Our world trip status update - 4 months to go
Guys, the word is out. We have announced that we are going on a world trip, starting January 2020! We really have to pinch ourselves, am I writing this article really about us? It still feels unreal to write this down and to realize this travel story is not a random travel story, it is our travel story. With every day and every task we complete, our adventure is getting more and more real. At the moment I am writing this, we have a little less then four more months to go and we are fully in the planning mode. Time to share with you what we have done so far!
Quitting our jobs
The first official thing we did, was announcing our travel plan at work. As we are both happy at work, it was not an easy decision to quit our jobs. But as you can only be at one place at the time, it was either work or travel. After talking about our dream for months, we took the final decision. Travel it is!
It was the moment when friends asked me to join a concert in summer 2020, when I realized we need to take action. By this time, we want to be traveling. It made me thinking: ‘if we want to make our dream come true, we have to make a final decision and start letting our friends, managers and colleagues know’. A few days later (it was June 2019) I forced myself to tell my manager that we want to go traveling by the end of the year for a few months. It felt good to be honest, to have said it and to give them enough time to find a backfill.
Meanwhile the Federal Employment Agency is informed and we still need to sort some things out with them. It felt weird to call them to inform them about my upcoming unemployment but if felt so good to tell them that the reason is just to travel.
Status: we have quit our jobs and our last working day will be December 13.
The financial situation
We have worked for quite some years, don’t own a property or a car and saved money ‘for unexpected situations’ ever since we started working. We are in the luxurious position to have enough money on our saving accounts to go traveling for a few months. Still, the financial situation makes me feel insecure at some times. Friends at our age build houses or invest in apartments. We would rather like to invest our money and our time in ourselves and in experiences. It is a risk, but a risk we take deliberately.
However we have saved as much as we think we will need for a year, it does not hurt to save a little more and to start looking more closely at our (unneeded) spendings. Both of us love a breakfast, cafe or dinner in one of the many restaurants Berlin has to offer, something we can easily double down or skip. Also selling unused items brought us quite some extra money. We have sold an old laptop, leather jackets, camera lenses, vinyl, furniture and much more. This will easily let us afford some more luxurious stays during our travels or stay longer in more expensive countries (hello Australia!).
Status: we have enough savings but we cut down on unnecessary costs to save a little extra.
Kai sold about 1,000 of his vinyl records
Looking to rent our apartment
The question all long time travelers will need to ask themselves: what to do with my house or apartment? We are renting an apartment in Berlin-Friedrichshain and for us it was very clear that we do not want to give up our apartment and sell all of our stuff, as we would like to come back to Berlin after our world trip. Our rental contract has a clause about subletting our apartment and we got in touch with our property owner. Subletting our apartment is allowed, but our property owner wants to get to know the new renter. Great news! So far we have taken pictures of our apartment, posted them on Instagram and are hoping to find some reliable people that will love our Berlin home as much as we do.
Status: looking for someone to rent our apartment for the period we will be traveling.
Getting the vaccines
Lucky us, we already have a lot of vaccines from previous travels. Before our trip to Cuba we have visited the General Practitioner almost on a weekly basis. Still we need to get some more, as this will be our first time to visit Asia. We have spoken with our GP and he recommended us to get the following vaccines:
Vaccines we already have: Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, Tetanus, Diphtheria, Hepatitis A + B, Typhoid, Meningitis, Rabies
Vaccines we will get in addition: Japanese Encephalitis, Yellow Fever, Influenza (refresher)
As we do not want to take any risks with our health, we have decided to follow the recommendation from our doctor and have ordered the vaccines at our pharmacy. Total costs: €649.02. Wow. We are lucky that our health insurances cover most of the costs. For Yellow Fever we have made an appointment at the Tropical Medical Institute.
Status: vaccines have been ordered at the pharmacy and our vaccines marathon will start soon.
Health Insurance
We have been comparing travel health insurances for hours. Not the most fun part of planning a world trip to say at the least, but something that we take very serious. In Germany you can quit your national health insurance if you can prove you will be covered by your travel health insurance so that is something we still need to do. We have ordered ours with Hanse Merkur.
Status: we have ordered travel health insurance and still need to quit our national health insurance in Germany.
Spending evenings on the balcony with these is pure fun
Planning the itinerary
And now the most fun part of planning a world trip: the itinerary! Since we started dreaming about this trip, it was clear that we would start in South East Asia. Both of us have never been to this part of the world and South East Asia seems to be the perfect starting point to get in the travel rhythm. There is a backpacking culture, there is a lot to see, it is not expensive, the food is great, it is easy to get around, the weather is nice and from there we can easily decide where to go next. That’s what experienced travelers say and it sounds pretty good to us. Apart from our flights to Bangkok, we have not planned anything yet, but we are diligently bookmarking all the places we would like to visit in Google Maps and Maps.me. Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia are all on our list. Now we are trying to figure out what the best travel periods are, what the average costs are and what the most efficient route could look like. The plan is to plan a rough travel route and to book everything on the go. This is going to be exciting for us, as usually we plan everything in advance.
Status: we have booked our first flights to Bangkok and everything else is still to be decided.
In this new blog series we will keep you up to date on our travel plans and the planning process. Let us know if you have any questions, we will try to cover them in the next part.