“The world is a book and those who don't travel read only a page.”

You've probably seen this St. Augustine quote if you’ve ever read any travel blog or searched through travel-inspired images on Pinterest. But c’mon now, do you realize how long that book would be? How intimidating! When looking to plan an around the world itinerary, it’s hard to even open the cover…where do we start?!

To plan an around the world itinerary can be a daunting task even if you're an experienced traveler. In this article we’ll approach how we decide where to go and how long to stay in a systematic manner that will help you make decisions faster than you’d ever think!

Follow the instructions in this post and don’t miss our FREE ITINERARY PLANNER SPREADSHEET to help you plan your adventure and plan the perfect trip around the world!

How to begin to plan your TRIP PLANNING

Prefer watching instead of reading? Click the video below!

Step 1: Chose your Destination bucket list for your itinerary

Traveling solo? With a friend? Planning for our around the world itinerary, I spent days, weeks, (more likely months)... thinking of places, dreaming of destinations and scoping experiences online. This is the “daydreaming” time of planning.  Turn this time in to strategic planning by marking these down somewhere (iPhone notes, journal, refrigerator). You can even create a round the world trip plenner and begin a destination bucket list.

There are several locations and events off the top of our heads we knew were “must do’s”: Oktoberfest, Santorini, New Zealand Campervan and Thailand to name a few. With these in mind I created an excel, round the world trip planner spreadsheet (that you can now download!) to write them all down.

With even just a few items on your list it is easy to begin the next steps in planning your world trip.

Step 2: Determine length of stay

Some locations are easier than others when it comes to around the world itinerary planning. Just at a glance we knew we weren’t going to need 10 days to “do” Oktoberfest but we knew that driving a campervan around New Zealand might take up to 4-6 weeks. By adding a second column to our spreadsheet titled “length of stay” (in days) we are able to start to account for the length of time we would need for this massive around the world itinerary.

Step 3: Cost per day

There are tons of online resources to help you predict the average world tour cost per day in traveling in the regions you want to visit.  Use the third column on the spreadsheet titled “Cost per Day”. Now that you have an ongoing list of destinations, you can use the number of days multiplied by the cost per day to view your entire cost per location - and thus - cost of around the world trip!

You’ll want to be as specific as possible when assessing your world tour cost. Don’t just list a country name and all it a day. For example, if you know you want to go to Mexico, make separate lines for the specific locations on your bucket list because they likely have different costs. Maybe you want to hit Mexico City and estimate 4 days before your road trip around the Yucatan. You’ll be able to specify length of stay and budget much more easily when your around the world itinerary is broken down.

Step 4: Add dates on the calendar

What goes in to the decision about when to travel? Logistics, timing, weather holidays and festivals dates are key ingredients in putting together the perfect around the world itinerary. You’ll need to be at Oktoberfest at the end of Septemeber, hit the Hoi An Lantern festival on the 24th of every month, and meet your friends in the Philippines when they have time off in November as you create your world wide travel plans.

Step 5: Stay Flexible

Sure, change and disruption to your around the world itinerary is inevitable; the unwritten footnotes of the story; but that’s the excitement!  Those are the parts of the book you don’t realize were even in there until you turn the page.  After a bit of research and jotting down a few numbers on a page you have now written the chapters of your book!

How to Budget your Around the World Itinerary

Spending 3 months in New Zealand vs. 3 weeks changes the overall budget for your world wide travel plans. Play around with length of time in certain locations to meet your budget needs.

1. Shorten the length of time in expensive countries or look for cheaper alternatives - (see what a budget hotel looks like here!)

2. A continent-driven outline

   Long-haul, intercontinental flights are expensive no matter if you're paying cash or using miles (those still have value, ya know).  Limiting the number of long flights between continents significantly changes the final cost of your around the world trip.

3. Save Time: We traveled to Europe, Asia and New Zealand in the one year.  I can't even imagine trying to cram-in another continent like Africa or South America!  Once you can identify your "must-have" destinations, you'll know things like “we need at least 2 weeks for southern Italy”.  All the numbers start to add up and you'll realize you don't want to shorten the length of time in your favorite places just to hit a new continent during your around the world itinerary.

4. A Time-sensitive around the world itinerary: You can sit around all day and whimsically say "oh, a week in Thailand would be magical!"  While a week in the Thailand IS magical, if you think you can see more than just Krabi in that amount of time you may have underestimated your time-budget. Once you start to research a location you'll start to learn what length of time is appropriate...even if you're short on time.

   That is not to say that more is more. We realized only a few days in that we booked way too much time in Germany and left almost immediately for a spontaneous Croatian Road trip.

Use this spreadsheet to help put all of your around the world itinerary ideas down on paper. By adding length of stay and estimated daily budget you’ll soon have an estimated itinerary AND budget!

More Travel Planning

Original post written on September 23, 2014. Updated on October 9, 2019