Mid-2002 I'm planning to do a bit of a trip. I'm based in London and I'd like to visit Ayers Rock and figure if I go all that way, I might as well pop by (SIN) and maybe (KUL) or (HKG) and (NAR) on the way. I would also like to visit friends/family in the US in order of (SFO,IAH,JAX,MIA,EWR) + anyplace else airlines choose to dump me along the way. This is mainly a liesure trip.

I'm planning to take about 4 weeks off to do this and it seems sensible with all of the stops to explore a Round The World ticket. Time is a factor and I'm a thrifty person by nature (okay I'm just plain cheap!) I'm heading from West to East and I'm considering doing this Business Class to try and ward of as much jet lag as I can and avoid DVT, but it costs in the neighborhood of $6K(USD) versus $1.5K(USD).

My questions:

1) I'm in good health, but is four weeks enough time to do this much West to East traveling and not die? I've been to all of these places before with the exception of ASP/NAR and I'm not planning on spending more than a couple days in each. Are there any side effects from such a trip?

2) Is Business Class worth the difference? I'm hoping to recoup some of the difference by sleeping on the plane and showering in lounges to cut down on the hotel bill. Or would I be better off spending the $4K difference on better hotels,etc...

3) Would I be better off looking at buying tickets from KUL or HKG or SYD to take advantage depressed the currency? I remember that HKG/KUL had some pretty good prices a few years ago, but I don't know if this applies to RTW tix.

4) I plan to take quite a bit of film (120 roll) mainly for use in ASP. Any tips on protecting film in the current security environment?

I'm sure a number of you good folks have done similar trips...any tips/tricks/regrets you'd care to share? Anything you wish you'd bought/brought with you or wish you hadn't?

Any comments would be much appreciated.