Its 8:40 am and I just got home from working a 12 hour night shift so please forgive me if I make no sense today. We finalized and booked the last of of flights yesterday!
Purchasing the ticket was a process that brought me great anxiety and I am relieved its over.
Earlier in the day I had a call from work asking me to pick up a night shift on my last night here. I refused it at the time, but after buying the ticket, I called back this morning and took it...what I am trying to say is that yet again, this purchase ended up costing far more than planned.
Tyson made me try on the backpack yesterday and I couldn't lift it, so he lifted it onto my back and as soon as it was on, I slowly fell backwards onto my back...it is so heavy. So he has been trying to make me practise by going up and down stairs but I can't seem to do it. Now Tyson is trying to get used to one backpack on the back and one on the front. I would advise others going on a backpacking trip to start training for carrying a heavy backpack in advance.
We are trying to visit family and friends in our last few days here so we went to my aunt's house yesterday. It was here that my flight agent called me 5 times to try and book the rest of the ticket because I kept changing my mind on what I wanted. We finally decided that the end of our trip will be: Muscat-Nairobi-Cape Town-Windhoek-Johannesburg- Istanbul-Tel Aviv-Zurich (overland to all the European countries by train) and from London back home!
The title of my blog today is in reference to a gross miscalculation on my part that resulted in me feeling unsure of my ability to plan anything let alone a trip of this magnitude. While at my Aunt's house visiting yesterday, my cousin's friend came over to see him. She introduced herself and said that she had recently moved here from Lima, Peru! (How Convenient) So I was very excited! I told her about our plan to volunteer at a clinic and then pop over to see Macchu Picchu...she looked a bit puzzled and said " That is about 3 hours away from Lima" I said that's ok we'll jump on a bus, then she said, "by plane"....UGH! Not just any plane, a $600 plane ride, plus buses and entrance fees this would be a $1500 tourist attraction (one of the 7 wonders of the world). Soo we were quite disappointed. Then she said that perhaps she could help us with bus options because all the websites are in Spanish. I had to go to work but Tyson stayed until they figured out a more fiscally reasonable way to see this place. We will be taking a 21 hour bus ride for $35 each (there was a cheaper bus for $20 each but she suggested that it might not be safe as those busses stop and pick up random travellers on the road and this company ONLY stops at designated stops) from Lima to Cusco, then a cab to Paintas and another bus to Ollantaytambo then a train ($37 each) to Aquas Galiantas. Then we pay the entrance to Macchu Picchu is about $45. When inside, we can hire a tour guide which apparently is a good idea. An interesting note about attractions such as this is that is costs a local Peuvian less then $3 to enter Macchu Picchu but a foreigner has to pay $45! So it is still probably close to $400 for both of us, but a bit more reasonable..I guess. So due to a stroke of luck this peruvian lady walks right up to us and is so very helpful! I hope the rest of trip is like this.
It just worried me that what we thought would be a $10 bus ride to see Macchu Picchu is actually an expensive and far attraction. I booked the main bus ride last night but I can't figure out the other websites yet, apparently you have to book early.
Well I'm falling asleep so that's it for today
2 more days
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Garage Sale
Last night was our good bye party, and it was so much fun!
So great to see all of our friends and family take the time to come out and say good bye.
I would recommend anyone who is going away to have a get together because it's a nice feeling to know that there are people who are excited for you and waiting for you to come home again.
We had people stopping by throughout the evening, some just for a quick hug and others stayed all night.
The weather held up and even the clean up at 2am was well worth it.
Today I am having my last garage sale, we are down to selling the small items that we have accumulated over time that we don't need to keep. Although I have to admit I think I have bought more things from my garage sale than I have actually sold. As I was putting things out this morning I kept thinking "ooh I like that" and "mmm, I should probably keep that, I could use it one day if I ever go fishing". I think I have attachment issues.
I have to start packing today and this is challenging because I have to pack for a year in a backpack.
