Itinerary
I bought a RTW ticket called "The Great Escapade" with Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, SilkAir and Virgin Atlantic. I saw it on the Trailfinders website, and ended up purchasing it through them. I'm taking the bus from Brussels to London (with StarBus, a really cheap and apparently reliable company that I've often travelled with), and then my basic route is:

London - Delhi - surface - Mumbai - Singapore - Hanoi - surface - Ho Chi Minh City - Sydney - Christchurch - surface - Auckland - The Cook Islands - Tahiti - Los Angeles - surface - San Fransisco - London

Visas
I've had to get visas for Australia, India and Vietnam. The Australian one seemed incredibly easy (too good to be true? I'll reserve judgement till I get to Sydney airport) and was all online. I went to the respective embassies in Brussels for the other two, and they were both processed very quickly and with hardly any queuing.

Medical
Luckily, many of my vaccinations were still valid from the last time I went away, so I only had to get one injection against Typhoid. I researched different anti-malaria pills and was interested to hear about a new drug called artemisinin (produced as "Riamet" by Novartis). It still seems to be in the experimental stages and my doctor hadn't heard of it, but hopefully some day it might provide a cheaper alternative (see NY Times article, now archived). Until then, there are pretty limited options, and I ended up getting Malarone, which is the most expensive but has the fewest side effects. I took Lariam before with no problems, but my friend who I was travelling with became seriously ill after taking it and never recovered. I know that only a relatively small percentage of people suffer adverse reactions, but based on personal experience, I would avoid it.

Insurance
I hate buying insurance - information about the "repatriation of mortal remains" doesn't make for cheery reading - but I know it has to be done, and to this end I had a look at different policies and chose STA Travel. It seems pretty comprehensive, but with a bit of luck, I'll never need it...

Packing
I've retrieved my scruffy backpack from the garage, where it has been languishing, and removed all the old tags. Now I have to actually fill it. I'm terrible at packing and it's usually something I leave until the last minute (hmm, maybe there's a connection there), but this time I've resolved to sort things out in plenty of time and make sure that a) I have everything and b) it fits. I'm aiming to pack light (and I have to, as it's a not a big rucksack) but I can't afford to buy lots of new stuff, and I'm going for a year. Maybe I'll put off packing for a bit longer...