Pre-trip

Check List

  • Mental check yourself first. Are you ready to give up your comfortable life and move onto “unknown”? Are you able to take the risk of possible not having a job after coming home? Are you aware of possible safety issue on the road? For me, I was determined that I had to do this or never. So despite knowing all the possible “risk”, I decided to go onto my RTW trip.
  • Research and read on other RTW travellers’ experiences.
  • Decide what type of traveller you will be? I know I am a budget type of traveller.
  • Set up a financial cushion upon returning from the RTW trip. I rented out my entire condo with furniture so i would have a shelter after I come back. Also, my budget for the RTW trip is not my entire savings. 
  • Set up a will. 
  • Setup home line equity of credit. Get two highest credit cards as possible when I still have a job. The benefit of those cards will come in handy.
  • Setup two different bank account and one online banking. Two of them will link to the same online banking account. One of the bank account is a TD all inclusive account. (You get your oversea ATM fee waived oversea).
  • Port in your phone number to a VOIP company (e.g Fongo). You get to keep your existing Canadian number and people back home can reach you anywhere in the world.
  • Bring at least $200 USD cash with me but stuff it everywhere.
  • Setup a direct contact such as my financial advisor  in the bank so if I have any banking problems, I call my financial advisor directly.
  • Buy Travel insurance with World Nomads Insurance. 6 months at a time. Keep a copy and phone number of the insurance number on your phone or cloud drive.
  • Take a photo of passport, and all my important documents and save them on the cloud drive. At the mean time, make a smaller copy of the passport into a size of a business card and laminate it to carry around with you.
  • Keep up the fitness and staying healthy. I purposely lost 20lb before the start of my trip just to make sure I am strong enough to carry my packs!!

Budget

  • I set aside $40K CAD for my travel. I don’t have a date to return. Minimum 1 year. I only terminate my trip when I ran out of my money. Note: This is outside of my other savings.
  • I wrote a blog about how to finance yourself to quit your full time job.
  • My rough spending budget per month is about $2500 and if I still have money, I keep going.
  • Accommodation: Under $15 a night. Over $15, I stay in shared dorm or Couchsurfing.
  • Transportation: Choose whatever the cheapest option. Some exception applies.
  • Food: Eats only local food/street food, try nice restaurants once a while, but mostly I cook my own food.

Tips:

  • Start collecting your frequent flyer miles early. The easiest way to get alot of points is to sign up major bank card that provides lots of points reward upon signing up. You will find more detail here at Kendrick Uy’s blog. http://kendrickuy.com/2016/05/22/starter-guide-canadian-travel-hacking-part1/
  • It is important to track what you spending, a lot of spending habit would need to be changed when you stopped your steady income.