We are thinking of bringing:
- Small laptop (we bought from Costco for uploading pics, skype, booking hotels and of course, BLOGGING)
- About 5 tshirts each
- 2 long sleeve shirts each
-Currencies from the first 4 countries we are visiting and of course some of the all powerful US dollar
-Camera with extra memory cards
-Thousands of copies of our passports and other documents
-1 Light rain jacket each
-Bug spray
-Sunscreen
-2 pairs of shorts each
-1 pair of jeans each
-1 pair of nice pants each
-2 nice shirts each
-1 sweater each
-1 bathing suit each
-Small toiletry bag
-1 pair of sandals each
-1 pair of good hiking/walking/running shoes (we each bought a pair from Marks work warehouse. They look ugly, sturdy and durable, I will let you know if they live up to our expectations)
-2 pairs of comfortable pants each
-List of all the Canadian embassies in the cities we are visiting (You have to call the Canadian embassy and tell them where you are going so that they know to look for you if there is trouble such as natural disasters or war in the places you are visiting.
-Nail clippers
-Razors
-Small amount of makeup
-Silk sleeping bag insert sheet thingys that Tyson's mom is buying us from Mountain Coop. I read that this will be useful for dirty hostels and sleeping on the beach.
-Empty water bottles
-2 bowls (I don't know why yet)
Please comment and let me know if your experiences have taught you about other things to bring/not bring.
When you travel you have to be sure to call your credit and debit card companies and let them know you are going away so they do not halt your account when you try to make a purchase in a foreign country.
It might also be a good idea to sign up for a credit card that offers you travel features. For example our Visa card offers a card registration program where you can register any of your ID cards/credit cards/passports etc and if you lose any of them, they will replace it within 24 hours wherever you are.
Our Visa and MasterCard also offered us free medical insurance and cancellation insurance.
BUT be cautious because our Visa told us that they would reimburse 5% of every flight bought on the card. HOWEVER they failed to mention that we had to buy the ticket through the bank's agency where they charge triple the price of other places.....oops
Another great idea we got from a friend is to scan and upload of our documents (passports, tickets etc) to a secure area in cyberspace so that we can get to it anytime while we are away, we did this through a program called drop box. You get a certain amount of free space when you sign up and you have the option to pay for more. We have not used up our free space yet. I will also upload our pictures to drop box every night while we are away so that if we lose our camera,we will only lose 1 day worth of pics, not all of them.
Sorry for all the boring info but this is the stuff I found useful when I was planning, so perhaps someone else will find it important as well.
When I tell people about our trip, I feel like I am talking about someone else. I feel anxious and unsure for this other person. I can't believe that the people leaving everything behind and travelling to find new things are us. I guess I'll believe it when I'm on the plane 1 week from today....
So great to see all of our friends and family take the time to come out and say good bye.
I would recommend anyone who is going away to have a get together because it's a nice feeling to know that there are people who are excited for you and waiting for you to come home again.
We had people stopping by throughout the evening, some just for a quick hug and others stayed all night.
The weather held up and even the clean up at 2am was well worth it.
Today I am having my last garage sale, we are down to selling the small items that we have accumulated over time that we don't need to keep. Although I have to admit I think I have bought more things from my garage sale than I have actually sold. As I was putting things out this morning I kept thinking "ooh I like that" and "mmm, I should probably keep that, I could use it one day if I ever go fishing". I think I have attachment issues.
I have to start packing today and this is challenging because I have to pack for a year in a backpack.
We are thinking of bringing:
- Small laptop (we bought from Costco for uploading pics, skype, booking hotels and of course, BLOGGING)
- About 5 tshirts each
- 2 long sleeve shirts each
-Currencies from the first 4 countries we are visiting and of course some of the all powerful US dollar
-Camera with extra memory cards
-Thousands of copies of our passports and other documents
-1 Light rain jacket each
-Bug spray
-Sunscreen
-2 pairs of shorts each
-1 pair of jeans each
-1 pair of nice pants each
-2 nice shirts each
-1 sweater each
-1 bathing suit each
-Small toiletry bag
-1 pair of sandals each
-1 pair of good hiking/walking/running shoes (we each bought a pair from Marks work warehouse. They look ugly, sturdy and durable, I will let you know if they live up to our expectations)
-2 pairs of comfortable pants each
-List of all the Canadian embassies in the cities we are visiting (You have to call the Canadian embassy and tell them where you are going so that they know to look for you if there is trouble such as natural disasters or war in the places you are visiting.
