International Driver Permits and Pop Quizzes at the DMV

Though we’re planning on taking public transportation throughout our journey, I’m of the prepare-for-everything camp so we decided to get our International Driving Permit (IDP) in case we needed to rent a car at any point in our journey.  An IDP is as it sounds:

"Although many countries do not recognize U.S. driver’s licenses, most countries accept an International Driving Permit (IDP). IDPs are honored in more than 150 countries outside the U.S… They function as an official translation of a U.S. driver’s license into 10 foreign languages. Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on Road Traffic (1949) authorizes the U.S. Department of State to empower certain organizations to issue IDPs to those who hold valid U.S. driver’s licenses. These permits are not intended to replace valid U.S. state licenses and should only be used as a supplement to a valid license. IDPs are not valid in an individual’s country of residence. An IDP is valid for one year from the effective date provided the state license is still valid throughout that period."

~from the AAA website

Read the rest of this entry »

Protection Against Bad Luck: Notes on Travel Insurance

Protection as hard as a crab’s shell. 

One of the first things I wrote down on my to-do list when we started to plan out the trip was “get travel insurance”.  Travel Insurance is an insurance product that covers travel expenses if certain calamities  related to travelling happen: losing a laptop on a bus, missing a connecting flight, cancelling a hotel reservation due to sickness, evacuation if a dangerous situation crops up for tourists, etc.

Getting a quote

In my search for the best travel insurance, I found myself often stymied by the initial step of trying to get a quote.  Company after company asked me questions I had no answers to, refusing to let me proceed before I provided them with what they believed to be mandatory information.  The biggest issue I kept running into was the flexible nature of our trip.

Read the rest of this entry »

Waste Not, Want Not

Time is rushing by faster and faster with each passing day.  I’ve delayed time and again typing up blog posts because I simply don’t have the time to sit down, think things through, and put into words everything we’re in the middle of preparing.  We’ve reached the awkward stage in our moving process where everything’s half-finished and everything’s a mess.  We have half-packed boxes in the living room (2 boxes done!  woot!), papers in towering piles waiting to be sorted through, and a rapidly emptying kitchen.  Any purchase we make is with the full knowledge that in less than a month, it’s must be used, packed, given away, or thrown away. 

Rick had decreed a ban on all non-perishable purchases and frozen foods.  "We have to finish everything we already have in the freezer and cupboards before we buy anymore," he reasoned, Which makes sense and is all very good, until my stomach’s craving a quick midnight snack and there’s nothing to eat in the fridge except a shriveled head of cabbage, one potato, half an onion, some frozen-stiff porkchops, a bag of unidentified frozen specimens of the animal kingdom, a jar of mayo, and some questionable leftovers that may or may not have achieved sentience.  And no open supermarkets to remedy the lack.  (I can just hear my mom saying how this situation is very good for my diet)  Oh, how I mourned when I finished off my bags of frozen dumplings, frozen taquitos, and frozen ravioli.    After extensive use of puppy-dog eyes, Rick has relented a bit in terms of snacking.  Plus, thanks to daily visits to the supermarket, we have a never-ending supply of fresh fruits and vegetables.  Yay, healthy!  

I suggested the fabulous idea of a leftovers party to a number of friends and family, but was soundly rejected by all but two.  A leftovers party is when one gets a bunch of daring people together to create gastronomic delights out of the remains of one’s cupboard/fridge before gorging everything down.  Intriguing premise, no?  Sadly, the remains of our kitchen do not interest most people. 

As I watch the pepper shaker reach alarmingly low levels, the soy sauce dwindle, and the ketchup bottle make rather pornographic sounds, I realize how perfectly illustrative this is of our current limbo.  So close to the end, but just far enough to give me fits.

It’s Alive! Or how to purchase two international plane tickets for $22.60.

Even after informing our friends and family of our upcoming plans, the trip didn’t seem quite real, as if we were making up some story that started with, "Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if…"  Plus, whenever someone responded with, "Cool!  When are you leaving?", we’d end up hemming and hawing with vague sentences like "sometime at the beginning of September" which added to the unreality of our plans. 

