Hey, I've got some time before school starts and 5k-10k to spend traveling. I'm 32, travel cheaply (backpacking style) and want to see as much of the world as I can without spending a fortune on plane tickets.

ANy suggestions? I've read about round-the-world tickets, but it looks like you need to predetermine your flight dates, and it's really hard to compare costs of different itineraries when every date and place is adjustable. + I'd prefer something a little more flexible so I can decide when to move on to the next locale when it seems time. I want to travel somewhere between 60 and 120 days, with the determining factor being when I run out of money. I'm most interested in Australia/New Zealand, Southeastern Asia/Indonesia, and South/Central America, but am excited to go to almost anywhere in the world, limited only by my fairly tight budget. Anything I can do to cut down on travel costs will keep me going longer. All help/suggestions appreciated.

I'm the same age as you and my girlfriend and I have visited 30 countries in the past 3 years -- and we'll be picking up two more within the next two weeks. We travel way beyond what we should be able to -- and NONE of it is sitting on a credit card. We only do what we can afford to pay for -- which means that we have to find a way to afford everything. The only reason we even have a credit card is to rack up miles for more traveling.

After extensive searching, I have yet to find an around-the-world ticket that was worth my time. I hear these magical stories of people getting good deals on them -- but I haven't found one that was cheaper than flights I could book myself -- so my first piece of advice is that there is no shortcut. If you're looking to see as much of the world as possible on as little as possible, you will have to spend some time doing the work to search.

I want to be helpful -- but a number of things in your message strike me as contradictory. The main thing is the idea that you seem to want the flexibility of flying by the seat of your pants combined with the cheapest possible prices. That's a little bit like having your cake and eating it, too. Airfares tend to go up 21 days, 14 days, and 7 days before departure -- meaning that the cheapest prices are nearly always found when booking at least 21 days in advance. My moral here is that if your goal is to see as much as possible on as little as possible, you're going to have to lock yourself into some flights ahead of time. That said, it doesn't have to be horribly restrictive -- for example, if flew into Honduras in Central America and booked a flight from Panama City to Cartagena, Colombia for 2 weeks later, you could mosey your way down through Costa Rica and Panama by bus without spending a fortune. In reality, that's probably a bad example because you could book that cheap flight from Panama to Cartagena for under a hundred bucks the day before you fly anyway -- but if you wanted to fly from Quito, Ecuador to Lima, Peru you're going to have to plan that out EARLY and HUNT like a hungry caveman for the best fare. If you leave yourself enough time to take buses and you don't mind taking regular intercity buses (as opposed to the big tourist buses), then you could get from Quito to Lima very reasonably. The buses in Ecuador run about $1 per hour -- so an 8-hour trip costs $8.

With your budget, you could easily do the full 120 days in Latin America. I met a couple in Ecuador in 2009 who had spent 1 year traveling South America. They had budgeted $800 per person per month and stayed within budget. Obviously Argentina and Brazil are pricier than Bolivia and Ecuador -- so it depends where you want to go.

The other thing that hit me was the fact that you mentioned Australia/New Zealand. If you ONLY go to Australia and New Zealand, your budget will likely get tapped out in that time range. As beautiful as those places are, if your aim is to see as much of the world as you can without spending a fortune, you may want to consider eliminating those from your itinerary. Dorm beds in hostels regularly cost $30 or more a night in Australia. Food and beer ain't cheap, either. You could probably see almost all of Southeastern Asia and Indonesia for the 120 days for what it would cost you to do 30 days in Australia/New Zealand.

I use Kayak a lot and I check OFTEN. Prices often change throughout the day. I also Princeline my flights out of the USA. Wow.......I have a lot more to say, but I've got to go to sleep. Send me a PM and I'll work on some actual advice on my plane to Ireland this week. To put things in perspective, I had one year where I took 38 flights (including flying to and from Europe) for an average cost of about $60 per flight. That's not at all typical........but there are ways to make travel surprisingly affordable. PM me and I'll try to offer a little bit of help. Best of luck!