-Nail clippers
-Razors
-Small amount of makeup
-Silk sleeping bag insert sheet thingys that Tyson's mom is buying us from Mountain Coop. I read that this will be useful for dirty hostels and sleeping on the beach.
-Empty water bottles
-2 bowls (I don't know why yet)
Please comment and let me know if your experiences have taught you about other things to bring/not bring.
When you travel you have to be sure to call your credit and debit card companies and let them know you are going away so they do not halt your account when you try to make a purchase in a foreign country.
It might also be a good idea to sign up for a credit card that offers you travel features. For example our Visa card offers a card registration program where you can register any of your ID cards/credit cards/passports etc and if you lose any of them, they will replace it within 24 hours wherever you are.
Our Visa and MasterCard also offered us free medical insurance and cancellation insurance.
BUT be cautious because our Visa told us that they would reimburse 5% of every flight bought on the card. HOWEVER they failed to mention that we had to buy the ticket through the bank's agency where they charge triple the price of other places.....oops
Another great idea we got from a friend is to scan and upload of our documents (passports, tickets etc) to a secure area in cyberspace so that we can get to it anytime while we are away, we did this through a program called drop box. You get a certain amount of free space when you sign up and you have the option to pay for more. We have not used up our free space yet. I will also upload our pictures to drop box every night while we are away so that if we lose our camera,we will only lose 1 day worth of pics, not all of them.
Sorry for all the boring info but this is the stuff I found useful when I was planning, so perhaps someone else will find it important as well.
When I tell people about our trip, I feel like I am talking about someone else. I feel anxious and unsure for this other person. I can't believe that the people leaving everything behind and travelling to find new things are us. I guess I'll believe it when I'm on the plane 1 week from today....
Friday, September 23, 2011
getting nervous...
Well I got some great encouragement yesterday with my first entry! So much so that I am writing again today!
Tonight is our good bye party. I will spend the evening (if I ever get to leave work) with my closest friends and family and probably cry most of the time. I am really going to miss everyone, everyone says that when we come home everything will be the same but I'm not sure about that. My closest friends are getting married and having babies, my baby nieces might not be babies anymore and even worse, they might not remember us! But this is why I will post blogs and make everyone read them.
I have not posted where we are going yet, so I think now would be a good time to do so.
We head out of Seattle and after a couple of stopovers in LA and El Salvador, we land on October 2nd in Lima Peru. Here we will be picked up and driven to volunteer at a clinic called Villa La Paz (http://www.villalapazfoundation.org/). We will be here for about a week, and then we have another week in Peru to be tourists and see Machu Picchu as well as other wonderful places in Peru (that means I'm not sure what else we are doing).
From Lima we fly to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. We are there for 15 days and we have contacted a few people through http://www.couchsurfing.com/ and hope to meet up with them. As it stands I am not sure what to see and do in Brazil as there is soooo much to chose from. We will likely stay at a hostel there. Our goal is to volunteer part of our time in every country so that we are not going on a gluttonous greedy trip full of beaches and food. We want to give back to each community we visit in some way. This has not been set up in most places but we'll find something. I have contacted all the Bahai (http://www.bahai.org/) communities that we will be visiting and they will likely be able to offer us many options of ways to serve the community.
From Brazil we go to Buenos Aires Argentina for 15 days. Here we would like to go on a tour of the Amazon! I'm excited for this part. Also we have to spend a few days organizing our Indian visa here (puke!).
Next we go to San Jose, Costa Rica for 3 weeks, but we will be taking the Tika bus to Honduras and Panama (perhaps zip line over the Panama canal?). I want to see the Bahai temple in Panama and we have been told about some lovely Islands off of Honduras. San Jose was by far the cheapest place to fly in and out of so we decided to worry about overland transportation later.
