I am dedicating this page to a list of all the things we need to do before departure. I’m actually one of those people who love to make lists (and budgets) but funnily enough I’ve waited this long to do one for our trip! Every time we complete an item on the list I will cross it off, as well as add any relevant info. Please, if you have any suggestions, comments, or think of something I have overlooked, let me know by leaving a comment below!
Commit.The first step to any new endeavor is to commit to it. For us this happened over six years ago on our honeymoon. We wanted to have children but did not want to give up traveling and the idea was born. Over the years we have nurtured the idea and it has grown into this grand scheme we call our Worldschool Adventures.- Finance. Yup, its a big part of it! And no two families will finance their own long-term travel in the same way. We are financing ours through living life with a budget, living green, eating lower on the food chain, and, oh yeah, playing the real estate market by building and selling houses. (I think I’ll wait to cross this one off till the house sells)
Plan a route.Although I am not one to make a travel itinerary with no room for inspiration, we do have a general idea of where we will be going. China, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore for sure and we will most likely venture on to others such as Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, and India. We will go where the wind blows us (and where Air Asia has seat sales!)Education.One of the biggest hurdles for traveling families is to decide how they are going to educate their children while they are on the road. We decided to unschool our boys this year and are now feeling very confident in our educational choice. We will continue to unschool while we travel and I’m really excited to have the world as our classroom!Involve the kids.I think it is so important to get the kids excited about the journey. We try to make our kids feel involved in the planning process by talking about our trip pretty much daily. We tell them stories about our pre-children travel in Asia, borrow books from the library, look up countries on our world map, rent travel videos, look at pictures, etc. We also tell them about not-so-great things they might encounter like squat toilets, hot and humid weather, mosquitoes, and too much attention from locals.- Set a date. This one is a little hard to do right now as we have to wait for our house to sell to make our dream our reality. Once some very lucky, wonderful people buy our house we will be able to commit to an exact date of departure.
- Vaccinations. We have already gone to see a Travel Doctor and our boys got their first Hep A vaccine. The other vaccines that were recommended to us were Rabies and Japanese Encephalitis. It is just that it is ridiculously expensive to get vaccinated for tropical diseases in Canada! We have decided that our money will be better spent on waiting until we get to Thailand and go to a reputable clinic there just like some friends of ours did. That way we can talk to a travel Dr that actually deals with tropical diseases and get first hand advise. We can live pretty high on the hog in Thailand on the literally thousands of dollars we will be saving.
Figure out Luggage.Mike and I will be using our Eagle Creek backpacks we bought for our honeymoon in Asia. Most travel families with young kids don’t have separate packs for the kids to carry but I found some super cute child size backpacks from MEC that I couldn’t resist. We won’t put much in them, and I realize that they may be so impractical we end up leaving them behind. Luckily they weren’t expensive and I think it will be good for Lan and Kayden to feel more involved by packing a few of their own things.
I'm normally not much of a consumer but these I couldn't pass up!
- First Aid Kit. Have I told you my sister is a super nurse? I’ll just let her do this one, just don’t make it too heavy Robyn!
- Visit the GP. Mike and I will do the annual check up thing, you know….cause we are getting….ahem….older.
- Write a Will. Better to be safe then sorry.
- Talk to the Bank. It is important to have a personal contact at your local branch to look out for your account. We’ve actually already gone in to talk to our bank and got new Debit cards issued while keeping our old ones as back up. We will also need to inform our credit card companies of our travel plans so our cards don’t get frozen.
- Find someone trustworthy. Being gone for so long means that we will need to have someone get and open our mail and deal with any problems that may arise. I will also photocopy all of our important documents and leave copies with this person as well as emailing them to myself.
- Buy the Gadgets. This is going to be a big expense. I want to pack our own laptop so I can update this blog with ease and the one we have now just won’t cut it. We will probably go with a Mac Pro. We also plan to buy an unlocked IPhone. Since we plan on settling down for months at a time a phone will come in very handy. Some sort of E-Reader is also in our future as there is no way I am going to carry books for four people!
- Emergency Medical Insurance. This one I am dreading and I definitely need to step it up in my research department. I did a search last night and the cheapest I could find was $1700 for a year and all the companies that insure Canadians will not insure for trips longer then a year. Since we plan on going for at least two this has got me a little bit worried.
- Get Visas. We will only get a visa for the first country we visit and get the rest as we travel. This will be cheaper and offer us more flexibility. What country will we see first? Not sure yet! It will depend on what time of year we leave and air fare prices.
