Budgeting the Unknown

Taking a look at our current spending, we spend, on average, approximately $4,000 a month.  This includes rent, food, bills, gas, loan payments, and fun.  This does not include any of the savings we sock away into our emergency account, retirement accounts, and personal savings goals (like travel!). 

I know extensive travel will have a different set of expenses than daily apartment-life.  For instance, we won’t be paying rent or apartment insurance anymore, but we’ll be shelling out for hotel/motel/hostel/etc. fees.  We won’t be paying so much for gas but we will be paying for flights, trains, and any other transportation we’ll be using.  We won’t need to pay our monthly utilities, electricity, or internet bills, but who knows if we’ll need to spend for internet cafes or other travel charges we have no ideas about yet. 

Then there are the things we’re still unsure about.  Do we keep our cell phones & requisite data plans?  Do we pay for mail scanning services or get a P.O. Box?  Do we pay extra for cloud backup services for our computers?  Do I still need to pay auto insurance if I’m not using my car or do I let it lapse?  How much is travel insurance and visa fees?  How much will moving and storage companies cost?

So, it’s hard for me to know what exactly we’ll be spending, with little to no experience in all of this. 

If I assume we’ll be spending approximately how much we spend currently for two people on an average of 30 days a month, that means we’ll need approximately $65/person/day.  And less than half of each day’s budget should be the lodging.  Which is, considering a cheap hotel room is about $100, rather disheartening. 

I’m sure there are lots of things we can do to reduce our monthly spending while we’re travelling.  I’ve been exploring different lodging options.  Both Rick and I are happy perusing street vendors for delicious meal options (Thank God for cast-iron stomachs!).  Our essential souvenir purchases are postcards and magnets.  We tend to spend more on gifts for others than ourselves.  And we adore figuring out the local public transportation. 

However, I believe travelling should, at the very least, be livable.  Rick and I spent one night sleeping in Edinburgh Airport rather than shell out another $100 for a hotel room.  I didn’t get much rest that night, too worried over the security of our belongings and persons.  One night is ok.  A year of similar circumstances, would probably end with me shipped off to a mental institution.  Besides, what’s the point of going all the way to the other end of the world, only to end up peering forlornly through windows, too afraid to spend any money?  Where does the line between frugality and enjoyment fall? 

And with so many unknown factors still to be ironed out, it’s slow going figuring out a set budget. 

What I’m especially nervous about is if we don’t manage to get any secondary income streams up and running in time for our trip, we’re not going to have ANY money coming in to supplement our needs.  We’ll be entirely dependent on whatever savings we’ve socked away for this trip, which, at the time of writing, is about a third of what we’ll need.  Yikes! 

Ultimately, however, if this is the path we’re supposed to be on, if this is truly going to be as life-altering as we believe it to be, then even if the money isn’t there, we kind of have to believe that it’s still worth it, that God will provide, and that we’ll be creative enough to make do with what we have and still have a giant blast doing it.

A New Year, Dazzling Possibilities Ahead!

Usually at the beginning of a year, we start off with New Years resolutions; goals we want to accomplish in the upcoming days.  On one of our daily walks, I turned to Rick and asked him what resolutions he had for 2013.  He shrugged, "I don’t have any."  "Oh," I responded, "what about expectations?"  He shook his head, "What about you?" 

What about me?  I had no resolutions besides some amorphous "I hope I do everything that needs to be done."  Instead, I had a feeling.  Not a feeling of fear, but a nervous one, an anticipatory one, one deep in my gut. 

This next year is going to, hopefully, be full of exciting changes in our life.  When I picture what’s coming up, I imagine myself at the edge of a cliff and spread out below me is Paradise.  The only way to get to Paradise is to jump off the cliff.  If I miscalculate, or a rogue wind comes out of nowhere, or a giant hawk snatches me up, I’m going to die.  Now, I can turn around, away from the edge, and go back to my current existence, safe, perfectly fine.  Or, I can take that chance and jump for Paradise. 