Then we head back to LA (US) for 5 days. During this time our mothers were planning to come and see us there but then Tyson's mother had a great idea... instead of them flying out to LA, why don't Tyson and I fly to Vancouver for a couple days and see everyone. So they bought us tickets to fly home for 3 days in December! I am very excited about this because we can re-group and take what we have learned in the first 3 months and apply it to the rest of our trip.
Then back to LA where we head off to Australia with a quick stop in Fiji for 3 weeks. We land in Sydney, stay there for a few days then fly to Adelaide to see my friend that I met while volunteering at the Bahai center in Haifa Israel. We will drive with him to Melbourne where I have some lovely family that I get to spend some time with:) We may even take a trip to New Zealand depending on time and funds available.
Next we fly to Bali, Indonesia for 2 weeks
Then Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for 2 weeks
Then we fly to Bangkok, Thailand for an undetermined amount of time. This is unsure because we do not have a confirmed connecting flight to Hong Kong where we fly out of 4 weeks later. So during this time we plan to see Vietnam, Cambodia, maybe the Philippines and the great wall of China (if we head into mainland China we need to get visas in Hong Kong first).
Then we fly out of Hong Kong into Mumbai, India! We are in India for 4 weeks and we travel overland around India during until we leave out of Dehli. We will also be seeing the Bahai temple here.
From India we fly to Muscat, Oman for 4 weeks. My uncle and his family live here so we will be staying with them. We will go into Dubai and some surrounding countries (Turkey) during our time here.
Our flights have only been purchased until this point, so the big thing on the to do list for today is to buy the rest of our ticket!
The plan is:
From Muscat we will be flying to Johannesburg Africa and we are still deciding where to fly out of. Some of our choices are Nairobi, Kenya and Cape Town....stay tuned to find out! Africa is one of the most expensive places to travel and the overland flights are very expensive!
From Africa we go to Tele Viv, Israel for 10 days where we will visit the Bahai center in Haifa for 3 days and head off to the Dead sea, Nazareth, Bethlehem and Ellat.
From Israel we fly to London, England and plan to take the Euro train to France, Greece, Scotland, Ireland (Tyson's Aunt and her family live here), Spain, Italy, Holland (my cousin lives here) and we leave from Switzerland (my uncle and his family live here) to HOME!!!
Wow, that took a long time to type out and I bet we end up going to many places that are not on this list as we talk to people and change our minds. Our flights cannot be changed but only our major flights are bought, our overland travel is very flexible.So now you can come with me on this journey and make suggestions!
Can't believe this is happening..
Now I'm off to change a dressing and think about where to fly out of in Africa.
7 more days
Tonight is our good bye party. I will spend the evening (if I ever get to leave work) with my closest friends and family and probably cry most of the time. I am really going to miss everyone, everyone says that when we come home everything will be the same but I'm not sure about that. My closest friends are getting married and having babies, my baby nieces might not be babies anymore and even worse, they might not remember us! But this is why I will post blogs and make everyone read them.
I have not posted where we are going yet, so I think now would be a good time to do so.
We head out of Seattle and after a couple of stopovers in LA and El Salvador, we land on October 2nd in Lima Peru. Here we will be picked up and driven to volunteer at a clinic called Villa La Paz (http://www.villalapazfoundation.org/). We will be here for about a week, and then we have another week in Peru to be tourists and see Machu Picchu as well as other wonderful places in Peru (that means I'm not sure what else we are doing).
From Lima we fly to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. We are there for 15 days and we have contacted a few people through http://www.couchsurfing.com/ and hope to meet up with them. As it stands I am not sure what to see and do in Brazil as there is soooo much to chose from. We will likely stay at a hostel there. Our goal is to volunteer part of our time in every country so that we are not going on a gluttonous greedy trip full of beaches and food. We want to give back to each community we visit in some way. This has not been set up in most places but we'll find something. I have contacted all the Bahai (http://www.bahai.org/) communities that we will be visiting and they will likely be able to offer us many options of ways to serve the community.
