykjavik – New York, from US$2699 plus taxes

If none of these sample itineraries is what you’re looking for in your round the world trip, then start planning the trip that suits you with our RTW trip planner.

Segway tourists in Washington, D.C. Photo: runneralan2004 / Flickr Creative Commons

The goal of many vagabonders is to blend in with the locals so well that they become invisible. Although the color of our skin sometimes makes that impossible, it’s still fun to try.

The Life magazine website had a great slideshow called How New Yorkers Can Spot a Tourist. Some of the points are particular to New York, like mastering the Metrocard swipe for the subway.

Other points could apply to a variety of places, like having your map out in public or walking too slowly on the sidewalk. Being too slow in Shanghai or Hong Kong could get you trampled as well.

Taking pictures of everything, wearing a sun visor, and having a pack around your waist are also classic giveaways of a tourist. My favorite is when someone is looking through a guidebook. Everyone within sight knows that person is not a native. In general, tourists just seem to carry more stuff compared to local people.

Speaking of carrying too much stuff, here’s a skit about that, by prolific YouTube video blogger Natalie Tran: Dorky Tourist.

Can you name any more traits of tourists? Know any ways to disguise yourself as a local? Please share your tips and tricks in the comments.

Bogotá, Colombia

A little self-disclosure: I’m suspicious of people who like to party all the time, and I tend not to travel with those who think the apex of a journey involves getting drunk off your rocker in Cancun or even in some Siberian tavern filled with Russian coal miners. If you put me at an all-night outdoor party surrounded by inebriated folks screaming and shaking their bodies, by 3 o’clock I’ll probably be looking up at the moon and wondering what torture-survivor, what orphan, what exhausted refugee or immigrant is seeing that same moon at that very same moment, and I’ll be wishing we could funnel some of this energy and enthusiasm towards helping them.

(Having said that, here’s one more disclosure: I do participate in the occasional party. The energy, the laughter, the act of living in the moment – I like it, not least for how it counters my tendency to live too much within my own thought world.)

Like many of you, I’m attracted to people who strike a balance between “having fun” and “having meaning”.  Travel is but one way we can cultivate this balance in our own lives. If in Cambodia, for example, enjoy lounging on the beach in Sihanoukville, but also consider spending hours with your journal at the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, weaving both places and realities into your Cambodian experience.

And if in Colombia, you won’t be able to help but thoroughly enjoy yourself. However, also consider delving into the tragedy of the country’s internal conflict, which, among other things, has left thousands of “disappeared” people unaccounted for (see photo above).

Or if in Jerusalem, enjoy the nightlife on Ben Yehuda Street or sip a beer at the Jerusalem Hotel, but also consider standing outside the Sbarro’s Pizza a few minutes and remembering the lives lost to a suicide bombing in 2001, or consider calling up a group like the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and asking if they can assist you in a tour of nearby Palestinian communities that have been devastated in their own ways.

Chris Hedges, a former New York Times reporter who has covered many a conflict and shares his reflections in a short but powerful book called War is a Force that Gives us Meaning, speaks about this need for balance:

We are tempted to reduce life to a simple search for happiness. Happiness, however, withers if there is no meaning. The other temptation is to disavow the search for happiness in order to be faithful to that which provides meaning. But to live only for meaning–indifferent to all happiness–makes us fanatic, self-righteous, and cold. It leaves us cut off from our own humanity and the humanity of others. We must hope for grace, for our lives to be sustained by moments of meaning and happiness, both equally worthy of human communion.

The examples I’ve used for “meaning” could imply that I think meaning is found primarily in paying attention to violence and injustice, but that isn’t what I want to convey. What I do hope to suggest is that travel, when done well, is much like a life well lived: it is about more than just self-oriented fun.

As always, your own thoughts on the topic are welcome in the comment section.

Stone Forest Chinglish. Photo: simplyla / Flickr Creative Commons

Do words construct worlds? That’s the idea behind this Wall Street Journal article: Lost in translation. Scientists and linguists have been doing some fascinating research into how languages affect cultures.

