My expected route is as follows:

August 2008: Azores, Portugal, Spain, Andorra, France
September 2008: Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo
October 2008: Albania, Greece, Turkey, Syria
November 2008: Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, South Africa
December 2008: Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania
January 2009: Rwanda, Uganda, Colombia, Venezuela
February 2009: Brazil
March 2009: Argentina, Easter Island, Japan, Burma
April 2009: Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam
May 2009: Hong Kong, Macao, China
June 2009: Xinjiang, Tibet, Nepal, India
July 2009: India, Australia

It is simply unavoidable that any trip, even one a year in length, must leave out a great number of interesting destinations. For reasons having as much to do with avoiding seasons of bitter cold and extreme hot as anything else, I have left out all of North America, Northern Europe, the former USSR, Indonesia, the Pacific Islands, Peru, Iran, Pakistan and West Africa.

The final route was picked by poring over countless guidebooks, travelogues and airline route maps. I think the ordering makes sense in that it gets me in each region at a roughly optimal time and it limits the expense of flights.

I'm the type a guy who likes plans, but I'm nonetheless completely open to tearing up this itinerary should a golden opportunity come along. That is, the above list should be taken as tentative only.

The endpoint is also undetermined. I've sent applications to a number of economics PhD programs all round the US, and I won't know until March or April where I've ended up. On the plus side, ending the trip to coincide with the start of graduate school means that I won't have to worry about finding a job when I return.

Finally, I see this trip as guiding my future trips, not as ending my life abroad. My rate of travel is rather faster than many other RTWs, and this is mainly because I feel it most important at this stage in my life to know many places superficially, rather than to know a few places deeply. I know that there are many others who disagree wholeheartedly with this outlook on travel.