- Pack up the house. We plan on having a big garage sale once the house sells and everything else will be going into storage. But wait! How lucky are we? Because we move around so much, what with our flipping houses, we bought a 40ft shipping container that sits dutifully on my parents property. Voila! Free storage!
- Buy the Tickets. Can’t wait to cross this one off the list!
- Pack the Bags. As we will be limited to what we can pack by the amount we can comfortably carry, we are going to need to pack light! Packing for four people, plus a few toys and lots of snacks….we will have to be crafty! I am also very keen on bringing reusable bags, stainless steel straws and water bottles, a SteriPen for water purification, and I plan on buying some light stainless steel food containers when we are in Asia. One of my goals for this trip is to leave a light footprint on the earth and inspire other travelers to do the same, but its gonna add some bulk!
- Wave Goodbye. Tear filled goodbyes to all our loved ones. Thank goodness for the Internet and Skype so we can keep in touch. We are also hoping that some of our family members will make the journey to come and see us at some point. (This means you Mom and Dad, I promise you will love Asia! And if not at least you will still love me!)
Ok, that’s enough for now. Sorry for being long winded, I was on a roll. Any comments or suggestions?
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Tania says:
May 3, 2011 at 5:25 pm (UTC -7 )
Hey no it wasn’t long winded, not for me anyway.
I got your blog address through the mail you sent to Travelfish.
We are on the same wave length here. Our house his sold now though, but being in the UK there is no such thing as a “Promesse de vente” as in France whereas you have the certainty they will buy the house. We just need to hope we won’t encounter a problem and we can move when planned, mid August.
I’ll let you know our blog address once created. It would be great to carry on reading your adventures and maybe meet up in Asia.
I wish you all the best for you and your family and thank you for your blog and for being.
Tania
worldschooladventures says:
May 3, 2011 at 10:13 pm (UTC -7 )
So great you sold your house Tania! Hopefully we won’t be too far behind you! Our house is not typical as we tried to make it as environmentally friendly as we could afford. Thus the price tag is higher than a conventional house so our target market is smaller. A buyer has to appreciate all of the extra things we did to it and be of an environmentally conscious mind set. Hopefully we get a buyer soon though!
I am so glad you are going to blog about your journey! I love reading blogs from other families. We really are a diverse group of people and everyone is so helpful and supportive. I also recommend getting onto twitter, it has been an amazing place for me to meet like minded people that support our decision.
Thank you for stopping by the blog and I wish you all the best. I hope our paths will cross in Asia!
Rebeca says:
May 26, 2011 at 10:30 pm (UTC -7 )
Great plan!
I would personally put squatty potties on the positive list! :> They’re just so much more sanitary and easier to deal with, in my opinion. (Except for the ones on a moving Indian train, but that’s a different league!)
worldschooladventures says:
May 27, 2011 at 4:12 am (UTC -7 )
Thinking back on it, most of the ones I have encountered have been the public kind. The kind where you roll up you pant legs for fear your hem will brush the floor. The kind where you do your best to breathe very shallow. I am sure if it was in your room at a guest house it wouldn’t be so bad though!
Renee — ramblecrunch says:
January 2, 2012 at 8:28 am (UTC -7 )
Amy, for health insurance we opted to continue our MSP during our year away & add a travel rider. It cost a bitmore than the catastrophic coverage, but it’s comprehensive and the MSP will be intact when you return. No 3-month waiting period.
Love those MEC packs. They make such good ones for kids.
Molly Surazhsky says:
January 28, 2012 at 1:26 am (UTC -7 )
Oh I love this ongoing list!!! My family was certainly much more hasty with our decision haha! As soon as we saw cheap tickets, we went for it! And now we’re scouring like crazy trying to finish up everything and prepare before we leave for our travels!
The traveling backpacks are ADORABLE!!!
Happy Travels!
Molly
worldschooled says:
January 28, 2012 at 1:44 pm (UTC -7 )
Well we have had a loooooong time to plan!
Raising Miro on the Road of Life – Travel Podcast » Blog Archive » Podcast Episode #23 – Unschooling- A World of Learning Part 2 says:
April 18, 2011 at 11:57 pm (UTC -7 )
[...] some of her family’s travel preparations with us. In a recent blog post, Amy shares her Pre Travel Preparation: A list of all the things we need to do before [...]
Podcast Episode #23 – Unschooling- A World of Learning Part 2 | Raising Miro on the Road of Life - Travel Podcast says:
April 7, 2012 at 1:15 am (UTC -7 )
[...] some of her family’s travel preparations with us. In a recent blog post, Amy shares her Pre Travel Preparation: A list of all the things we need to do before [...]