Even the simple act of reading can be quite complex and revealing. English speakers read from right to left, but Hebrew speakers read from right to left.  Pormpuraawans, a group of aborigines in Australia, communicate in absolute compass directions. When facing south, they read time as going from left to right. When facing north, right to left.

The role of politeness matters as well. Keigo refers to honorific speech. These are the levels of respect in which Japanese speak to one another.  Foreign students of Japanese go crazy trying to figure out the appropriate way to address a Japanese person. Sound too casual, and you look rude. Be overly courteous, and you look ridiculous.

Greetings can show what cultures view as important. “Have you eaten yet?” is a common way to say to hello in many Asian languages. In Osaka, Japan, locals often greet each other by asking, “Are you making any money?”

Some countries are more numbers-oriented by language. In Mandarin Chinese, the months of the year are labeled by number, not name. January is “Month 1,” February is “Month 2,” and so on. The days of the week are similarly labeled.

In America, just look at the many ways advertisers say that their product is new. The future is something people are excited about and want to see now.

Have you learned about a culture by studying a language? Share your experiences in the comments.

Although we plan and save and daydream about traveling for months on end, I’m wondering if you could share what are the immediate causes, if any, that precipitate your decision to travel.

You could call it the Travel Eureka Moment — that instant when you decide that it’s time for a trip.

Here are a few that jump out at me. Curious to hear how these and other deciding factors have led to travel…

• A “What am still I doing here?” realization. Possibly the result of overqualification or lack of job advancement, a stagnant relationship, generalized boredom, a soured routine, or any other variety of fed-upness.
• Passing a savings milestone. After watching the bank account build for however many months, now you can switch to watching the odometer turn.
• School acceptance/graduation. The months just before or just after are looking wide open…
• Out of the military and not having to take orders anymore.
• Someone close to you commits to travel. Alright, you’re in? Let’s do this.
• Super Sale. Couldn’t pass up the cheap ticket.
• Post-breakup. Meeting yourself again and who knows who else.
• Health: From diagnosis to recovery to prevention. Whether primarily physical or mental, travel will further intertwine the two.
• Perceived Opportunity. For business or pleasure.
• Date-based deadline. ‘Cause we’re not getting any younger.
• Read a book and just had to go.

Do your decisions to travel often have a single, immediate cause? More cliche: What have been your travel tipping points? Or does it come down to a constellation of factors?

Photo by astrocruzan via Flickr.

But we thought this question, posted by BootsnAll member CarolinaCouple, was a particularly interesting one – is there a “better” direction to go overall on a RTW trip? Does it matter whether you go east or west?

I’ve planned a tentative route leaving the US and heading east. This seems to be pretty common; in fact I can’t recall reading a travel book or blog or post or anything where the travellers move west. My wife suggests we travel west, and she had a logical reason for wanting to go that way. I want to make sure we’re not messing up before we even leave, though.

While heading east does seem to be popular with many RTW travelers, CarolinaCouple has already gotten replies from several people who either are planning their own RTW trips with a western direction or have taken their RTW trips already and went west from the U.S.

What do you think? Are there reasons for going in one direction or the other that aren’t location-specific? Is jetlag really easier to handle going one way or the other? Are finances or weather a factor to consider when determining what direction you’ll go?

Click through to the BootsnAll boards on this topic and leave your thoughts on this thread – CarolinaCouple would appreciate it!

Budget backpackers room. aigarius / Flickr Creative Commons

Prolific travel blogger Nomadic Matt made the case for permanent travel in this article for The Huffington Post: Why we travel. He captures that exhilarating sense of freedom that vagabonders love. Freeing ourselves from routine to see the world.

Interestingly enough, Mike Barish wrote a reaction piece for Gadling.com titled, On long-term travel, snobbery & judgmental blogging. He mounts a spirited defense for having a home base, a stable set of friends, and advancing a career. Barish also criticizes the snobbery he sees in some long-term travelers.