But now, it’s official.  We have purchased our plane tickets to Bangkok (a quick change in our plans from Vietnam due to visas) leaving September 5.  I’m excited to be flying on Asiana Air most of the way there as there have been nothing but good reviews for that airline.  Plus, I read on Chris Guilleabeau’s “Travel the World” guide that economy class on an Asia-based airline is equivalent to flying business class on a US-based airline.  Best thing was the cost of the flight: $22.60.  To which my mom responded with, "Are you flying on a paper plane?" 

Well, all right, $22.60 plus 65,000 miles. 

Read the rest of this entry »

10 Lessons from the last 10 Years

10 years ago, I was graduating from high school, dreaming of college and some amphorous future just beyond my reach, wondering what the next ten years would bring. 

In 10 years, I:

-Headed off to college
-Had my first boyfriend break up with me, then broke up with my second boyfriend
-Got my first job
-Moved to a new apartment
-Fell deeply in love for the first time
-Got my first professional internship
-Sucked up enough courage to approach a professor about a research project
-Moved to another apartment
-Learned for the first time what burnout felt like
-Negotiated my first salary, turning my unpaid internship into a real (albeit temporary) job, allowing me to leave my first job.
-Graduated college
-Learned how painful job-hunting, a semi-long-distance relationship, and moving home can be
-got my first REAL full-time job
-got engaged, and 15 months later, got married
-went on my first overseas trip not under the auspices of my parents (and learned what a brilliant travel partner my husband made)
-Moved yet again, tripling my commute time.
-tried and failed in innumerable amounts of personal projects, learning to dust myself off and keep going
-Had my first short story published, then my second. 
-finished my Certificate in Personal Financial Planning 
-Learned to accept the person that I am, and how close I was flirting with burnout again
-Left my first REAL full-time job and have begun packing for an EPIC trip. 

Through these last ten years, I’ve traversed through so many different phases of my life.  These are the 10 lessons I’ve learned:

Read the rest of this entry »

AAA: A Great Travel Resource

My parents have been AAA (the Automobile Club of Southern California) members for a good many years, so when I became a real-life car owner for the first time, I had no hesitation heading over to the local AAA office to sign up for a Basic (now Plus) membership and obtain auto insurance with them.  After a plethora of sleepless nights leading up to our first Independence Day as a married couple listening to neighborhood kids setting off fireworks right outside our window while praying they didn’t set the entire apartment complex on fire, we added renters insurance. 

Not only does AAA have affordable insurance products, but their membership has been invaluable with the various auto-related calamities that befall me.  Between the two of us, Rick and I have experienced practically everything: lock-outs, running out of gas, overheated engines, punctured tire, dead batteries, brakes dying, belt snapping, tire exploding.  One of the main reasons why I’m not completely neurotic regarding driving by now is that I know that I am only one phone call away from a AAA tow truck (plus my family members are rather quick to respond to emergencies and Rick is handy with a tire jack). Plus, it’s great to go to a AAA-certified auto repair shop knowing that their standards are relatively high for a competitive price plus members get a discount on repairs. 

And they have GREAT travel resources. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Miss Piggy: Every Penny Counts

My sisters and I like to buy little gifts for each other for no apparent reason.  In fact, we make up our own holidays so we don’t have to wait too long between special occasions to give each other special gifts.  One of these random gifts was Miss Piggy, the cutest plastic piggy within the city limits.

I’d read somewhere that an easy almost-unconscious way of saving money is to never spend any coins.  Instead of spending these coins, drop them in a jar.  When the jar was filled, take it to the bank to have it deposited in a savings account.  Instead of a jar, I had Miss Piggy.  Soon, I developed a habit of dropping any spare change into her.  After we were married, an amused Rick joined in my habit.  We made a game of it, trying to make Miss Piggy as "fat" as possible.  Then, Rick decided to clean out his car, where we discovered the motherlode of coins.  We barely managed to squeeze them all into Miss Piggy.  She must’ve weighed close to 7+ lbs. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Currencies: the hidden stories of history and politics

One of the things I’ve noticed in my research is that a lot of the websites I end up browsing for ideas list prices in the local currency. I’ve had to convert the different currencies to US Dollars so I can get an understanding of how “expensive” something costs in a context I’m familiar with.

