Have you ever tried to price out and buy a series of flights to take you around the world? If you have, you probably don’t want to repeat the experience. Despite the expectation (fair or not) that we should be able to buy or book anything online without having to talk to someone, pricing out a round-the-world flight package has not changed much since I first bought one in 1993.

Indie, a new services from BootsnAll, has unveiled a leap into the present: a way to book multi-stop tickets around the world from a web interface.

I’ve known Sean Keener at BootsnAll for many years and used the site long before that. It’s been running since 1996. we teamed up (with a lot of other great travel sites) to give away a trip around the world a couple years ago, sending one lucky winner and her dad on the trip of a lifetime, geared up and exploring the planet. See who participated here. I’ve always admired Sean’s drive and bulldog intensity and when he decided to make it possible to price out and reserve a trip around the world online, I knew eventually he’d figure out a way to get it done.

Now it is done, so if a circle-the-globe flight package is in your future, go to the Indie site to check out your options. Unlike many of the trips like this you can book, theirs are refreshingly free from restrictions. You can reverse direction, put in 20 stops if you want, and travel for more than a year. There are some rules you can’t escape—like having to plan out all your departure dates in advance—but otherwise this presents a blank slate.

As I’ve discussed before on this blog, you may not need something so comprehensive, but for those who want to have the biggest expense—airfare—paid and done in advance, this Indie tool is a nice option for figuring out what it’s going to cost you. Here’s a video with more info.

If nothing else, this tool will give you a sense of whether your itinerary is batshit crazy for the amount of money you have saved or whether it’s easily doable. You can try different options and see whether trying to hit six continents in 12 months is really a smart thing to do, or whether you should prioritize. Have fun!

In the Old Quarter of Hanoi

So much information spins past us every day that it’s hard to take a break and process it, much less record it for later. So here are a few travel articles I wrote or I’m in that have appeared recently. Lots more to come as the year goes on, but I’ll continue to try to keep the broadcasting to a minimum.

Some of my recent travel writing

The Viator Blog published a piece I wrote on the Buda side of Budapest.

Global Traveler magazine published an article on my time in Hanoi this past summer with my family – Hanoi: Up to Speed

I also had one in there on Mexico City at Night and did a short web piece on the new Microsoft Windows tablets.

Over at Practical Travel Gear, where I’m editor, we all rounded up our picks for the best travel gear of the year in 2012.

Some shout-outs from others on The World’s Cheapest Destinations

Kara from The Vacation Gals was the first to put up a review of the new edition.

EuroCheapo asked me 4 Cheapo Travel Questions

This time last month I did an interview with Gadling on cheap travel destinations.

I had fun participating in this Round-the-world chat with Adam and Sean from BootnAll via Google+ and Twitter.

You can always keep up with me via the RSS feed here or by following me on Twitter – @TimLeffel.

Big congrats to the Passports with Purpose founders and thanks to all you readers who participated. There’s a whole village going up in India thanks to you, for people that in no way could build one on their own. Thanks to all the great sponsors and individual donations, we collectively blew past the goal and hit $58,000. The money will be funneled through the LAFTI group, an efficient local charity that will make the most of every dollar on the ground.

Congrats to the winner of her choice of Kuru FootwearKuru Footwear shoes that my sponsor kicked in. If you’ve got a winner notification message in your e-mail from me, you’re it!.

I said before that your odds of winning something while doing good were quite high and I proved it myself: I got a ground transportation certificate to use anywhere in the world from GroundLink and the Travel with Teens and Tweens blog. Next trip I’ll be stylin’!

This whole thing worked because of people like you, but also thanks to some very generous sponsors. Kudos to BootsnAll, LiveMocha, RoundtheWorldwithUs, TransitionsAbroad and others you’ll see on the sponsors page.