HOW long do you need?
Most people go for six months to a year. That was the most common length among the 224 BootsnAll travellers who said how long they went, and alliance round-the-world tickets allow anything from 10 days to a year.
RTW Duration
You could whip round the world in a weekend if you flew non-stop. However, the minimum duration of most RTW tickets is ten days, still a breathless whirl. Consider stock-piling annual leave, tagging on public holidays or even arranging a sabbatical in order to take off two months, ideally six to 12. The maximum duration of a RTW ticket is one year.
The ticket rules in 2026
Those limits haven't moved. oneworld Explorer runs from 10 days up to a year. Star Alliance Round the World runs from 10 days to a year too, and its 10 days run from the start of your first international flight to the start of the last one.
If you want to be away longer than a year, one ticket won't cover it. You buy the flights in stages, or a specialist builds the trip from separate fares.
How long people actually go
BootsnAll's RTW Traveler Profiles give a real answer. Of the 224 travellers who said how long they planned to go, 91 went for six months to a year, 67 for one to two years and 50 for one to six months. Fourteen left with no return date. Only two went for less than a month.
Time and stops go together
The mistake AirTreks sees most often is too many places for the time. In its words: "A traveler comes to us with 14 cities across 6 continents in 8 weeks. That's not a trip. It's a flight schedule with jet lag." Its planning guide suggests three to five anchor destinations and building everything else around them.
The number of stops also changes what you can book. On an alliance round-the-world ticket, AirTreks finds routes with three to six legs book 61% to 91% of the time. With seven or more legs, that drops below 6%.
So if you have eight weeks, pick a handful of places and stay long enough to unpack. If you have a year, you can slow down properly, and the ticket will still cover it.
As the HOW much Time? page puts it, carve out as much time as you can before you leave, because it's easier to come home early than to push back a deadline once you're on the move. For taking a career break or working on the way, see work and travel around the world.
Tags: how long to travel the world, rtw duration, rtw how long does it take, rtw time
Planning a round-the-world trip? AirTreks has built multi-stop itineraries since 1987. See sample routes or ask a specialist.