The quickest way to do currency conversions is to just type it into a Google search box like “1 USD to VND” and the number pops up on top of the Google search results page. If you don’t like using Google, I also like using Wolfram Alpha’s search site because they’re all about facts and figures. Finally, if you want to use a dedicated currency converter webapp, I like using XE Currency Converter.

While doing some research into the different types of currency (nerd alert!), I became fascinated by all the different names of the currencies. And, falling headlong into the black hole that Wikipedia is, it turns out the name of each currency actually has deep links to a culture’s history.

This may be boring for a large number of you, but if you’re interested, as I was, read on for random currency-related facts on the countries we’re planning on traveling through.

Read the rest of this entry »

Digging for Information: Researching the Countries

Our trip will be a delicate balance between having the flexibility to allow for unplanned excursions and having some sort of general itinerary.  Basically, we’ll know what direction we’re headed and what cities we’re passing through, but we won’t know exactly when we’ll be passing through them.  I think we’ll be planning about a month ahead of time, and taking each day as it comes.  This will either be utter bliss, or will drive me insane. 

To stave off oncoming insanity, I’ve been compiling a list of places and attractions I’d like to see, unique restaurants I’d like to dine at, and potential places to stay.  I asked Rick if there was anything in particular he’d like to see and all he said was if we’re going to Taiwan, he wants to eat at every food stall that catches his eye at the Night Market.  Other than that, he was going to leave the rest up to me. 

My first line of research are the blogs I regularly read, over a hundred of them.  I love using Google Reader because I can just type in the country of interest and every single blog post from the past six years with a mention of that country pops up. Well, this is great if I’m looking for the Czech Republic.  But when searching for Turkey, not only did I have to sift through news articles, there were blog articles on turkey hunting, how to deep-fry a turkey without it exploding, and how to quit habits cold-turkey ( my list of blogs are a varied lot).  It’s a lot to comb through, but with patience, I have the start of a great list of places to visit. 

Next, I’m scouring through online articles I’ve saved, as well as UNESCO’s list of cultural sites.  Once I compile everything, it should give us a great launching pad to start our explorations of each country without stifling our spirit of adventure.

Coffee Date

One of the most important aspects to planning an epic trip like this is to make sure that Rick and I are on the same page.  This affects both our lives, our collective short-term future, and our joint finances.  It would be disastrous if our hearts and intentions weren’t aligned. 

Our day-to-day lives are so busy, filled with constantly clamoring responsibilities, it’s hard to find any time to discuss our plans except in snatches of conversation interspersed within our usual daily catching-up.  Most of the planning falls to me for a number of reasons, one of the main ones being that I love research, bringing together mountains of semi-relevant information until, somehow, everything falls perfectly together into a coherent picture.  Rick’s research skills are top-notch, but he’s more into the scientific method of let’s-see-if-this-works, and if not, let’s try something else until it does work, not an optimum strategy for wedding planning or for not ending up stranded in the middle of the Israeli desert.  Plus, I can easily, happily, spend hours figuring out public transportation routes.  Rick, not so much.  Therefore, he leaves me in peace as I bury myself under my pages and pages of collected data like a dragon frolicking in the midst of its hoarded treasure, and then patiently listens as I babble incessantly, or dutifully fulfills the list of to-dos I hand him.  It’s really a smooth working relationship.  But, this relationship works best when we agree on the details, since I know I’m not wasting energy on irrelevant information, Rick understands the reasons behind his numerous tasks, and we’re both excited about the end-goal

To this end, we decided to have a date-night.  Go out for coffee and just talk about whatever was in our minds regarding this trip.  It was a very successful three hours. 

Read the rest of this entry »