I don’t know what’s going to happen.  I’m just staring down right now, my toes curling around the edge.  Do I go for it?  Oh, hell yeah!  I’m not losing my chance for Paradise.  I just have to suck up enough courage to take that first leap.  I’m nervous like crazy, but I’m still smiling, super excited. 

So, no resolutions this year, but I have high hopes for 2013. 

Knock Knock! Thoughts on visas and passports.

One of the important things about travelling is actually getting to enter the countries we want to visit. There’s such a huge variety of rules & regulations to wade through. I know a lot of frequent travelers wing it and usually succeed in getting into whichever country they’re aiming for through sheer luck and a lot of fast talking. Unfortunately, I’m really a by-the-book terrified-of-being-deported-and/or-possibly-be-thrown-in-foreign-jail kind of girl. That, and I’m terrible at fast talking. Whenever I try to fast-talk, I usually just end up saying "Ummm" a lot and majorly stuttering. It’s terrible.

So, research it is. One of the BEST resources for figuring out visa requirements is the US Secretary of State website.  Not only do they have all the information you could possibly need about rules/regulations for getting in a country, they have country-by-country information, travel alerts (for danger spots to be careful in), tips for traveling abroad, and a Safe Traveler Enrollment Program which lets you register which countries you’re going to be visiting. If there’s a sudden military coup or natural disaster in that country, they know you’re there and they’ll try to get you out of there.

Mostly, I’ve just copied and pasted what’s on the Secretary of State website for later perusal, but I’ve noticed there’s some recurring topics that I need to focus on:

Passport:

Do you need a passport to enter? Usually, yes.
How long past the date of entry does the passport need to be valid for?  3 months? 6 months?
Do you need to carry your passport with you at all times while in the country?
Do you need to get a stamp?  Sometimes, from what I’ve read, depending on where you’re traveling to or traveling from, it’s better not to get a stamp of certain countries, or use two passports.  

Visa:

Do you need a visa to enter? This varies based on what citizenship you have and what relationship your country has with the country you are visiting
What type of visa do you need?
How long does the visa let you stay in the country? Are there extensions allowed? Multiple-entry?
Do you need a valid visa to LEAVE the country?
How strict are countries about their types of visas, like if you’re allowed to work at all if you have a tourist visa?

Permits: Special travel permits to specific areas in certain countries, since we might want to visit Tibet while we’re in China.

Return/Onward air ticket: Do you need one? I guess this is to prove that you’re not going to try to immigrate illegally. 

Embassy: Where is it? My dad says that whenever you travel to another country, learn how to say “Please”, “Thank You”, “Where is the bathroom?”, and “Where is the U.S. Embassy?” in the country’s national language. 

Country Registration: I’d never known this before, but in some countries, it’s require to register with the police within 24 hours of arrival (though a hotel will often take care of that for you), or with the corresponding Office of Immigration.

Proof: Some countries need proof of finances to pay for stay or proof of medical insurance policy.  

Vaccination requirements: I believe this is self-explanatory. 

HIV/AIDS restrictions: Apparently, some countries do not allow you to travel within their countries or have a residence permit if you have HIV/AIDS.  That’s kind of sad. 

I also learned a bunch of new terms while perusing through all the nitty gritty details:

Departure Tax: A tax to leave a country.

Landing Visa: A visa you can apply for in some countries (like Taiwan) if your passport isn’t valid the amount of time it’s supposed to be. Usually just costs lots of money.

Schengen Agreement: U.S. citizens can enter all Schengen member states for a total of up to 90 days for tourism or business purposes without a visa.  Read more about it here.

Transiting: When you’re travelling through a country en route to another country. Sometimes, if you have more than one stopover in a country (like China), you might need certain endorsements in your passport that allows that.

