How to travel around the world for a year (2011)
One quibble:<p>> <i>"no point giving commission to a travel-agent when you can plan it yourself."</i><p>Travel agents often purchase in bulk and can get discounts that you can't get via 'do it yourself' flight tools. I recently travelled to Vancouver and Helsinki from New Zealand (effectively a round-world ticket) that worked out about $NZ 700 cheaper via an agent than online.<p>Good agents are also adept at 'working the system' - ie, knowing when and where cheap flights are available, upcoming deals, etc. It would pay to check whether your agent can do a better deal before booking online.