A RTW ticket is one of the most cost-effective ways to structure gap year travel. Buying flights as you go costs more and limits your options. A planned route with open-jaw segments lets you fly between regions cheaply and travel overland in between.
An RTW ticket is one of the smartest ways to structure extended travel after college or during a gap year. Buying flights individually as you go almost always costs more, and you lose access to the discounted fare construction that makes multi-stop international travel affordable.
A typical gap year RTW itinerary with AirTreks runs $2,500 to $5,000 in economy for 5 to 8 stops, depending on your route and how far in advance you book. That same set of flights purchased one at a time could easily run $6,000 to $10,000. The savings come from fare construction techniques that combine airline pricing rules across carriers, something you can't replicate on Expedia or Google Flights.
The best gap year routes use a mix of flights and overland travel. Fly between continents, then travel by bus, train, or ferry within each region. An open-jaw segment, where you fly into one city and out of another, makes this easy. Fly into Bangkok and out of Ho Chi Minh City, then travel overland through Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia in between. Fly into Buenos Aires and out of Lima, covering Patagonia, Chile, and Peru by bus.
Southeast Asia, Central America, and parts of South America are where your daily budget stretches furthest. You can live well on $40 to $60 per day in Thailand, Vietnam, Guatemala, and Bolivia. Western Europe, Australia, and Japan cost more on the ground, so many gap year travelers keep those stops shorter.
Book your flights 6 to 9 months in advance for the best fares. Build in flexibility on your travel dates if possible. Most AirTreks RTW tickets allow date changes on individual segments for a fee, usually $150 to $250 per change, which gives you room to adjust as your plans evolve on the road.
Your AirTreks consultant can structure a route that makes geographic sense, keeps costs low, and builds in the flexibility that extended travel requires. We've been doing this for gap year travelers since before the term "gap year" was mainstream.