Right, just sent the following message to a company who specialises in round the world flights. I dread to think how much they will cost - not to mention the other aspects of the trip - I will start a spreadsheet to total things up shortly.

Hi there
Currently in early stages of planning and have been looking over your site. I wonder if you could offer some suggestions for costs for the following route. I am afraid that I complicated things slightly by wanting to stop off at the following events which kinda dictates a little bit of zig zagging around the Singapore date in particular:

1) 25th May - Indy 500 (Indianapolis IN, USA)
2) 22nd June - Nascar Toyota/Save Mart 350 (Sonoma CA, USA)
3) 28th September - Singapore GP
4) 5th October - Phillip Island Moto GP (Melbourne, Australia)
5) 12th October - Bathurst 1000 (Mount Panorama, Australia)
6) 26th October - Gold Coast Indy (Surfers Paradise, Australia)
7) 16th November - Macau GP

The route, very roughly. breaks down to:

London - Tampa
Tampa - Indianpolis (1) *
Indianpolis - San Francisco (2) *
Seattle - Alaska *
Alaska - Hawaii
Hawaii - Singapore (3)
Singapore - Perth (then by rail and road to (4, 5 & 6))
Brisbane - Macau (7)
Macau - New Zealand
New Zealand - Dubai
Dubai - London

* May yet drive this route

I wish to set off from London around the middle of May and return to London just prior to Christmas. I

I appreciate that this is all very vague at the moment but I am sure that you are used to this sort of thing. If you could put together some rough costs and get back to me then we can work from there.

I may yet decide to drive the Tampa - Indy - San Fran - Seattle section so please offer two prices 1/ to include flights as above and 2/ presume that I am driving this route

I also appreciate your suggestions for exploring Western Canada. I would dearly love to drive from Vancouver to Alaska but appreciate this could be impractical. Please advise.

The Macau thing may or may not happen depending upon the exact costs so will appreciate an indication of how that will affect flight costs.

Many thanks and look forward to your response!

Craig.
I was looking to do the trip next year but things just keep pointing me to do it this year. My two best friends have announced they are relocating to Canada (gutted isn't the word), my friend in Florida is expecting a new arrival about that time, I desperately need an excuse to quit my job and the flights for my June trip are astronomical. It all works.

Apart from the finance side of things, that is. They are a mess. I swore I'd not do the trip until I had the money to do it properly but, well, maybe I should just bite the bullet? What do you guys think? Am I mad? :s