We're Off Like a Dirty Shirt

There were many goodbyes with family and friends and appreciate everyone taking the time to wish us a safe and fun adventure. We are now both officially done with work and although nice to think that we won't have to set an alarm for the next 365 days it is bitter sweet that we won't be seeing our friends at work or speaking with our clients that we have grown close to.

Our last few weeks have been all about getting shit done! Getting the right credit cards, insurance, finalize packing, get medications, purchase last minute items, letting credit cards know that we are traveling, downloading music, movies, book onto our kindles, making copies of our passports, registering for Visas. The list goes on and on, but we think we are ready!

We both have a duffel bag that we will carry as well as a carry on bag. In the duffel bags we have everything we will need for a year! After a few attempts of getting things in my duffel bag I was finally able to narrow it down. The picture on the left is my first attempt at what I thought I could fit and the picture on the right is what I can actually fit.

While I am a get it done kind of person, Jesse likes to walk though each item.  Telling me a story about every pair of pants, shirts or socks that he has every warn. Eventually I had to pour myself a mimosa so I could through the slow and drawn out process. Either way we are both packed and very excited. 

Here are a few tips from the final weeks:

Insurance:
We were finally able to get our health insurance through Allianz. If you plan on getting travel insurance I would highly recommend you read EVERY page of the policy. Originally we paid $918 for our insurance and after reading the fine print it only covered 45 day trip increments. After talking with about 15 representatives we finally found a plan for us. Only costing $230 each for the entire year we feel comfortable that we found the right plan. A few have been cautious about why it is so cheap and the reason for that is because we are only covering 5K of our trip costs. If we wanted to cover our entire trip the insurance would have costed about 3K each. In our minds since we haven't paid a lot up front we were more interested in having the medical insurance rather than the trip cancellation purposes.

Credit Cards:
Get a great credit card! We have each signed up for the Chase Sapphire card. We were each able to get our flight from Denver to Australia with a layover in Singapore and from New Zealand to Bali all on points.

Take your Time:
Jesse and I have been thinking about this journey for a little less than a year and trust me you need that time if you want to do it right. From my eyes I thought how hard could it be. You pick a place and then go there, but there is a lot of research that went into the different locations we are going and where we plan on staying in each location. We read articles, spoke to friends that have traveled, looked at maps, estimated travel costs, read the status of the countries economy.  You will consider different factors.