East or West which way is the best?!!!

Might sound like a random question but if you are going to do a ROUND the world trip, then you really must decide on which way round you are going to go! We have found that it is actually pretty important.

For the last 18months we have been planning to essentially go westwards, travelling through Africa - South America - Central America – Pacific – South East and South Asia – and finally Tran Siberian. This was based on some consideration of seasons but essentially not based on a whole lot of logic.

We have now decided to go eastward (the more traditional route). Essentially the final choice should be based primarily on the following things:

Seasons that you will encounter as you travel – some places you will really want the best season, like the trekking season in Nepal and Peru the best time to visit the glaciers of Patagonia and Summer/Christmas in Australia. There will then be other places that you MUST avoid at certain times, such as the hurricane season in Cuba (we made that mistake in our first plan!) the heat of the Middle East, and the monsoons of India/Sri Lanka. The only thing is that you can’t fix a logical route AND get the best weather everywhere; therefore the trick is to prioritise!

Specific events that are unmissable – it an obvious point but again the route, and the direction you travel should enable you to be in the right place at the right time for specific events. For example we will be taking in the New Years in Sydney, the Rio Carnival the Wildebeest Migration and hopefully the football world cup. Of course if you are not a football fan then being in South Africa during the world cup is probably not a good thing!! And in general be careful, as specific events push accommodation prices through the roof.

The most efficient travelling route – don’t try and get to every destination at the perfect time, otherwise you will find yourself travelling some really silly routes and criss-crossing around the world, clearly not good for the wallet or the environment.

The Jet Lag factor – if you travel eastwards you continually lose time (travel from NYC to LON and the 7hr flight seemingly takes much longer -12hrs) this continual jet lag could be a problem, as compared with the Westward journey where you theoretically gain hours as you go round. As we have not done a world trip before it is difficult to say how much of an issue this is, but possibly more of an issue is simply the number of travelling legs you do. Keep it to a minimum and allow time in between, I guess the biggest thing we have learnt is just how little time we feel we have, despite going away for 17months!

So in conclusion we have decided to go eastward, taking on the Tran Siberian first, then China, Japan, Tibet and you can see the rest….!

We will be doing a detailed route post very soon, but please do ask any questions!

Less than 300 days to go!!

As of today we have less than 300 days to go!!!



We have to get busy reading...!

Urvi has been busy and has already gone through the whole of South America, she has south Asia to go. Anand has yet to even select a book to read, but you know he is instinctive and is not so much into planning stuff... :)

Bye Bye Micra

In line with our plan to move to Mum and Dads as early as possible, we pondered about selling the car also. To be honest to have 3 cars in a family with 3 Drivers and a baby driver (Sorry Urvi!) made no sense. Of course we loved the car and would have wanted to keep it, however we calculated that for it to simply be in the driveway – and keep it in a road worthy condition would have costed in the region of £500 per year. It is worth a serious think. If you are going away for a year or more, then the cost is a bit prohibitive

Who knows we could come back and buy the same car at a bargain price!!

We move out of 33 Ash Drive...

We have taken our first step!! in some ways the World Trip has begun...



there were boxes everwhere....! And we got everyone roped in to help...



...but as of the 21st of June 2008 we have move out 33 Ash Drvie and moved in with Mum and Dad. Will be good fun, we can now relax...!



The House is on rent so if you know anyone who needs a place to stay in Birmingham...!

What to do with the house while we are away...

Right from the beginning we knew that going away for 12-15 months was going to mean we would need to do something with the house. Options were 1) keep it empty – no rent/no costs, 2) sell it – possibly not a good idea in the current climate, and besides we have a really good mortgage deal!! Or 3) rent it out – the popular choice, but you really need to set your mindset.

We have finally gone for the rental option. Benefits being:

• Rental income offsets the mortgage – a big plus, and means we can go away with less financial pressure.
• Your house gets used, cleaned and hopefully cared for!
• You limit the storage requirements for things, if you were to sell up
• For us specifically, we get to keep our wonderful 10yr mortgage deal.
• It’s a new experience – being a landlord – so why not?

All the guidance suggests that if you are going to rent and go away, then vacate your place early and rent while still in the country. This will give you some chance of getting the Tenant you really want, also any teething problems can be ironed out. However this could pose a problem as you have to live somewhere yourself!! We are in a wonderful position as my mum and Dad live 20 miles down the road, and therefore we have been able to move out a year before departing and move in with them – Thanks Mum/Dad!

Despite having them so close by we have gone for a fully managed rental service with our chosen agent – Oulsnam (a local group in the West Midlands) http://www.oulsnam.net/ . They offer a fully managed service which I personally think is the best option. They will promote, let and manage the relationship with the Tenant, all we have to do is count the cash in, and authorise any works that might be required. Our house is 4 years old, so the hope is that not a lot of work would be needed. Fingers crossed.

