Where we're off to next!

After some subtle foreshadowing here and there, Travis and I are over the moon to announce we are throwing on our backpacks again and hitting the road starting in September this year!

After returning from Europe just before Christmas, we weren't sure what the future had in store. Although we love the new and interesting experiences traveling brings, we weren't certain we wanted to be away again for so long, or could continue along this course of procrastination from careers and responsibility. However, after job hunting for a few months, and living back at home with our parents (as our house is still rented out), the decision became easier until one Saturday, just a few weeks ago, we bit the bullet and purchased two one-way flights for early September. 

A few days later, I spotted a job posting online and (jokingly) sent it to Travis questioning if it was too late to change our minds and settle down - what it confirmed, if we had any last minute doubts, is that we both want nothing more than to continue to wander aimlessly for the foreseeable future. 

And with that, there was nothing left to do but start mapping out a preliminary itinerary.

A few of the cities and regions that have made the cut, do you recognize any of them?

As with all trip planning our itinerary grew and grew as we listed more and more exciting places to see, however in the end we settled on Europe - again. If our family and friends weren't so supportive (read: if I hadn't already snapped a few times on innocent recommendations from those wanting to live vicariously through us), I'm sure they would question our motives further. 

"Why Europe, you've already been there, don't you want to see the rest of the world?"

In a simple answer, yes, we want to see and do absolutely everything on this planet, and then some; However, the reason we've chosen to return to Europe is quite logical (we think). After looking at our list of dream destinations, and considering how our ability to travel will be restricted once we settle into careers and the like, we found that none of the other places we want to visit strung together as perfectly for a prolonged trip as Europe. 

With that thought, a compromise was born, to head back to Europe now and see as many of the regions we missed the first time around while also trying to step outside of our comfort zone whenever possible. 

With that goal in mind, our preliminary itinerary currently looks like this...

Vancouver to Berlin with a stopover in Iceland - Poland - Hungary - Slovenia - Czech Republic - Germany - Bosnia & Herzegovina - Serbia - Romania - Turkey - Sicily - Malta - Tunisia - Scotland 

**We should take the time to point out that we haven't set a return date yet...our trip will most likely end sometime in February, but the date will depend on flight prices, how well we stick to our budget, etc.

We'll include the individual cities and a map on the "Our Trips" page as soon as we find time to do so. Although I'm sure tweaks here and there will be made, we are very excited about how this is shaping up!

As for the rest of our dream destinations, they will unfortunately have to wait.

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In with 2013...

After a whirlwind Christmas, including three turkey dinners and a zillion hours excitedly recounting our favorite travel moments from the past four months, it's time to get back to normal life here at home. However, without jobs or a house, this means catching up on the posts we've let lapse while recovering from jet lag and working off the pumpkin pie we scarfed down last week. 

In addition to a detailed account of our time in Salisbury and Bath, including a visit to Stonehenge, we have a growing list of posts to share over the next little while. As well, we are looking at the plausibility of another adventure, or two, in 2013 to satisfy our travel bug.

While we work at getting back into the swing of things, here are our New Year's Resolutions for 2013...

• Give more time to exploring our local attractions 
• Expand our travel-blog reading list
• Rework our blog's format and add a few more features
• Carry the camera around at home as we do while traveling
• Venture out of our comfort zone on future trips
• Try new foods in the countries we visit
• Remember what we packed needlessly in 2012 and pack lighter
• Snap more photos of ourselves - in addition to the scenery
• Indulge on occasion and worry about pinching pennies a bit less
• Recognize each day how fortunate we are to be able to explore the world

As we welcome 2013 and the travel opportunities before us, we are excited to share every detail here and hope you'll follow along! 

Have you made any travel resolutions for 2013?

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The Insurance with the Mostest (Part II)

With a $500 price-tag looming over our heads for medical and travel insurance we decided that, although a wonderful and comprehensive plan, it was time to look at other travel insurance options - bring up the Excel spreadsheet. 

For a quick comparison we used BCAA, as their website also lets you generate an insurance quote online. Of course, there were some major discrepancies between this BCAA policy and what World Nomads offers that we weren't overly thrilled about; although, BCAA offers ten million emergency medical and unlimited medical transportation, all other coverage, including trip cancellation and personal effects, must be added on at an additional cost. However, the price was much more reasonable at $147 per person.

With this new price we let out a sigh of relief, we would be able to afford basic coverage for the duration of our trip without reconfiguring the budget. However we still had one significant issue; as I mentioned in Part I of this post, backpackers often have expensive electronics in their packs and we are no different, with a DSL camera, iPods, and laptop. Therefore, going with the basic, and cheaper, travel insurance, didn't offer protection for our personal effects.

