I started writing this post on August 9, 2019. We were in the early stages of planning a small wedding in Bordeaux for Fall 2020, and the idea to keep traveling east until we circumvented the globe and were back home on the East Coast was beginning to take shape. We were going to literally fly around the world for a honeymoon, but realistically needed to whittle our list of wanna-do’s down to must-do’s. Our wanna-do’s were a lengthy list: Mykonos, Zanzibar, Goa, Sardinia, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan, Australia, the Cook Islands… and flying to all of those places would have cost approximately $1 million. This is where the $1,500 price point for round-the-world airfare came into play. Using my tried-and-true Google Flights method of searching for cheap airfares, an itinerary was starting to take shape based on where we could fly to cheaply:

This routing comes out to $1,475 per person. Of course, the pandy hit a mere six months later (we went into lockdown 9 days before our wedding planning trip to Bordeaux in late March) and these plans got completely scrapped.

But I still believe you can get around the world for under $1,500 and I’ll prove it right now, in June 2021 for a hypothetical trip in March 2022. And to make things extra spicy, this time, I’ll make the trip going west.

This scenario comes out to $1,499. Not bad for a trip around the world.

Step by Step Guide to Finding Cheap Airfare

Now that it’s June 2024 and I’m finally getting around to publishing this post, I had to try to get around the world for under $1,500 for a third time.

First, let’s head to Google Flights and search with no set destination and no set date, with the Price filter set to $300 max.

As you can see, the furthest east we can go for under $300 from Boston is Athens for $269 and the furthest west is Honolulu for $207. Both are great jumping off points, but let’s add another filter: Nonstop flights only.

Here, you’ll see we can get to Barcelona non-stop by $193 and Honolulu for $239. Again, both are great options but the aviation geeks say ‘west is best’ for fighting jet lag so let’s pick Honolulu and see where we can go from there.

It turns out this is a non-stop 11-hour flight on Hawaiian Airlines on Monday, August 26. This is a great airline and a great flight, but I’m not ready to leave on a Monday in August, so I click into the date and look for the other green $239 fares to pick a better date.

Leaving on a Tuesday in November sounds getter to me, so let’s grab Tuesday, November 5 from Boston to Honolulu for $239.

Now, I repeat the process from Honolulu. Here’s a Jetstar flight from Honolulu to Sydney for $170 on November 14. Done.

And let’s do it again. Here we have Sydney to Singapore on November 20 for $155 on Scoot, which is the low-cost budget carrier affiliated with Singapore Airlines.

And again on Scoot, we’ve got Singapore to Athens for $243. Hmm, can we get home to Boston from Athens for $300? No, but I have a feeling it’s cheap to get home from Barcelona so let’s take a $59 Athens to Barcelona flight and then link up to this $229 cutie from Barcelona to Boston on December 5.

The grand total for Boston to Honolulu to Sydney to Singapore to Athens to Barcelona to Boston for a late fall/early winter trip? $852! And I didn’t even pick the cheapest options for each leg so I could probably get a routing for around $700 if I did. Of course, I didn’t even utilize all of the amazing filters, like some of my favorites:

• Airlines: when you’re a snob and only want to fly a certain alliance or a specific airline
• Connecting Airports: when you’ve got to get your eyeballs on a new lounge
• Business Class: when you’re feeling fancy or if someone else is paying
• Duration: when you need to weed out those absurd 40-hour routings

Have you booked a round-the-world trip or used Google Flights to find a killer deal? Tell us about it in the comments below.