From Brazil we go to Buenos Aires Argentina for 15 days. Here we would like to go on a tour of the Amazon! I'm excited for this part. Also we have to spend a few days organizing our Indian visa here (puke!).
Next we go to San Jose, Costa Rica for 3 weeks, but we will be taking the Tika bus to Honduras and Panama (perhaps zip line over the Panama canal?). I want to see the Bahai temple in Panama and we have been told about some lovely Islands off of Honduras. San Jose was by far the cheapest place to fly in and out of so we decided to worry about overland transportation later.
Then we head back to LA (US) for 5 days. During this time our mothers were planning to come and see us there but then Tyson's mother had a great idea... instead of them flying out to LA, why don't Tyson and I fly to Vancouver for a couple days and see everyone. So they bought us tickets to fly home for 3 days in December! I am very excited about this because we can re-group and take what we have learned in the first 3 months and apply it to the rest of our trip.
Then back to LA where we head off to Australia with a quick stop in Fiji for 3 weeks. We land in Sydney, stay there for a few days then fly to Adelaide to see my friend that I met while volunteering at the Bahai center in Haifa Israel. We will drive with him to Melbourne where I have some lovely family that I get to spend some time with:) We may even take a trip to New Zealand depending on time and funds available.
Next we fly to Bali, Indonesia for 2 weeks
Then Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for 2 weeks
Then we fly to Bangkok, Thailand for an undetermined amount of time. This is unsure because we do not have a confirmed connecting flight to Hong Kong where we fly out of 4 weeks later. So during this time we plan to see Vietnam, Cambodia, maybe the Philippines and the great wall of China (if we head into mainland China we need to get visas in Hong Kong first).
Then we fly out of Hong Kong into Mumbai, India! We are in India for 4 weeks and we travel overland around India during until we leave out of Dehli. We will also be seeing the Bahai temple here.
From India we fly to Muscat, Oman for 4 weeks. My uncle and his family live here so we will be staying with them. We will go into Dubai and some surrounding countries (Turkey) during our time here.
Our flights have only been purchased until this point, so the big thing on the to do list for today is to buy the rest of our ticket!
The plan is:
From Muscat we will be flying to Johannesburg Africa and we are still deciding where to fly out of. Some of our choices are Nairobi, Kenya and Cape Town....stay tuned to find out! Africa is one of the most expensive places to travel and the overland flights are very expensive!
From Africa we go to Tele Viv, Israel for 10 days where we will visit the Bahai center in Haifa for 3 days and head off to the Dead sea, Nazareth, Bethlehem and Ellat.
From Israel we fly to London, England and plan to take the Euro train to France, Greece, Scotland, Ireland (Tyson's Aunt and her family live here), Spain, Italy, Holland (my cousin lives here) and we leave from Switzerland (my uncle and his family live here) to HOME!!!
Wow, that took a long time to type out and I bet we end up going to many places that are not on this list as we talk to people and change our minds. Our flights cannot be changed but only our major flights are bought, our overland travel is very flexible.So now you can come with me on this journey and make suggestions!
Can't believe this is happening..
Now I'm off to change a dressing and think about where to fly out of in Africa.
7 more days
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Preparation
Hello Everyone! I am not sure if anyone is reading this, but I have decided to start a blog to document the emotions and events of my one year trip around the world.
I will be going with my husband to about 25-30 countries in the next year. I have been planning this trip for my whole life. The lady who baby-sat me went on a similar trip and ever since she told me about it when I was 8 years old, I have wanted to do this! And now it is finally happening.
I have been planning full time since about December 2010. I'll be honest, there is an enormous amount of work to do before you can leave on a trip like this.
For example you have to set up everything that you are leaving behind. Life does not stop back home while you are gone. So the mundane events like taxes, mortgages, strata payments, MSP, cable and hydro bills etc all have to be paid. Luckily my husband and I have lovely families who are going above and beyond to help us out. They are willing to pay our bills and take care of our home. I have left them a (very) detailed list of everything I need done. I could write you a list of everything we had to prepare but this would be 10 pages and very boring to read.