There are a few different options available to bridge this gap with the first being almost free - often these items are covered by homeowners insurance and therefore additional coverage isn't always necessary. Unfortunately as we are renting our place out our home insurance isn't comprehensive enough so opted to buy additional coverage which set us back $20 each when combined with the basic travel insurance. Again, it's best to shop around as you can buy individual policies for certain items or general coverage up to a dollar limit (ours covers up to $1500 in damage, theft, etc...).  

Personal effect coverage and taxes included, our insurance came out to about $200 each - a $100 savings each over the policy offered by World Nomads. It's worth noting that we didn't buy trip cancellation service and with this additional cost added in World Nomad's offering becomes even more competitive.

Travel insurance is both important and very personal, so be sure to look around, compare prices, and find the best option for you

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The Insurance with the Mostest (Part I)

I'm going to go out on a rather sturdy limb and say, in addition to your passport and some cold hard cash, travel medical insurance is crucial for a successful trip abroad. In Canada, it's not uncommon to obtain insurance before driving across the boarder for a weekend in the United States.

We've heard great things about World Nomads Travel Insurance so we decided to look into it; the policy is actually quite comprehensive, in addition to the common elements (five million emergency medical, additional medical transportation, additional medical expenses), World Nomads also includes additional coverage that doesn't often come standard (trip cancellation, trip interruption, luggage/personal effects, and sporting equipment). As a backpacker, it's quite common to have electronics or sporting equipment in your pack and this coverage, without additional costs, is fantastic.

In addition to the policy itself, we found a few more things to love about World Nomads:

• Choose the duration of your coverage from one week to twelve months
• Coverage for individuals or families (hint: price compare if you're traveling with someone)
• Purchase or extend coverage while abroad, even after you've left your home country
• Coverage for a range of exhilarating adventures/activities (think snowboarding or whitewater rafting)

However, like all things travel related, price is a major factor in the decision making process and after working up a quote online we realized travel insurance through World Nomads will cost $614.90 CAD for both of us (or $300+ each).

In addition to this $300, we also need to sign-up and start paying premiums for our Provincial medical program (previously covered by our employers and not optional as a resident), a $230 expense per person for four months.

All together we are quickly breaching the $500 range - per person! Honestly, this number has us a bit freaked out, and isn't really in our budget which means... we need a second opinion.

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Preparing to Spend Smartly

When it comes to personal finances we like to consider ourselves pretty savvy. After graduating from University debt free* we were able to purchase our first home in February 2010, and since then we've been tediously stashing savings away for travel.

Now I'll be the first to call myself cheap - Travis pokes fun at my frugal ways whenever the opportunity presents itself - so you can imagine my reaction to the thought of paying the bank to let me access my own money while abroad.

(via)

If you haven't traveled much, or checked your bank statements after a trip, you might be surprised to discover all the sneaky fees banks add on when paying or withdrawing money abroad. Foreign currency conversion fees - or what you will be charged for using your debit and credit card outside your home country - can really add up, especially if your trip is lengthy like ours. Although I was able to find a lot of information about the big bad banks in the US, and a movement towards US credit cards eliminating the foreign transaction fee, finding information specific to Canada (where we live!) was a bit harder.

What I was able to find...

Debit Cards: It seems that most banks charge a standard $2-3 per debit withdrawal for using a foreign ATM, as well as a fixed percentage foreign currency conversion fee on the total amount withdrawn - 2.5% is common but this rate varies from bank to bank.

Credit Cards: Again, a fixed percentage foreign currency conversion fee in the 2.5% range is charged on your purchase, once it's converted back to your home currency - however some banks add in an extra step by first converting the purchase to US dollars before Canadian. Here's a great chart from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada that compares credit card fees.

Is it just me or does it seem like they're double dipping a bit?

Because the banks don't have your best interest at heart, and have become proficient in hiking fees and hiding extra charges, it's important to do your homework before hopping across the border for a weekend of shopping or taking an extended trip halfway around the world. Call up your bank, or go online, and investigate a bit, I didn't know what my bank's international charges were and I was quite surprised once I found out!

It's also important to note that the debit/credit card system that works for you at home might not be the best choice when traveling abroad. For example, President's Choice is my primary bank at home and I'm very happy with them, however when it comes to travel I don't want to pay the fees they charge. Unfortunately they aren't alone in charging these fees - in fact I haven't found a single bank in Canada that doesn't charge foreign currency conversion fees and only one credit card (Amazon.ca Rewards Visa card) that has eliminated it.

But that didn't deter me and after searching around I found the TD Canada Trust Select Services Account. This account has a monthly fee of $30 (waived if you maintain a minimum balance of $5,000) and although they still charges a fixed 2.5% foreign currency conversion fee, there are no fees for non TD ATM use anywhere in the world.

