There are many airlines who have joined forces to allow around the world travel. For example, Star Alliance and Sky Team. Star Alliance seem to have the best destination coverage.

It might be worth asking about flights in the Flight Only forum. I can't help with visa's, but it might be worth looking at the requirements for each of your destinations on the FCO's website.

Darren

What about STA TRavel for world trips? about 600/900 pounds I think!

worth a try thanks

Hi Colo

Can't help you with much but I can tell you that you will need a visa to visit Beijing, if you are a Uk passport holder it costs about £30 and you have to take your passport to the Chinese Embassy in Edinburgh and collect it again 4 days later as they won't take postal applications.

Leanna xx

Hi Colo,

Sorry this reply comes a little late, but I haven't looked in this particular forum for a while.

My wife and I flew around the world in 2007, stopping in many of the same places you have chosen. I did everything through Trailfinders and found them to be excellent. I had two separate sessions of almost three hours each with the guy who dealt with us, the first to thin down a list of around 25 possible stops to a realistic 11, and the second to select accommodation and flights to suit.

I found him to be very honest and he often recommended hotels which were cheaper than the ones I had down as first choices, so he wasn't out to sell me the most expensive places. One example was in Singapore. I had listed Raffles for that stop and he suggested I should go way down the cost scale and visit Raffles on an organised tour of the town. We booked into Swissotel Merchant Court and saved a lot of money, then did the night tour which was excellent. It included a nice meal at a Riverside restauratn and ended up in the Long Bar at Raffles with a Singapore Sling included in the price.

Trailfinders also arranged my Chinese visa via a courier, as this has to be done through the Chinse Embassy in London. I also needed one for India, but they gave me a form to fill in which I was able to take to Edinburgh myself to arrange the visas there. You also need one for Australia, but this can be done online. Try this link: http://www.immi.gov.au/

So, I can strongly recommend Trailfinders, for the above reasons and more. My wife and I will be going around again in a couple of years and will certainly be using them again.

One tip I would give you, if it can be fitted in and is of any interest to you, would be to stop off in India and see the Taj Mahal. This breaks up the long journey to Singapore and also allows you to see a true wonder-of-the-world on your way around. We were only there two nights, one in Delhi after arrival, and the next night in Agra, so it does not take too large a bite out if your schedule.

If I can answer any other questions for you, please ask here or feel free to pm me.

JJ.

I'm looking at doing this as well and have bought a book called ' The career break book' by Lonely Planet. It gives you lots of info and even if you're doing a gap year think it would be handy.

Jay jay..... have lots of questions for you so have sent you pm!

With regards to the Chinese visa I believe it only has a certain timescale of validity (3 months) if you get it before you leave the UK. We left the UK in early May 2006 for an 8 month RTW trip and were not in China until late July/early August which meant if we had got our visa prior to leaving it would have expired whilst we were still in China.

To get around this we arranged our Chinese visa in Hong Kong which was totally painless but you would have to give up your passport for a day or two. I think we went in on a Monday and it was ready for pick up on Wednesday.

To the OP, that route is very similar to ours and I would recommend the Great Escapade ticket (Virgin, Singapore Airlines and Air NZ). It cost us back in 2006 £675+taxes. Bargain. You would of course have to arrange internal flights to get to other destinations but the general round the world route (London-Singapore-Sydney-Auckland-Fiji-Cooks-USA) would be doable on that ticket. Why not add in Africa also????

If you are heading to Singapore I would sersiouly consider spending a chunk of time in SE Asia. You can easily travel overland from Singapore into Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam before hopping on a flight (or even a train) to Hong Kong.

How long are you expecting to be away for?

Try looking through the likes of expedia and tripadvisor as organising it through the numerous airlines is know fun at all. hope you have fun

I suggest that you do your traveling by not going to any agencies, instead, to book everything by yourself. There's a lot of great deals offered by various sites likes Expedia (good one to find hotel and flight deals), Crispy Hotel (another site for great hotel deals), Priceline (good one to find hotel and flight deals), Pointcarhire (good one to find car rental deals) and book the deal whichever suits you the best. I don't prefer travel agents as they are expensive most of the times. DIY travel are the best.

Good luck!

You can attend any meetings, workshops, trainings for this

Hi There

You can look for global travel websites by searching for cheap global flights on google.

Regards
Sam