The general plan is...

...not to have a plan. I usually take the "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail" approach - but for this trip I'm going to keep the planning to an absolute minimum.

But knowing that just setting off would be stupid - I've decided on some general rules for my trip:

1) Don't go anywhere I've been before - except for Barcelona.
2) Don't plan too much - did I say that already?
3) Visit five of the six continents - Antartica will just have to wait.
4) Try and keep flying to a minimum - you don't see too much from 30,000 feet and it damages the planet.

Based on the things I think I'd like to see, my route will be something like this:

Fly to Barcelona.
Then onto Egypt. Travel overland through Sudan and into Ethiopia.
Fly from Ethiopia to India.
Travel through India to Nepal, Pakistan, and then into China.
Through China to Tibet, and then on to Kazakhstan.
And then who knows where - maybe Russia, maybe Mongolia, maybe China.
Unless I get lost, I plan to find my way back to Vietnam and Cambodia.
A quick hop across the water will take me to Australia.
And then on to Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and maybe Ecuador.
And then home.

But then - that's just the basic plan - you just never know what might happen on the road...