Yes, you read that right, anywhere in the world! That means that I'll save the $2-3 per transaction and only have to pay the foreign currency conversion fees. Since this will be our joint travel account we don't think the minimum monthly balance will be an issue - we wanted to keep an "emergency fund" of about $5,000 anyways - and the ATM savings could amount to $40-50 over the length of our trip. While it might not seem like much, when you are planning a budget trip every little bit helps! 

A few other options you may want to consider if you're looking for a travel credit cards, I've read great things about Capital One's Travel Rewards cards as well as MBNA Platinum Plus MasterCard.

*Credit goes to our parents who let us live at home rent-free while studying, and some great summer jobs that covered tuition and books.

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9 Ways to purge your house before travelling

If you’ve been following our posts recently you may already know that we are in the throws of a full scale move – having to vacate our house by the end of June to make room for the new tenants. Being a planner and Excel spreadsheet junky, I jumped on the opportunity to make list after list of moving priorities, most of them were ignored. 

To say we have a lot of stuff is an understatement

However we did manage to make our June 30th deadline and now everything we own is either hibernating in a Rubbermaid bin in the back corners of a garage or being put to use by our friends and family in their homes. If we had to do it all over again (please no!) here are some things that we think worked well, and a few areas for improvement… 

Start early –The minute we bought our plane tickets we should have been making keep and toss piles for all our bits and pieces. Although we tried to be proactive a lot of things piled up at the last minute. 

Borrow a truck – The majority of our moving in to the house was done out of my Honda Civic hatchback; great little car, not necessarily designed for moving large amounts of belongings. We had to beg, borrow, and nearly steal a truck for the weekend but it was essential in moving some of the larger pieces of furniture. 

Purge, purge, purge – Due to the amount of stuff we had, we needed to cut it down to a storable size. Therefore, if we hadn’t worn or used something recently it was headed for a new home. With that being said, don’t feel obligated to get rid of something that holds sentimental meaning. Also don’t forget to consider the seasons when purging clothes – we may not need toques and mittens now, or on our trip, but they will be greatly appreciated when we return home at the end of December. 

Share the love – A lot of the furniture and decorative items we were storing or getting rid of are in excellent condition, so before sending them to a storage unit or second hand store we asked friends and family if they needed anything. As a result all of our furniture found new, temporary homes, and we didn’t need to pay for a storage locker. 

Rent partially furnished – We were extremely lucky to find two great tenants to rent our place while we are away, and as they don’t have a lot of furniture, and we have too much to store, we were able to compromise by renting our place partially furnished. Again this saved us from having to pay for a storage space or give away pieces that are in good shape but not worth storing. 

Have a garage sale – We wish we had our act together in time to have a garage sale. In the end we gave away a number of nice items because we simply ran out of time and the extra money we could have earned for an afternoon of work would have been a nice addition to our budget. 

Rubbermaid bins are amazing – Although a bit more expensive than regular cardboard boxes, we chose to pack the majority of our stuff into plastic Rubbermaid bins. Waterproof, bug and vermin proof, and sturdier than cardboard they will keep our belongings safe and stack easily. We also tried to remember to add a dryer sheet to each Rubbermaid bin to keep the contents fresh. 

Keep travel in mind when packing – Because we are moving out of our house two months before we leave for Europe it was easy to start packing absentmindedly without considering what we needed for our trip. Make a rough list of what you will be taking in your backpack, then consider when you will need for the next few months before your trip, decide what you no longer need and will be giving away, and then finally pack everything that doesn’t fit in any of those categories. 

Don’t forget the small things – Changing over your home insurance, utility bills, and cable/internet bills may seem small but can have a big impact. This holds true for updating mailing addresses as well. The paperwork piece of moving can easily slip through the cracks while you’re focus is on moving furniture and electronics so make sure to add it to your to-do list (or Excel spreadsheet!). 

Unfortunately moving seems to be one of those things that gets easier with practice – although we’re practiced out for now. Each time you find better and more efficient ways to do it, but in the end we are just glad we made it out in time. Now to adjust to the next two months living out of suitcases and Rubbermaid bins...

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Travel Feelings...

Hesitant – this is how I felt immediately after purchasing our flights.

Excitement, fear, anticipation, impatience, uncertainty, independence, and relief also make up the pie but the largest slice, the birthday boy’s piece, is pure hesitation.

Our first "trip" - Edmonton 2006

California - February 2008

It was surprising; I’d been talking about this trip for years – the equivalent of half my lifetime actually – constantly telling people I was going traveling soon. “Next fall” I would say and then come fall I would have grand plans for the spring. I’ve toy with the idea of an African Safari or exotic South East Asia but always found my way back to Europe. Italy, Greece, Spain, Paris... they made their way to the top of my bucket list during high school and have had more than enough time to put down some very persuasive roots. 

