What he said. You'll never go wrong listening to Gardyloo on OWE tix.

Thanks for the advice both - my only problem is that flights don't fit as neatly from some of the Eurozone countries. I'll keep looking into it!

On another note - if I can get all the schedule sorted then I'll hopefully book in the near future. Has anyone had experience of booking the ticket online? My biggest concern is whether I can change the first flight or not - I've read that you can but also that you can't so a bit confused...

Here are the rules for changes (copied from EF):
CHANGES BEFORE DEPARTURE
CHANGES ARE PERMITTED PROVIDED TICKETED POINTS
REMAIN THE SAME. IF THE FIRST FLIGHT COUPON IS
BEING CHANGED AND THE FARE LEVEL HAS INCREASED
SINCE THE TICKET ISSUANCE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
THE OLD AND NEW FARE BE CHARGED. IF THE FARE
LEVEL HAS DECREASED SINCE TICKET ISSUANCE NO
REFUND WILL APPLY.
-
CHANGES TO TICKETED POINTS ARE PERMITTED AT A
CHARGE OF USD 125.00 PER TRANSACTION. IF THE FARE
LEVEL HAS INCREASED SINCE TICKET ISSUANCE THE
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE OLD AND THE NEW FARE WILL
ALSO BE CHARGED. IF THE FARE LEVEL HAS DECREASED
SINCE TICKET ISSUANCE NO REFUND WILL APPLY.
---
CHANGES AFTER DEPARTURE
CHANGES ARE PERMITTED PROVIDED TICKETED POINTS
REMAIN THE SAME.
-
CHANGES TO TICKETED POINTS ARE PERMITTED AT A
CHARGE OF USD125.00 PER TRANSACTION.
-
NO SHOW REQUIRES REBOOKING AT CHARGE OF USD 125.00
-
IF REROUTING RESULTS IN AN INCREASE TO THE NUMBER
OF CONTINENTS OR EXTRA FLIGHT SEGMENTS PREVIOUSLY
CHARGED THE TICKET SHALL BE RECALCULATED.
TICKET MAY BE REISSUED TO ANY APPLICABLE EXPLORER
FARE VALIDATING ALL RULES OF THE NEW FAR EXCEPT
FOR RESTRICTIONS ON RETROACTIVE USE.
REROUTING FEE APPLIES WHEN THE RESULTING FARE
IS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO THE ORIGINAL FARE. NO
REFUND APPLIES. SEE UPGRADING PROVISIONS WHEN
RECALCULATION RESULTS IN A NEW FARE BASIS AT A
HIGHER VALUE.

OG - once again I cannot thank you enough for your help! So it sounds like I'm pretty flexible on changes, as long as I don't have to change the route. I'm assuming I can just contact the relevant airlines once the ticket is purchased? I'm feeling pretty confident about my itinery and looking to book soon - any other advice/considerations you think I should take into account?

Some (many ?) people on FT prefer to make changes to xONEx or xCIRCxx tickets through the selling airline. For example, I have been purchasing these ticket types from AA by working out what I want, phoning the AA RTW desk in the US and they make the reservations and validate the routing (stopovers, mileage, other rules etc), then contacting the AA regional office that has a competitive price (and the place where I'm starting) to give a CC number and its then tickets are issued. If I need to make changes (preferably after flying the first sector), I contact the AA RTW desk (same as per the initial reservations) and tell them what my new flight is - and usually within about 15 minutes, its all done (so long as they can see availability and the rules for ticket validity are adhered to). There have been reports of problems with rebooking flights with other airlines, but some have had no problems.

Make sure you carry printed documents showing the itinerary, booking reference and ticket numbers.

My current DONE5 was issued by BA (first flight was CPT-JNB on BA in January)

So far (already), I have made two changes to the itinerary (neither involved changes to Ticketed Points)
And both were quite painless - apart from being put on hold for ~15mins each time, while the agent verified that no change fee was payable