Work and travel can complement each other, they don’t have to be opposing forces. The structure and purpose of a job can be appealing after wandering aimlessly for a while. On the flip side, travel becomes that much more meaningful when you’ve really earned your away abroad.

You definitely learn a lot when you’re on the road. But I’ve often told friends that it isn’t until you return home that everything “clicks” into place and you really see the big picture.

Let’s close with some words of wisdom from Rolf himself:

“At a certain level, the idea that freedom is tied to work might seem a bit depressing. It shouldn’t be. For all the amazing experiences that await you in distant lands, the ‘meaningful’ part of travel always starts at home, with a personal investment in the wonders to come.”
–Vagabonding, pg. 15, Chapter 2: Earn Your Freedom

Do you mix time abroad with being at home or are you a full-time nomad? Ever dealt with travel snobbery? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

Sunset Road. Photo: Kopfjäger / Flickr Creative Commons

For many of us, travel isn’t so much about the destination as it is about the journey. In that spirit, take a look at these 35 breathtaking examples of road photography. Nature is a recurring theme in the photos, with paths snaking away into splendid isolation.

“It’s great you’re traveling by yourself,” an American vagabond once told me. “You’ll have plenty of time to think.” Some of my most mind-expanding moments have happened when I was on the way to somewhere. There’s no destination to occupy your mind and distract you with activities. You’re just left alone with yourself and your thoughts.

To further feed your road lust, check out the book The Routes of Man. Author Ted Conover explores six highways around the world, capturing the ways people and countries are bound together. In the author bio on his website, Conover recounts several of the vagabonding adventures that led to his writing career.

Have you taken any memorable rides? Where in the world were they? Share your stories in the comments.

Of course, what constitutes the “right” itinerary isn’t going to be the same for everyone. There are the sun worshipers who’ll chase beach season around the world, the design fanatics who geek out over great architecture cities, and those who’ll plan a trip around where to run marathons around the world. If your itinerary isn’t so focused on a single interest, and especially if you’re looking for some inspiration for places to hit on your RTW trip, then this month’s ticket deals might be just the place to start.

Here are the new special deals on multi-stop airline tickets available through BootsnAll – these deals are good through August 31, 2010:

• Los Angeles or San Francisco – Bangkok – Singapore – Denpasar (Bali) – Hong Kong – Los Angeles or San Francisco, from $US1149 plus taxes
• Los Angeles – Shanghai – Delhi – London – Los Angeles, from US$1199 plus taxes
• New York – London – Paris – Prague – Rome – Athens – Overland On Your Own – Istanbul – Dubai – Cape Town – Overland On Your Own – Johannesburg – Dar es Salaam – Overland On Your Own – Nairobi – Bombay / Mumbai – Delhi – Bangkok – Singapore – Denpasar (Bali) – Darwin – Cairns – Overland On Your Own -Sydney – Nadi (Fiji) – Honolulu – Los Angeles – New York, from US$3499 plus taxes

If none of these sample itineraries is what you’re looking for in your round the world trip, then start planning the trip that suits you with our RTW trip planner.

(Image from Flickr - SashaW)

An interesting post caught my eye yesterday by Nico Crisafulli, a contributor for AirTreks. In it, he highlights a number of useful tasks that might need to take place before leaving on an extended trip. As we are 2 months away from our own 3 month journey throughout Southeast Asia, we’re deep into our own todo lists of securing home and cat care, airfare watching, budgeting, and itinerary planning.

Nico’s run-down includes some of the more obvious action items, such as;

• Autopay your bills
• Get your visas
• Book some (but not all) accommodations

I was pleased to see some that didn’t seem quite as obvious that we’re already doing;

• Get in the habit of washing your hands
• Organize your life
• Talk to strangers

However, there are a number of new (to us) ideas that have now made it onto our already expanding queue;

• Wash your laundry by hand once or twice
• Copy your passport and save it online
• ..and my personal favorite, Increase your capacity for frustration

I’ll also note that another non-obvious idea, “Get a travel mascot!” was inspired by Adam Groffman, who was one of our first Vagabonding Case Studies, now exploring the Middle East.