Planing Process

Inspiration

The difference between having an idea and implementing it lies in the planning.

We started to talk about this adventure more than two years ago when our good friends Louis and Susie Cloete decided to go to Africa for 8 months to explore the continent.

We always dreamed about traveling for long periods of time but we had been very focused on obtaining our graduate degrees and developing our professional careers. All the while in the back of our minds we were waiting for the right time to do this.

As we began to explore this idea we looked online and found blogs and information from tons of people who have made their way around the world, each doing it slightly differently. We realized that if we wanted to do this, and if we planned it in the way that was right for us, then why not go ahead and do it?! Here is a little of what we learned about planning this type of adventure.

Funding the trip

Let’s get to business. You need to secure funds to do your trip.

Unless you are a wealthy individual already, start saving now!
Develop a budget for the type of trip you want to do and plan your monthly savings to correlate with the trip goal.

The best way to decided how much money you need is by reading as much as you can in blogs, like this one, that share free, accurate and reliable information based on people’s actual experiences. Aimed high so you have extra for unplanned incidents or experiences.

We will be sharing more details of the overall cost at a later point. As the money starts to disappear.

We plan to have 4 options for accessing our funds as we travel:

1. A credit card with no international fees. Preferably a MC or Visa. We know Amex can be an issue in some places. Capital one has a card that could work.

2. An ATM card, again we are negotiating with the bank the fees. Citibank has programs to fulfill this objective.
(We will take backups of these cards if possible in case they are damaged)

3. A Western Union account so friends and family can send us presents when they feel it is appropriate. That was Ryan Farley’s idea, a good one for sure.

4. A PayPal account that could be useful in some cases. We will see. We are thinking we can use it to book hotels if needed.

Here are some useful links for the planning process: (still to come)

Buying a ticket to flight around the world

When we started planing the trip we learned about the around the world tickets. There different airlines that offer tickets based on segments. Customer are able to select up to 16 segments to go around the globe in one direction only. Segments are flights or land travel. The plus about this tickets is the flexibility with the dates and the price can be good if you want to limited your trip to 16 locations maximum. We tried to purchased one with American Airlines but the number of places and our itinerary made it impossible. The AA specialized call center was very helpful.

Doing more research we came across with a fantastic company to get our tickets. http://www.airtreks.com/ this guys have extremely good customer service. They made the process easy, precise, timely and clear. The tickets are the biggest single expenses in the trip so it can be very stressful. The good things is that they get you where you want to go when you wan to go. We purchased 36 flights for $15K. We are going to have to buy few more tickets latter once the airlines make the booking available. The only negative about this ticket is the no flexibility in the dates. You picked a date and you have to showed-up at the airport on time. Yes someone can say that you lose flexibility on the other hand with a fix plan you get to see more and have some structure.

Finally, if you are interested on getting a ticket we recommend you calling Sarah Gamber, Senior Travel Counselor, 1-877-AIRTREKS Ext. 14415-977-7100 ext 5, 145 Sarah@airtreks.com. She is fantastic!

Insurance

We purchased medical/travel insurance with Lonely Planet. We went for the best package which cost $2800.00 USD. Hopefully we do not have to use it but we wanted be protected I’m case of an emergency. We took pictures of all our equipment and saved some key receipts in case we have to submit a claim.
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travel-insurance/?gclid=CI3V3OD5zrwCFfBj7Aod3x0AEg

Vaccines

We made a mistake with the vaccines. We did not allow enought time to get this done on time. We ended getting all the required vaccines based on the travel clinic consultation, however, we had to pay out of pocket $ 4K. That was a painful expense!
Our two cents are allow at least 60 days prior to departure to go for the consultation and talk with your PCP so they can order the vaccines, or visit a big hospital with a travel clinic in house. We got vaccines for everything you can imagine, from rabies to Japanese Encephalitis, probably more than what we need but why risk it when you are on the other side of the world.