What does RTW mean?
 

If you ride across North America, Europe and Russia in a circumnavigation of the globe, have you ridden around the world – even though you skipped South America and Africa and Australia?

If you ride South America and Africa the Middle East and the Stans and India and Southeast Asia, have you ridden an RTW – even though you didn’t ride across North America or Europe or all of Asia or Australia? You see my point ~~

What does “around the world” mean to you? Basic circumnavigation? All six continents? Something else? ?c?

If I had to give it a definition I'd say simply a circumnavigation of the globe.

One could feasibly add a crossing the equator at least once as part of defining what it could mean, but IMHO once you've ridden across any two continents, you're doing pretty big miles what ever you want to call it!!

Good question. In the Dictionary the word around has one meaning:

3.(Brit. also round) so as to reach a new place or position, typically by moving from one side of something to the other: he made his way around the back of the building/they went the long way around by the main road.

Essentially, if you start out in Cairo and travel west until you reach Cairo again, you have been around the world (RTW), even though you have not touched every continent or country.

For example; I walked around a car, I did not touch the car but I arrived back where I started after maintaining a constent direction of turning right. A pilot could go around the world without touching land, still means he has gone around the world.

I Googled "around the world rules land" and found this.
AdventureStats - by Explorersweb

Around the World Rules and Definitions
True Circumnavigation

A true circumnavigation of the Earth (around the world) must:

Start and finish at the same point, traveling in one general direction
Reach two antipodes (Antipodes = two diametrically opposite places on Earth)
From the above follows that a true circumnavigation must:
Cross the equator a minimum of two times
Cross all longitudes
Cover a minimum of 40,000km or 21,600NM (a great circle)

Circumnavigate
 

Yep, there was, or still is, a previous thread on this subject - so, it comes down to wanting to meet the rules and undergo a circumcision, or just go with the flow and have a RTW experience -I think the Guinness book of records has stopped taking record attempts for the bikers to do the latest, fastest.............all getting too dangerous! Nick Sanders, I blame you!