A really good site to check out is the career break site - http://www.thecareerbreaksite.com/what-to-do-with-stuff/rent-out-your-house.php#planning they have loads of current info. Summary thoughts are:

• Start six months before you NEED to rent (your departure date). Even rent some where yourself if required.
• Meet at least 3 agents before you decide who to go with – remember if you are going fully managed, your house is in their hands, so don’t be attracted by the highest rental quote, think about the company.
• MAKE SURE YOU INFORM YOUR MORTGAGE COMPANY – it’s the law
• Management fees run at around 10%
• What you leave in a furnished house is the landlord’s responsibility to maintain and therefore cost to repair. Think about what you leave.
• Make sure the issues of income Tax are resolved. If you are away for 6+ months, you can claim tax exemption – the Inland Revenue have a form for this – NRL1. Have not done this yet so can’t tell you how the process is.
• Sort your buildings contents insurance out, you will still need some.
• ENJOY THE TRIP, don’t worry about the house.
  

I will post more as we go; currently we have started packing and will keep things updated.

A year to go!

Right well here we are, check point No. 1 approached and passed!! We have a year to go before Urvi and I depart for RTW 2009.

It is strange; a lot has been done so far, mainly related to saving for the trip, and setting the itinerary. There is still loads to do, and judging by the pre trip action plan I have set up – which now contains over 200 actions! – we are gonna by busy.

The main thing to say at this stage is I can honestly say plan early and get moving with the plan. As a planner by profession I really enjoy this, and have set up endless spreadsheets setting out what we need to do and by when. The trick is to do things in time, and don’t leave it to the last moment.

Emotionally is it a great feeling to know that this time next year we will either by on our trip or so close that we could almost touch it! Now the fun will really start.

Of course all this fun is not without cost, it is almost like having a 2nd full time job, as the evenings and weekends often go in sorting plans out, re-planning and then actually carrying out the plan!!! We have also undertaken some practice treks and plan to do a number of weekend treks before we go, lets see how much we actually do!! More posts on these as we go.

We are then also renting our house out, so will embark on getting this sorted, there is a wealth of info on the web about how to rent your place out when you embark on a trip like this, it is clearly worth doing but has its pitfalls and once again, get things sorted early is the motto (more on renting in a bit).

File Note – We can go on our trip!!

Hurray!! Based on the latest version of our plan, we have saved enough to travel round the world. After years of thinking, this is a really achievement, and I personally feel great that we will be able to undertake this trip with no financial tension and no need to work as we go. A major personal achievement of mine has been delivered.

Getting your finances in shape

Interestingly, the first thing I noticed when Urvi and I started thinking and researching a Gap Year World tour was the amount of variation people were suggesting as a budget.

The books talk about setting some expectations regarding the type of traveling you want to do and the type of places you want to stay. Based on this you can get a feel of the amount you need to have in your World trip piggy bank. We have been basing our current thinking (more to do) on £20 GBP per person per day this gives us an ‘on-the-road’ budget of £14,600. In addition you need to budget for:

• Pre trip stuff – kit etc
• Major travel costs (round the world tickets etc)
• Insurance costs etc
• Contingency funds for costs at home (your mortgage etc etc etc!)
• Money for when you come back

All in all we are working on a budget of £35,000 for the year. This may change as our planning progresses (more later)

What this meant for us is Saving saving saving!!

Immediately, the fact we wanted to go debt free, and not work while on the road, determined our leaving date. So far we are talking about the 2nd of May 2009, which at the time of starting this project gave us plenty of time to start saving.

Lessons we learnt to enable us to do this were:

• Have a clear idea of the type of traveling and lodging you are planning for.
• What you save before you can go, you can enjoy when you are on the road.
• The small savings mount up - £40 is a day’s budget, so saving 1 “Dinner out” pays for a day on the road.
• It is difficult to gauge what the costs will be so allow for contingency.
• Open a dedicated savings account for your trip and don’t dip into it.
• Try and save regularly, each month – it is a good feeling to see your savings accumulate as the months pass!
• Ensure you record your pre trip spending against your World trip account, so you know that when you get on the plane on day 1, you know how much you have left.
• DON’T MAKE MONEY YOUR DRIVER! But if you sort this out before you go your whole trip does not turn into a budgeting challenge

Of course if all else fails approach rich relatives for a loan!

Thoughts on Blogging

I will be honest, both Urvi and I are pretty tech savvy, but until we began started planning this trip I had not contemplated setting up a Blog. Its bit strange really as I read a number of blogs, mainly technology related but also my second love Cricket, but I have never set one up myself. It is a pretty liberating experience really. A bit like writing a diary, but enhanced by the sharing element of it, and of course the ability to drop in a live Map and Pics.

As a technogeek, and someone who attempts to take meaningful photos, the documentary/archiving aspects of this are really exciting for me and in some ways I cant wait to take this on while we are traveling.

Our world trip blog, is the first of what may be many blogs, so please do tell us what you think and how we might improve things.

A journey round the world begins with a simple plan…

One of the first things that we found when thinking about trip was to start planning early. I know that people talk about a trip like this as a voyage of discovery and therefore the more planning you do, the less you may enjoy the experiences, but honestly a certain amount of planning is essential.

First things first, we decided on a number of issues very early on, much of this sounds obvious, but it is important to clear these things at the beginning.

• The trip was going to be for 1 year.
• We were going to fund this trip 100% out of our savings, no money no trip!
• Based on needing to save and plan before we go we decided on a departure year of 2009
• As much as possible we would try and get to ALL the places we both wanted to visit. But also we knew that there would be further trips in the future.

So from here on in the planning began! I tell you, it is half the fun I think!!!!