I just know I’m going to end up overwhelmed by all the different types of information I need to keep track of for each country we’re thinking of traveling to, not to mention all the countries we may need to pass through. I think I’m going to need to put together an Excel spreadsheet of some kind to keep track of all the information. If I ever do get around to creating one, I’ll put up a link here for everyone.

There’s one thing I know for sure, though.  First thing on my newly-established To Do list: get Rick’s passport renewed. 

Massive Note-Taking

So, better late than never, I suppose.  Sometimes, I get too caught up on having things happen on the right day at the right time, and when life happens, when I can’t do something on that arbitrarily chosen date and time, I get discouraged.  That’s why I can go weeks without posting.  Not because I have nothing to say, but because I didn’t get to say it when I wanted to.  It’s a bad habit I need to change, but hey, at least I’m aware of it, right?

I’ve officially started planning.  By “planning”, I mostly mean typing up lots of things in multitudes of lists.  I’m a list-maker by nature, Type-A since birth, a distinct contrast to my laid-back Type-B husband.  I’ve been using this great program called Keynote, which is a relatively (by tech standards) old freeware program.  I love the way I can organize topics within topics within topics, a dizzying cesspool of minutiae that I revel in.  Whenever I think of something that relates to our ATW trip, I type up a quick note so it doesn’t fall through the sieve that my mind has become in recent years.  It’s also going to be great to have all my research in one place for reference.  Since I’m paranoid, I actually save the file in my Dropbox (in the cloud!) and make sure it’s in my regular backups.  Hopefully, all my typing will prove fruitful in the coming months as I start getting down to the nitty gritty details. 

Another thing of note: Rick and I are trying to come up with a way to tell the parents that we’re going to quit our jobs and spend a year traipsing around the world with no foreseeable steady income.  We’re praying that they’ll be ok with it.  It wouldn’t stop us from going ahead with our plans, but our life could be made exponentially more miserable if we knew our families weren’t happy and/or believe us to be insane (both highly likely possibilities).  Also, how do you start a discussion like this…without them automatically jumping to the conclusion that we’re about to bear them grandchildren?

9 Things: 11/3/2012

1. Last days are today and tomorrow for London’s Climb of the Cursed

2. Love your state? Check out these American State Topography Magnets (Scroll down to the comments for sale information) via The Dieline

3.Gorgeous photos & film of the perpetually stunning Iceland via Metalocus

4. Hitachi prototypes a boarding gate with a built-in explosives detector via Far East Gizmos

5. Wander around Cape Town, South Africa with this guide written by Miss Moss who lives there

6.Admire travel posters designed between 1920 through 1950 at the gallery Zeitlos-Berlin

7. Experience the pop- up Rekorderlig Winter Forest Bar in the Old Truman Brewery in East London through November 6 via NotCot

8. See how hotels try to fake you out with their promo photos via Reader’s Digest

9. Chow down on different chefs every night in Los Angeles at the pop-up kitchen within a kitchen of Test Kitchen through November 11

Dead Salmon and Epic Poetry: Ketchikan, Alaska, USA

The drive down was not unlike, at first, the drive up the mountain.  The old bus taking the turns on the close mountain paths just a little too fast to be cautious, just a little too slow to be reckless, creaked comfortably, filled with the murmured silence of the tired.  However, halfway down, our bus driver broke the silence, the quiet détente we had all silently agreed to in order to snuggle down into our own little bubble of space. 

We had a little time, he announced with far too much cheer, so would we be interested in seeing the salmon spawning?  At first, the wall of silence seemed too strong, but the bus driver’s voice had already cracked it, and the walls came crumbling down.  Yes, yes we would like to see the salmon spawning. 

We stumbled off the bus next to a gully cut out of the ground, whether by nature or artifice I could not determine.  Peering into the murky depths, we saw nothing, at first, nothing but dirty water and concrete.  Look!  Someone pointed and soon we could spot them, their wriggling exhausted bodies struggling upstream.  The salmon.  We watched as they swam and swam until they disappeared from our view.  Only one, too exhausted to swim much longer, too weak to persevere, drifted lazily downstream, dead. 

