Dreaming & Planning - Around the World 2023
The first time I left the country I was 22 years old. Mazatlan, Mexico was my first exposure to the world beyond America… I was immediately bitten by the travel bug. New sights, sounds, food, culture… My next trip couldn’t come soon enough. I was a young single mom at the time, so frequent and extended travel wasn’t possible. Over the next 2 decades, I was fortunate to be able to take one trip a year for myself. I recall daydreaming for the time when I could have more than one adventure a year, or better yet, spend weeks, months, and maybe even years exploring our planet. ….Two decades later I am living my dream.
After 5 years of planning (which included a few false starts), my husband Jordan and I set off for a 6 month adventure that would take us around the world starting in the Philippines.
Our route would take us through 13 countries; Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Nepal, Indonesia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Switzerland, Germany, Serbia & France.
Planning an adventure like this was fun for me.. I started with putting together a list of countries we wanted to visit. Then defined our desired route by starting as far from home as possible, somewhere in the South Pacific or Asia. Weather conditions were also a huge factor, I didn’t want to be in SE Asia in the middle of insane heat, or go to India during monsoon season. Once the countries were nailed down, how long we spent in each was dependent on the cities we wanted to visit, travel times between each (plane, train, bus, ferry or self drive), cost of living in the country, activities we wanted to do. For the most part, we followed the rule of a 2 night minimum in each city, usually 3 nights or more. And last but definitely not least, the determining factor for almost everything was our budget. When planning, I used a few methods to figure out costs (e.g. average hotel cost, flights between countries and within, rental cars, average food budget, and what we’d need to pay our mortgage and bills while gone). Needless to say, Google sheets became my best friend.
Once the path was planned, I spent countless hours scouring the internet & watching YouTube videos to learn more about the countries we wanted to visit. There are soooo many great resources out there of couples, solos and even families traveling longer term. It made planning for our adventure much easier. For more details and inspiration, check out my Travel Resources page. It includes websites, YouTube channels and blogs that were incredibly helpful as inspiration, answers to questions, and general research.
Anthony Bourdain used to say it’s best to go without a plan, and yes being spontaneous is great, but I know myself and didn’t want to spend time while in these amazing countries planning accommodations & transportation for our next city and/or country instead of being present in the moment. So in almost all cases, I opted for pre-booked accommodations & transportation… And in a few cases, pre-booked activities to ensure we didn’t miss opportunities for certain adventures. Again, thank you my new bff Google Sheets for helping me keep track of everything.
Questions came up as I was planning… A few biggies were: Would I be able to keep my cellular service with global roaming? Would we keep our health insurance, get international coverage or did we need any? More research and a few phone calls to our cellular & health insurance companies revealed the answers… Our mobile carrier (T-Mobile) does not allow international roaming for more than 3 months in a year. Once your phone hits that limit it essentially turns into a brick. So we put our mobile service on hold so we could keep our phone numbers, and purchased e-SIMs as we went through Airalo. WhatsApp was our communication of choice, with FaceTime being a close 2nd. As for healthcare… Good old US for profit healthcare, ugh. We opted to drop our health insurance ($800/month was NOT cost effective) and purchased a 6 month international plan through World Nomads for the same cost as one month of our regular insurance. Thankfully neither of us have any major health conditions. This coverage was mainly for emergencies, but also covered dental, lost luggage, emergency evacuations and many other things we hoped would never happen. We also figured health care costs would be significantly less expensive than in the US (which we later confirmed with a few of Jordan’s mishaps, one involving a spider bite in South Africa).
And then there were all the viruses, rabies, malaria and other crazy illnesses to consider. We visited a travel clinic in Minnesota to go over all the places we’d be traveling to and what shots, pills, and supplements we’d need. After the nurse got over the shock that we were visiting so many countries, she gave us a huge list of recommended vaccines & pills. This ultimately turned into a whole ordeal that I was not prepared for, and was quite shocked at how incredibly expensive the bill would be. With that, we decided to do some ‘medical tourism’ and ended up going to Montreal Canada for a long weekend to explore and get shot up. Check out my Weekend in Montreal blog for more on that fun time in a fabulous city or my Montreal Outtakes Reel on Instagram… Pro Tip, sound on for the best experience.
Aside from concerns about traveling long term, we had a few other things to consider… Our jobs and home. I am fortunate to be in a career that is contract based, so I was able to end my last client engagement without concern. Jordan does carpentry & home remodeling for a good friend who owns the company, so they were able to find a sub to perform work when he was gone.
Our home & plants needed to be looked after while we were gone. We are very fortunate to have amazing family & friends who not only supported our adventure with encouragement, but who also came by to check on our house, shovel snow (tons of snow from the worst winter we’d had in years), mow our yard, start up our cars and water our plants.
Before we set off, we went through several packing phases determining what to bring and what to leave behind. Our goal was to travel with carryon size backpacks, one 40 liter Osprey and one smaller day pack each. Fortunately most of our travel was in warmer climates which made packing easier and lighter. In the end, we paced more than we needed, and ended up dumping a few things along the way… Hotel staff were gettin lucky in some cities!
Ready to roll, we spent as much time as possible with family & friends before we said see you in 6 months!
When we purchased our one way tickets to the Philippines in early 2022, it became very real. Time moved slowly at first, which I passed by diving deep into research on each country and city. Then all of the sudden it was December 5th and we were at the airport ready to roll.
Here we go!