Buying the ticket has been a huge ordeal in itself. We began speaking with our travel agent last year and still do not have everything done. We have bought our major flights but all the overland travel and our flight home has not been bought. This has definitely not been easy or cheap. It is hard to decide where you want to go when you haven't been anywhere. You are basically looking at a map and picking anywhere. Be careful of the seasons (you don't want to go during hurricane or tornado season).
We also had to get vaccinations done and with this type of trip, there are several! This can cost quite a bit if you do not have extended benefits. We did have benefits but we still had to pay over $300 (it would have been $600 without benefits). There are also prescription antibiotics and malaria pills that we have to buy.
Even though my husband and I are both Canadian citizens, we still needed visa for many countries and this was one of the hardest parts of planning. We finally got our visa to Brazil (this was NOT easy, they require many forms and documents). Our flight agent got our Australian visa done for us and there are many visas we can get at the borders but we still need our Chinese visa (which we are getting in Hong Kong). One barrier we came across is that many visas are only valid for a certain amount of time, for example an Indian visa is only valid for 6 months from the date of issue and we will not enter India for 6 month and 2 days!! So I had to research Indian visas at other embassies around the world. Many places will not allow you to get a visa if you are not a citizen of their country. Also we are not in any one place for very long and if we give up our passport to the visa people, we are risking not getting it back in time for our next flight. UGH, not fun! So I still haven't fully figured this out but as it stands, we will be getting our Indian visa in Argentina.
We have really slacked in the research department and there is LOTS to research. Overland travel, hostels, places we can volunteer, people we could stay with (long lost relatives), couchsurfing, tours, attractions, events etc.
There's also the budget (which has been redone ten thousand times). It has kind of gone out of control and we are spending more money than we thought.... Basically we still have to buy our way through Israel, Africa, 9 countries in Europe and home. This is costing over double what we budgetted! We also have to leave some money at home to cover our bills here. Then there are the daily costs while we are away (food, hotels, attractions, internet fees, transportation) and this is hard to budget. Additionally our overland travel will cost a lot because our flights land us in one area of a country or continent and we fly out of a completely different country. We have to connect the dots with busses, ferries, trains or any form of the cheapest transportation we can find.
We just bought a laptop to take with us for skype, uploading pics and surfing the Internet. We are not bringing phones with us.
We just started packing yesterday and our bags are HEAVY. We only have one backpack each and it is hard to pack for a year in a backpack.
I also had to start a blog....I guess that's done.
We exchanged some money into the currency of the first 4 countries we are going to and some American money. We also signed up for new credit cards that we could travel with and opened a checking account at HSBC. I will follow up with how the service fees for these cards are.
We are going out shopping tonight for shoes, yoga pants, light jacket etc to take with us.
Among all of this we are still working a lot as you can imagine because the harder we work now, the more we can do on our trip. Saving for something like this is NOT easy.
We both took one year LOA's from work, and luckily our work was ok with this.
We plan to volunteer in every country we visit, we want to leave something behind or give back to the communities we travel to. Our first stop is Peru and we plan to work one week in a medical orphanage where very ill children in poverty can stay and get treatment for their conditions. I am a registered nurse at home so I am very excited about this.
We also sold all our belongings at home in garage sales and on craigslist. We have stored a few things but everything else is gone including our vehicles. This made sense to us because we needed the money and we would save money on storage.
hmm what else can I tell you?
We had to pay our MSP for one year because our travel insurance is invalid without valid MSP @ home. We set up as many of our bills with auto-withdrawals as possible to make things easier.
If anyone has ANY suggestions for us PLEASE let me know! Also if you have any questions for me please feel free to ask as I would love to help someone out with their planning or curiosity if I can.
8 more days.....
I will be going with my husband to about 25-30 countries in the next year. I have been planning this trip for my whole life. The lady who baby-sat me went on a similar trip and ever since she told me about it when I was 8 years old, I have wanted to do this! And now it is finally happening.
I have been planning full time since about December 2010. I'll be honest, there is an enormous amount of work to do before you can leave on a trip like this.