We climbed dutifully back on the bus.  I thought of that dead salmon.  Empathized with it.  Sometimes, it was tempting to drift downstream instead of struggling up it. 

But before I could immerse myself in such dreary thoughts, the bus driver’s incessant voice cut into the now-contemplative silence undercut with the buzzing murmurs of burgeoning conversation.  Would we like to hear an epic poem?

An epic poem?  A strange request and we had no response for him.  He smilingly took that as assent and regaled us for the duration of our trip back to the cruise ship, words extracted and spun from his mind only, his booming voice filling up all the empty spaces of that old bus, the rhythmic cadences lulling us to a state of pleased repose. 

When we arrived at our destination, he thanked us for coming.  I thanked him for driving.  I watched him drive away in the growing darkness, perhaps to regale another entranced group another day with dead salmon and epic poetry. 

Google Translate Say What?

Rick and I try to take meandering walks around our neighborhood on a nightly basis.  It’s a decent form of regular exercise and it gives us time away from our overabundant responsibilities to be with each other, discuss our day, and just revel in each other’s presence.  Our neighborhood is primarily inhabited by Mexicans so it’s not uncommon to be completely surrounded by signs in Spanish and people speaking in Spanish.  Our apartment manager speaks elementary English and I know even less Spanish.  Our conversations usually consist of excessive hand motions and peering at the computer deciphering what Google Translate spits out. 

Most of the time, it’s great to get authentic Mexican food and buy inexpensive fresh produce at the local Mexican supermarket, but sometimes it can be a frustrating experience.  During these times, Rick and I tell each other that we’re practicing for our ATW trip and it lifts our spirits.  Though English is used internationally in business and other spheres of society, we’re definitely not expecting everyone we meet to speak or understand English.  I’m sure there will be times conversations will consist solely of pointing and exaggerated gestures.  It’s scary to think of, intimidating really, but at the same time, it’s definitely something to look forward to.  That, and I need to figure out a way to carry Google Translate with me at all times. 

Sanctification–Tintern Abbey, Wales, UK

The chatter of the other tour participants faded behind me as I walked into the embrace of the ancient stone walls arching high above me.  A hush seemed to settle upon my shoulders, enclosing me in a container of silence.  I raised my eyes up and up and up and stone transformed into the freedom of sky.  I later learned that Cornwall and his men had ripped the roof off Tintern Abbey, because it was valuable, as they had methodically stripped every last decoration from every surface they could reach.  They thought they had reduced the building to nothing, and maybe in the eyes of man, Tintern Abbey had become nothing but a remnant of the past.  Instead, I believe they sanctified the area, opening it up to the holiness and incalculable riches of God’s realm. 

The only thing Cornwall left behind, besides crumbling stone, was a small milky-white pane of glass, too high to reach and too common to make it worth their while.  I stared up at the glass and fancied that if my eyesight were as a hawk’s, I would be able to see the reflection trapped in the pale material.  What would I see?  Stone?  Hundreds of years trapped within?  Or the face of God?  I had a sudden urge to kneel, on the mud and grass trampled by dozens of my fellow tourists that day.  To kneel and turn my face towards the unfathomable sky and bask in the holiness infused into the very air.

Be Careful. Countries Are Likely to Shift During Planning.

[Image Source: John Pinkerton, via Wikimedia Commons]

In order to travel, especially for such an extensive trip, it’s essential to know three things: where the journey begins, where the journey most likely ends, and the general path between the two points on the map.  Rick and I have been tossing around names of countries we’d like to visit.  Our goal is to stay roughly about a month in each country, more if we love it, less if we feel it’s time to move on.  This adds up to about 11 countries, chosen for various reasons, plus a month for travel in-between. 

