Old man winter is slowly creeping back into his cave.  If you're starting to get the itch for summer travel, you're probably not alone.  However, depending on how adventurous your itinerary is, planning for a trip can be frustrating and a deal breaker for some folks.  Having completed a round-the-world trip across 3 continents, 8 countries, and 19 cities, and getting ready to hop around Latin America for a couple of months, I've learned a few "best practices" to make the planning phase smoother and less of a pull-your-hair-out experience.

Though geared towards travelers who are looking to do more than the traditional "fly to Europe and back" trips, this piece will be useful to anyone looking for ways to fine tune their planning skills. This is part one of a two-part article...continue reading

Got an early start...quite early considering I finished packing at 4AM.

6AM Bolt bus
8AM LIRR
9AM JFK

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It's been a few weeks since the idea of trotting around the globe first came to me. Now that it's only a few days until I begin my hop around the world, I wanted to share a few thoughts/tidbits to anyone who's thinking about their own round-the-world (RTW) trip.

1. It takes a lot more work and time than you think! 
2. Figure out where you want to go. A great way to start is to look at the airline alliances' websites as they have great planning tools to let you know which routes are feasible and which are not for a RTW ticket (to learn more about what RTW tickets are, check out this site). The alliances include oneworld, Star Alliance, and SkyTeam.
3. After you figured out where you want to go, contact a travel agent to confirm your routes or to get ideas on routes. I've found it to be enormously cheaper to buy from third-party travel agents and not from the airline alliances themselves. AirTreks and Air Brokers International are both good places to check out - although I've found AirTreks to be cheaper. AirTreks also includes travel insurance on all its tickets.
4. Just because you have flight tickets doesn't mean you're going anywhere. Check out the State Department's website to figure out whether you'll need a visa for the countries you're heading to, how to get the visas if needed, and how much (believe me, this can eat away at your time/money if you're not careful)!
5. Some folks may want to wait until they land at the airport to figure out where to stay and some may want to plan ahead. Even for the former, it's a good idea to virtually scout a few places ahead of time to get a sense of what's to be expected. TripAdvisor, Agoda, and Hostels.com are a few good places to start.
6. After you've landed, transportation is just as important. Depending on where you're going, taxis won't necessarily be around every corner. Seat61 is an invaluable resource for learning how to travel via train in many regions of the world - e.g., train schedules, how to bypass certain restrictions, etc. 
7. If you're surface traveling within the European Union, then it may be cost effective to purchase an Eurail ticket. Depending on the pass you select, it'll let you travel to basically any country within the EU without having to make a separate purchase each time - at the full price. Be forewarned, for some routes you'll still have to make an advanced reservation and hand over a small fee to do so. To see if the routes you're planning to take require a reservation, check out SCOTTY.
8. It's time for coffee, so to be continued...