It takes someone a good decent amount of planning when going away for 1 or 2 weeks holiday. So when it comes to a year off travelling things take a different scale altogether. New set of parameters need to considered, special arrangements made before we can take that first flight off. I have listed down all areas we considered in our planning in order of priority.
Job
Monty is fortunate to be working where he can apply for a 1 year break from work for travelling.
After Molly moved out of DVLA in Dec 2013 her new job was a way to earn extra savings and keep Molly occupied. Molly quit her job for travelling. She intends to explore new interests as a part of her travel.
Lead Time = 1 year
Finances
This is probably the biggest question which one thinks about travelling long term. After reading a lot we realized it does not necessarily require a big fat bank balance. All you need is travel smart. We live in London one of the expensive cities of the world. We intend to spend less money travelling per month than we would spend living in London.
Lead Time = 1.5 to 0.5 years
Destination
Of course one will need to have a vision and desire to travel to a specific part of earth. The budget plays an important role. One needs to know how long the money is going to last. It was simple for us. South East Asia and South America. So we went for less expensive, less developed but culturally rich countries. A detailed rout and Itinerary is planned in this page ‘Rough Itinerary‘ .
Lead Time = 6 months
Passport & Visas
Once we have list of countries to visit it is important to know the Visa requirements for each country. By the time we take off for this trip both Monty and Molly will hold British passport. This will be an additional advantage as most of the countries in South East Asia and in South America either require no visa or provide visa on arrival facility. We believe we will need to apply for Visa for China and Myanmar. You can easily check online if you require a visa to visit a country.
Lead Time = 6-4 months
House
We made arrangements for our house so that while we are away it can be looked after. Of course mortgage will still be paid. You can rent out they house or flat if you own or if you are renting you just vacate after giving agreed notice.
Lead Time = 4-2 months
Storage When Away
Thanks to our big double garage and limited amount of stuff we own, we plan to pack out stuff in 2-3 big boxes and store it on shelves. Rest of our stuff will be sold, donated or trashed. There are many options available if you want to store your belongings, like hiring lockers at self storage. They do cost a bit so you may want to leave it packed and sealed at a family or friend’s house or garage.
Lead Time = 4-2 months
Travel Luggage & Backpacks
We did ample research on what backpacks we will like to travel keeping our approach simple. We simply read a lot of blogs and gathered that the following criteria are the most important ones:
- Small enough to be taken as hand luggage (hence not more than a 40 litre backpack)
- Front loading – much easy to manage stuff (not top loading)
- With lockable zips (to lock the backpack)
- Good cushioning and rigid back.
- Multiple pockets and belts
Both of us settled for Osprey Fairpoint 40 backpacks that fulfilled all this criteria. We bought this from Go Outdoors for 10% discount that time finally costing us £65 each.
Lead Time = 3 month
Flights & Accommodation
One would think this will require a lot of planing and booking. Well not really. We were travelling for a year and we do not want to follow a concrete plan. The whole idea was to take life as it comes. So essentially we decided that we are going to know where we will be only for the next 10-15 days. We have time and we want all the flexibility. So essentially once we are off, as long as we have next 10 days plan in place, happy days.
The only available option was to go for Round The World tickets which can be cheap. But with the uncertainty and my trip starting in India we decided not to go for it. Round the world tickets are great when you start and finish at same place, your trip is not more than 1 year and you travel round the earth once going in one direction only (east to west OR west to east).
Lead Time = 3 months
Credit/Debit Cards
Getting foreign exchange in a foreign country can be expensive and using your normal credit/cards cards may end up you paying 1% – 3% commission. So we shopped around the UK market and got Nationwide Building Society cards where one does not pay any commission on foreign transactions. Yes that is true. We will use our debit cards to withdraw money from ATMs abroad and use the credit cards for POS transactions. The conversion rate is offered is in line with the current exchange rate offered by Visa Europe.
Lead Time = 2-1 month
Travel Insurance
We wish to buy travel insurance before we leave. The research is still pending. I will update this section.
Lead Time = 2 months
Travel Shoes
Still searching. We went and looked for walking shoes in Go Outdoors, Mountain Warehouse and Regatta Outdoors. The idea as to try out the shoes, get a good feeling and then buy. After all these are
Lead Time = 3-2 months
Vaccination
Molly did the research and checked the injections one will need to take. This will be done closer to leaving for our trip.
Lead Time = Last 1 month
Electronics
You will always need more or less the following gadgets when you travel so if you do not have the ones you can travel with then better give yourself enough time to get these in the right deals.
- Travel Laptop (we bought Acer S3 13,3″ 1.3 kg – Core I5 – 4GB RAM – 500GB HDD – Win 8.1) – Approx £370
- Nikon SLR D5200 with 18-50mm lens (bought 1 year back – £400)
- GoPro Hero 3 (bought this 1.5 years back, very good and important, I paid £260) – Available now for £160
- External Hard Disk – 500 GB (The idea is to regularly send this to UK so that I do not travel with all data)
- Travel Mobile Phones (already unlocked, not flashy ones)
Lead Time = 6 months month
Miscellaneous
There are small little things recommended for travel which I will be listing here.