Tickets are now easy, and cheap. They didn't used to be: many the hour was wasted by a cheap skate backpacker (me) flicking through TNT magazine and phoning around all the airlines and London "bucket" (cheap flight) shops, trying to wangle a deal. Travel hassle, that.
Forget all that now, though; the internet has finally come of age. You can now go straight to the airlines and book cheap tickets quickly and easily online, and the best sites even show you the cheapest deals over a given date range. For those of you who are new to this I'm sure this just sounds like common sense, but just a couple of years back you had to search prices for each date, time and airline individually, usually sitting in a stuffy flight shop and trying to explain to a sales-orientated, manicured nightmare that you're going to be gone longer than two weeks. Bye Sharon. Bye Darren. Hello technology.
Open or fixed return?
Up to you, really. An open return (one that you can change at will when you find the money's all run out early/you're richer than you thought) is a handy, handy thing. But it costs. These new, cheap flights don't offer much in the way of frills, so if you want the option of changing the date on your tickets you're gonna have to pay. You could be talking a hundred quid for a single change, or even for the option of changing, so you need to know you're likely to use it before committing. A hundred quid goes a long way for a backpacker in Asia, so if you think you know your budget you're probably best off just choosing a date and sticking with it, even if it means you have to live on nothing but rice and firewater for a week.