Planning our trip, we had help from others who have forged a path ahead of us. We learned a tremendous amount from other websites, and this page is about giving back to others who are planning their own trip. We hope you find this information helpful in planning your future trip around the world ...
Packing
Preparation
We focused on two fundamental aspects; life planning & travel planning.
Life Planning & Preparation
Finances
To incorporate travel into our bigger financial picture, we read some books, spoke with friends and went through an exercise of clarifying our interests, values and priorities. We put together a 5 year horizon of what our finances would need to be if we were to travel for over a year, and be without a job for potentially two years (considering time to find a job upon reentry). We had a pretty good picture of where we were spending our money (thanks to Quicken), and what areas we'd need to cut back on or eliminate while we travelled, and also when we returned, to have enough money to fund our trip and to live on and still pay the mortgage for a period of unemployment.
To enable us to leave feeling like our assets were in good hands, and that we could afford to take the time off and travel, we did the following things:
- Consolidated all our disparate accounts (savings, checking, investment, retirement)
- Diversified our investments
- Established a budget and cash flow estimate for the next 5 years
- Selected a financial planner to help us transition and manage things while we were out of the country
Living Wills & Trust
What would happen if we were to be on that ill fated flight on LOST, and never made it back home? We had nothing put together, and when we learned about the chunk the government takes when you depart this world, it sickened us. So we talked with friends and interviewed providers, and finally put together our wills and trust before leaving. We appointed a local relative as our executor and made sure they were up to speed on what they would need to do in the event we didn't make it back, or were incapacitated.
Insurance
Health Insurance
This was the question that was haunting us. Could we just go with international health insurance? And how cheap we could get it, as we wouldn't be in the US and needing the expensive coverage to pay for expensive medical treatment within the US. Think again. If you let your coverage lapse in the US, there's the distinct possibility that you may not be eligible to be insured when you return. Or, even worse, should you have a medical need that requires you to be repatriated home to the US to receive treatment, once you arrive back in the US, you no longer have insurance to cover the treatment. So after much research, we sought the council of a great insurance agent, and opted to take out two coverage's, one in the US through a large national provider- one with a low monthly premium but high deductible; and one international plan. We have a huge "thanks" to extend to World Nomads www.worldnomads.com who is so kindly sponsoring our international insurance for the trip, in exchange for our journal coverage of our travels as one of their writers.
Travel Insurance
Through World Nomads we also get a level of travel insurance through their policy. Additionally, we are carrying several credit cards with us that do offer an additional level of coverage for a variety of situations.
Personal Property Insurance
We needed to insure the goods we are carrying with us, such as electronic gadgets and computer/peripherals. Normally this property is covered under our homeowners policy. However, as we have converted our home to a rental property while we are gone, we had to also convert our homeowners insurance to a landlord tenant policy and our goods that we are traveling with are no longer covered. We selected Safeware to insure our electronic gadgets.
Homeowners Insurance
Once you decide to rent your home, you need to convert your insurance to a landlord/tenant policy. Many big insurance companies don't insure your for your rental. We have found Farmers Insurance to have a good policy.
Credit & ATM's
There are a number of credit cards we are taking with us on the trip, in case one card get's frozen due to identity theft concerns with multiple charges across multiple countries during the trip. Same for ATM cards. We have had the unfortunate luck on past trips with our ATM cards getting eaten by Brazilian ATM machines, and left with no way to get cash. We maintained several accounts in the US with ATM access in case a card is lost, stolen, eaten, or the funds frozen in transaction or limited withdrawal amount below what is needed to access.
For credit card selection, try to find one that does not charge international conversion fees (check the small print). Most credit card companies charge 3-5% to do the math calculation conversion on your credit card statement. A revenue source for them, and they add no value to you. Some cards under Capital One and American Express offer this type of international conversion fee waiver. Some bank cards also waive fees associated with non-franchise banks, or provide up to 100 free international ATM withdrawals a year, and at some account levels, waive the ATM withdrawal fee. Check into your options for the one best suited for your situation.
Being the analytical excel addicts that we are, we also have stored files in virtually hosted web accessible account with documents that allow us to view the key provisions of each credit card and ATM card we have, and how to access benefits of each, with important numbers for contact.
Cash & Traveler's Cheques
We opted to take some Traveler's Cheques with us. After having a horrific experience being robbed on our honeymoon in Fiji, and such a stellar customer service experience with American Express, we don't leave home without them.
For cash, a stash of US dollars is helpful in some situations, however we are relying on the ability to use our ATM cards and take money as we need it in local currency.
Budget Management & Bill Payment
Ah, the wonders of quicken for expense tracking, and technology that now fuels online payment and online check-writing. These features have enabled us to do nearly every financial transaction virtually. We charge every expense that we possibly can, and download all our transactions into quicken, managing both the security of our purchases and transactions, as well as total expense by type and month. There are a couple that still remain on the 'write a check' after we receive the invoice, such as the water bill for our home, but having loving relatives back at home who can intercept a bill, scan them in and email to you is essential.
Property Leasing & Management
We have chosen to rent out our home while we are away. We started advertising it through a real estate company back last October, and it's taken us now until mid March to finally get a tenant in. Tip: start early, and be aggressive. We've had some stops and starts with property management companies, despite interviewing and doing reference checks. This has been the one point of stress for us as we're traveling, because the lack of tenancy was draining our travel budget.
Trip Planning
(Coming soon ...)
© 2007 All Rights Reserved, The Marshall’s
