Thanks for all your comments folks. I consider myself an experienced international traveller, but clearly I have a lot to learn about RTW travel. I found all your inputs helpful.....especially regarding originating in France or Japan to lower the cost.

I need to be in London at the end of the month and I was thinking of building a RTW trip around that. However, based on what I learned here, I think I need more planning time for a RTW journey......so I will only do a r/t Europe sequence later this month. Thanks again!!