Tentatively, this is the list of countries we’re most interested in (and the reasons they were initially chosen):
1. Taiwan: My parents were born & raised here. And I love Taiwanese dramas.  I highly doubt I’ll see Taiwanese movie stars, just like I rarely see movie stars when I drive through Hollywood, but, hey, a girl can dream.  It’s a potential start point.
2. China/Tibet: My cultural heritage, plus Rick wants to see the Great Wall in Beijing.  I told him about duck heart shish kebob and he’s rather excited about that also.  Tibet is technically part of China, though I know that’s rather controversial at the moment.
3. Nepal: My fingers itch to photograph the monasteries built into the mountains.  Rick’s in awe of Mount Everest. 
4. Mongolia: Rick is a huge admirer of Genghis Khan and I’m a huge admirer of their horses.
5. Russia: I’ve always been intrigued by this country’s history and culture.
6. Czech Republic: Actually, I’m not totally sure why I picked this country initially but when I mentioned it to Rick, he said, "Prague", nodded his head, and it was added to the list.
7. Austria: Umm, Sound of Music plus Mozart. Vienna pretty much defines my childhood.
8. Croatia: Rick says Dubrovnik.  End of discussion.
9. Germany: Rick has family here and many of his coworkers are German.  It also seems like a good potential end-point.
10. Israel: We’re both Christian and this would be almost like a pilgrimage for us.  Plus, everyone we’ve talked to who’ve visited this country has said it was one of the most life-changing experiences of their lives.
11. Turkey: Rick has always wanted to visit Istanbul.  I’ve always wanted to visit the Cappadocia region (cave hotels!).  It works out.

My biggest worry regarding this list of countries is trying to find a continuous route through them all without ending up in Russia in the dead of winter.  As Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Hitler discovered much to their chagrin, it’s impossible to conquer Russia in the winter, a fact that Rick finds endlessly fascinating.  It might be a tad easier for us, since we’re travelling without the accompaniment of thousands of soldiers and their corresponding supplies, but I’m sure it’ll still be on the tough side.  I’ve printed out a bunch of maps and I’m sure we’ll figure out a general route, taking into account weather and various activities we’d like to do. 

Rick and I are in agreement that the biggest key to a successful route is to keep it flexible.  It’ll make it more difficult to plan ahead in terms of hotels and whatnot, but we believe, in the long run, it’ll make for a more stress-reduced trip. 

Of course, we’re still absurdly early in the planning stages, so things are definitely likely to shift in the process. 

I Dare You To Move: Highway 395, California, USA

Three hundred miles stretched out ahead of us with only my beat-up old car to take us the distance.  No cassette player, no air conditioning, and the backseat piled high with sleeping bags.  The odometer clicked past 180,000.  We rolled the windows all the way down to catch the rush of the air, barely cooler than the ninety degrees of sun blazing down on us.  Our elbows stuck out in sharp angles and when the radio stations all inexplicably switched to commercials at the same time, we switched it off, content to sit amongst the flow of our own conversation.

It was a two-lane highway most of the way there.  Every so often, the solid double yellow lines gave way to the dash-dash-dash that signaled to the intrepid that they could brave oncoming traffic for a chance to pass the lumbering vehicle in front of them.  For the most part, we stayed timidly put, but as the hours creeped on and the heat dragged trickles of sweat down our faces, our impatience won out over caution.  Once, twice, a third time our car inched over the dash-dash-dash, only to quickly jerk back into our lane in the face of an onrushing truck, its passing causing our whole car to tremble in its wake.

Finally, we took a deep breath, exchanged a look, then swung into the other lane, speeding up and up and up.  A dark speck resolved into another car, growing larger with every passing second.  We were too far forward to switch back into our lane, too far back to pass in front.  Faster and faster we pushed until finally, we swerved back into our lane, the car in the other lane swooshing by us, the car behind us shrinking in our rearview mirror and we were laughing, laughing until our breaths caught in our throats.

I stuck my head out the window, the heat blasting into my eyes, my hair whipping out behind me, and whooped as loud as I could.

We felt young and free and utterly ridiculously wild.