I started saving for Europe immediately after landing my first job at a seasonal ice cream/mini-golf stand. I worked four hour split shifts and, through a loophole, made less than minimum wage, but the free ice cream and rounds of pitch-and-putt made up for any injustice I suffered. I’ve always been frugal and during my first year of University I bought my first savings bond, dipping my toes into the shallow end of the investment pool, and proudly told my investment broker that I was saving for a trip to Europe. 

Seven years and two investment advisors later, I feel overly hesitant after buying a reasonably priced flight from Vancouver to London. 

On my bucket list - Santorini Greece (via)

Being a business major and not a Psychologist I don’t fully understand why I feel this way but I’m sure it’s a complex combination of worry (about money), fear (of consequences), and sadness (of reality). If it were easy to sort out we wouldn’t ask our Psychologists to go to school for 7 years.

Worrying about money makes sense to me because I do it continuously – honestly I have spreadsheet nightmares on multiple occasions. So long as I continue to keep an eye on our budget, and limit frivolous spending over the next few months, everything will be ok.  

The consequences are a bit harder for me to accept - but are unavoidable. The memories and experiences this trip offers are unmatched, however there is a cost. My boyfriend and I are both giving up good jobs without any guarantee of work when we return, we have a mortgage that will need to be covered by rental income, as well as a bunch of "stuff" that needs to find a temporary home. We will also be thousands of kilometers away from our friends and family, receiving Coles Notes style updates on their lives back at home.

Sadness is the emotion I’m having the hardest time addressing. I get to run away, abandon all responsibility, and set out on a four month adventure to a place I’ve dreamt of my entire life, yet I’m sad to finally be going; seems a bit contradictory, not to mention crazy. It feels like all my planning and daydreaming has created something unattainable; backpacking through Europe is my perfect movie moment and no matter how hard I try, reality can’t compare to the big screen. 

What is there to do when, in a cinematic sense, your trip is doomed from the start? I’ve decided to let go and stop scrutinizing every little detail. Although it pains me to admit it, I may not be able to make it back to Europe for another seven years, or fourteen, or twenty-one. Therefore, I really have no other choice but to suck it up and enjoy the journey. I have absolutely no doubt that some moments will be less-than-perfect, but these not-so-good moments already happen, all the time, over the course of a typical day - Why should it be any different while traveling?

Instead of constantly trying to be a mile ahead, planning for every possible outcome and expecting the worst, I am going to slow down and try my hardest to live in the moment.

I can’t promise to write everyday – this is a once in a lifetime trip after all – but I hope you’ll check in along the way and see how we’re making out.

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It's Official!

On August 21st we will be leaving home, via Vancouver, for a four month trip through Europe. 

Although we purchased our flight about a week ago, we've had to bite our tongues for awhile (more difficult for some of us than others) until we took the necessary steps to advise our employers.

Now that we've had a chance to digest the reality that we are actually leaving - in two short months! - the "to do" list seems never ending. We also have a lot of questions to ask from excited friends and family. Here's a bit of insight into our trip...

Yes, we are quitting our jobs. No, we aren't that worried - everything will be ok, and if it isn't we aren't too old to move back home!

Our home will be rented out and we have been very lucky to find fabulous tenants quite quickly. We will be "homeless" for at least one year. 

We are flying into London (for a fabulous music festival -more on that to come) and then plan to spend a lot of time in the Mediterranean - Greece, Croatia, Italy, and Spain are on our list. We are also hoping to squeeze in some time in Germany, France, Portugal, and England. 

Yes, four months seems too short. Yes, four months is a long time. Our friends and family have a million different opinions, which they don't keep to themselves, but we wouldn't want it any other way. We settled on four months for a couple main reasons:

1. The Schengen Agreement limits our time in the participating countries to 90 days in a 180 day period. We promise to share all we've learned about this "zone" when we get to itinerary talk but for now let's just say the majority of European Union countries are part of the agreement.

2. December presents a few challenges, weather wise... 

3. ... and we were afraid of what our mothers might do if we didn't come home for Christmas.

After some debate over other travel options - including moving into South East Asia via the Trans-Siberian Railway and adding in more non-Schengen countries to extend our stay - we decided December was the perfect time to come home, check our savings, tweak our budget, and assess if we are ready to hit the road again. 

Coming home will also allow us to pack for a less-severe climate in Europe and catch up on the life events and milestones you often miss out on during prolonged travel.

We are extremely excited and have decided to try blogging as a means to keep in touch with everyone at home. We are hoping this can be the place to see where we are, what we are up to, and how we are doing. We will also share our photos (via Flickr) so you can check them out and perhaps feel a twinge of jealousy or catch the travel bug yourself.

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