When planning a RTW trip, which direction to go?

This month’s Round the World Ticket Watch newsletter from BootsnAll focused on the topic of how to narrow down a route for a RTW trip. The post about this month’s RTW ticket deals earlier this month talked a little bit about picking an itinerary. And itinerary questions remain the most common ones on the BootsnAll travel message boards every month.

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!