The most exciting part of the preparation, choosing the itinerary! At this moment, everything is possible so dream big and loud! Select the list of countries you absolutely want to go and the places you cannot miss.
Statistics
To give a very brief “stereotype”, for a world trip travellers are usually 27/28 years old in average, more in couple than single or with children, and is discovering around 15/20 countries between 6 months and 1 year. mainly in Asia, Oceania, South-America. It is always better to limit the number of countries you are going to travel to as we highly recommend you to go off beaten tracks, take the time to speak with locals and analyse deeply the culture of each country rather than just taking a quick glance over the most famous places, temples, beaches…Indeed, it is when you take your time (and you have it when you travel for up to 1 year!) and you don’t forecast everything that you can be more open and meet nice and friendly people and actually feel the emotions and the soul of a country. 3 weeks can be considered as a minimum for a country (but some countries are bigger than others!) Go and read dedicated websites and books (but not too much to keep the surprise and the happiness of discovering!)
Keep in mind you can bring your e-book with you to read touristic guides, so take the minimum of books with you. A good advantage of the numeric revolution…Well, choose your unmissable books and local guides (Argentina? Philippines? Mexico? Japan?) and then organize your trip. And finally, organize your budget, ideally day by day to stick to it!
Where to go?
Your trip will be very likely oriented Asia-Oceania-Latin America or the other way round, Indeed in these countries you can find relatively cheap prices for good services and accommodations (from a European point of view). North America (but also Japan, South Korea, Australia) are expensive for long-term travels (but not impossible, as you can see in the movie Into the Wild taking place in Canada!), Africa quite far from the traditional roads (you have to take long flights to go there), Central America (reputed as dangerous with drug cartels, such as the Maras in Salvador or Honduras) or even Europe (if you are Europe based, you can visit it later and the distances are very small). So it appears some continents may not be the priority ones you want to visit but it is totally up to you!
Moreover, we have to take into account the time constraints (huge Australia!) or seasons (moonsoon in India?), safety (definitely not Honduras!) and the potential amazing parties you would like to be part of (Rio carnival, New Years Eve in Sydney…), without forgetting the length of visas. Then, alternating between “rich countries” and less wealthy ones can also be the opportunity to rest from time to time and find specific equipment if needed. However, this is less and less true, the economic development is taking off almost everywhere now and you can find whatever you want in any big city now, also the consequences of globalization, and standardization…
Seasons are important, with pros and cons: low season include (usually) bad weather and difficult to visit but everything is cheaper. The website weather base can be a good starting point
Initially, our plan is to leave from Sydney (where we live) then heading to Asia (India, Myanmar, Thailand, Lao, Cambodia, Indonesia) then Oceania (New-Zealand, Polynesia) and finally South-America (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia) to finish with Central America (Panama, Costa Rica). But as travelling also means (good or bad) surprises, the itinerary may vary depending of our wishes! It is also one of the advantage not to book in advance world trip flight tickets with its stages defined even before taking the first plane…We want to have freedom and flexibility, looking forward travelling!