For example you have to set up everything that you are leaving behind. Life does not stop back home while you are gone. So the mundane events like taxes, mortgages, strata payments, MSP, cable and hydro bills etc all have to be paid. Luckily my husband and I have lovely families who are going above and beyond to help us out. They are willing to pay our bills and take care of our home. I have left them a (very) detailed list of everything I need done. I could write you a list of everything we had to prepare but this would be 10 pages and very boring to read.
Buying the ticket has been a huge ordeal in itself. We began speaking with our travel agent last year and still do not have everything done. We have bought our major flights but all the overland travel and our flight home has not been bought. This has definitely not been easy or cheap. It is hard to decide where you want to go when you haven't been anywhere. You are basically looking at a map and picking anywhere. Be careful of the seasons (you don't want to go during hurricane or tornado season).
We also had to get vaccinations done and with this type of trip, there are several! This can cost quite a bit if you do not have extended benefits. We did have benefits but we still had to pay over $300 (it would have been $600 without benefits). There are also prescription antibiotics and malaria pills that we have to buy.
Even though my husband and I are both Canadian citizens, we still needed visa for many countries and this was one of the hardest parts of planning. We finally got our visa to Brazil (this was NOT easy, they require many forms and documents). Our flight agent got our Australian visa done for us and there are many visas we can get at the borders but we still need our Chinese visa (which we are getting in Hong Kong). One barrier we came across is that many visas are only valid for a certain amount of time, for example an Indian visa is only valid for 6 months from the date of issue and we will not enter India for 6 month and 2 days!! So I had to research Indian visas at other embassies around the world. Many places will not allow you to get a visa if you are not a citizen of their country. Also we are not in any one place for very long and if we give up our passport to the visa people, we are risking not getting it back in time for our next flight. UGH, not fun! So I still haven't fully figured this out but as it stands, we will be getting our Indian visa in Argentina.
We have really slacked in the research department and there is LOTS to research. Overland travel, hostels, places we can volunteer, people we could stay with (long lost relatives), couchsurfing, tours, attractions, events etc.
There's also the budget (which has been redone ten thousand times). It has kind of gone out of control and we are spending more money than we thought.... Basically we still have to buy our way through Israel, Africa, 9 countries in Europe and home. This is costing over double what we budgetted! We also have to leave some money at home to cover our bills here. Then there are the daily costs while we are away (food, hotels, attractions, internet fees, transportation) and this is hard to budget. Additionally our overland travel will cost a lot because our flights land us in one area of a country or continent and we fly out of a completely different country. We have to connect the dots with busses, ferries, trains or any form of the cheapest transportation we can find.
We just bought a laptop to take with us for skype, uploading pics and surfing the Internet. We are not bringing phones with us.
We just started packing yesterday and our bags are HEAVY. We only have one backpack each and it is hard to pack for a year in a backpack.
I also had to start a blog....I guess that's done.
We exchanged some money into the currency of the first 4 countries we are going to and some American money. We also signed up for new credit cards that we could travel with and opened a checking account at HSBC. I will follow up with how the service fees for these cards are.
We are going out shopping tonight for shoes, yoga pants, light jacket etc to take with us.
Among all of this we are still working a lot as you can imagine because the harder we work now, the more we can do on our trip. Saving for something like this is NOT easy.
We both took one year LOA's from work, and luckily our work was ok with this.
We plan to volunteer in every country we visit, we want to leave something behind or give back to the communities we travel to. Our first stop is Peru and we plan to work one week in a medical orphanage where very ill children in poverty can stay and get treatment for their conditions. I am a registered nurse at home so I am very excited about this.
We also sold all our belongings at home in garage sales and on craigslist. We have stored a few things but everything else is gone including our vehicles. This made sense to us because we needed the money and we would save money on storage.
hmm what else can I tell you?
We had to pay our MSP for one year because our travel insurance is invalid without valid MSP @ home. We set up as many of our bills with auto-withdrawals as possible to make things easier.
If anyone has ANY suggestions for us PLEASE let me know! Also if you have any questions for me please feel free to ask as I would love to help someone out with their planning or curiosity if I can.
8 more days.....
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