Preparing the trip · Round the world, one year off

A 12 months trip: why?

When we first had this idea about taking a “Year Off” and travelling around the world, we don’t remember.
There is no date or event which made us decide “Let´s do it!” This was a slow process, which probably started during our first trip to Senegal in April 2002 and has matured progressively through our numerous travels in the last five years.
Why one year? “One Year Off” sounds great, doesn´t it? Especially when you start thinking about it and go to work every day!

Our main target for this trip is to be able to travel differently. During all our travels so far, see the part “Other Travels” on the website, time has always been a major constraint, forcing us to spend a lot of time in busses or planes in order to see the places we wanted to see.

Having a whole year available for travelling, we will be able to take more time to really discover the regions we will visit. This means not only hopping from one tourist attraction to the other but spending time discovering places and regions more closely.
Once in a while it will be necessary that we just take a break from travelling and spend a relaxing vacation at an idyllic small city!

This 12 month period will also allow us to visit places that are difficult to travel to from Europe, for instance the south of Argentina & Chile. It is a very long haul and European summers are not the best time to travel South Patagonia. Not talking about the Pacific Region, which always involves a 24 hours flight.

And last but not least: one year is the time we have. Travelling for more than one year would have meant, at least for Gilles, some unpleasant consequences in his career.

Planning the itinerary or how to change your mind three times a day …

When planning such a trip, the first question we had to answer is: which region of the planet do we want to visit? Because one year is extremely short.

We were clear on the fact that we would not visit North America and Europe: we both know many parts of those two continents, they are too expensive for such a travel and last but not least, they were simply not high enough in our priority list! We can visit those regions after we retire …

We also were clear that we would not go to Africa during this Year Off, although we are Africa aficionados, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Tanzania, Tunisia or Egypt, we simply loved it.
Firstly, mid-range flights, no suffering from jetlag make Africa an ideal destination for short vacations.
Though, the main reason is that we have always been struck by the fact that travelling in Africa was rather pricy. Either you travel in luxury or rock bottom.
So Africa will remain on the list for further travels after we are back. We are already thinking of going to Ethiopia, Botswana & Namibia, but that is another story!

So, when not North America, Europe & Africa, where do we go? Well, there is still enough for approximately ten years of travel, so the challenge is to go where and when.

We basically divided the trip in three regions:

South America

The Pacific: from Australia to all sorts of beautiful Islands
And last but not least Southeast Asia

One of the main challenges has turned out to be at the right time in the right place: winter / summer or dry / wet season. Angel Falls for example is not the best place to visit during the dry season.
Another important consideration for choosing when to go to certain place is the effect of high / low season. For instance, renting a camper in Australia costs twice to three times as much in January & February than in the low season. We talk about a difference of about 60-80 USD a day!

For logistic & costs reasons, distances should be kept as short as possible: plane tickets are really expensive and long flights, very tiring. So when you are in a continent / in a region, you cannot simply decide to move to another continent and than come back …

Our overall budget surely played a role in our choice of countries, for instance, travelling in Southeast Asia is by far much cheaper as travelling in the Pacific Area. Although we hopefully have saved enough to “survive” comfortably!

Preparing the trip

We certainly don’t think there is a recipe for preparing such a travel, it depends on the traveller’s very personality. Some need to have their check lists and prepare for months other simply pack and leave … We took it rather serious. Since we had lots of time we were never really under pressure.

You can surely do it all in less then three months, but this might be real tight … We had about 8 months time all together, and even more when we consider planning the route.

So, how did we do?
Gilles actually loves Excel-List, ToDo-lists, so he did one of those. The first draft had 145 items, the final one had 162, which meant the first draft was not that bad after all!

Here are the main tasks we identified:

Planning the route

This takes time because you have to concentrate on your Top-priorities and as a consequence eliminate many destinations you have always wanted to visit.
Second issue to consider is to be at the right place in the right season: summer / winter, dry / wet season and of course high / low season.
The cost of living for each country needs to be taken into consideration, compared to your budget: if you have 10.000 USD for a whole year, the Pacific Area might not be your primary target whereas Southeast Asia & India would be much more suitable.
An important decision was to choose between a “Round The World Ticket” and “One Way Tickets”. We chose the latter, since Round The World Tickets are not flexible enough. One Way Tickets are a bit more expensive, we estimated about 1.000 Euro per person for a rather complex route, but if you organize the travel around major hubs, like Bangkok in Asia, Caracas and Buenos Aires in South America, or Auckland in New Zealand it is not such a difference and you have total flexibility.

Health

We had the usual vaccination and of course will not take malaria pills all this time. Our health insurance covers us for the year which is a major chance. And Austrian credit cards also provides certain cover (travel insurance), even if you are away a full year ...

What to take

We will travel light, we do not intend to empty a huge backpack every night and to carry 25 kg. In most places clothes is cheaper than in Europe, so we buy as we go.
What helps in that we will not camp or at least do not intend to do so. Camping equipment would add a lot of weight.
We found several website recommending taking the following: head-light, swiss knife, lock, lighters, laundry line, airline mask, floatable cushions, ear plugs, mosquito-net & strong skin repellent, alarm clock and plug adapters.
As far as electronics is concerned: we are taking a digital camera, of course and - after long considerations -our laptop to organize & select the pictures and write the travel reports for the website.

Money

First and foremost, we had to define our budget … We just considered how much we have and how much we are ready to spend for this year and then tried to see what we could do with this money. We have read about people travelling a whole year with about 8.000 € (per person) or people spending more than 45.000 Euro. Well, the truth is always in the middle: 18.000 to 25.000 € per person with everything included should allow a real nice travel. This is the price of a mid-size car for the experience of a life-time!
Then there is the question as how to manage our cash. … We trust credit cards plus cash. Certain areas will require to have some cash with us.

Legal Matters, Administration, Apartment, Car, …

This is THE big issue:
What about our jobs? We both were granted sabbaticals.
What do we do with our apartment? We rented out both apartments, the very first person to come to see them, rented them. That was very fortunate.
What do we do with our car? The very first test driver bought it: even more luck.
How do we manage legal issues? Visas, will, lease for the apartment, …
What kind of “back-up scenario” is there for lost our credit cards, passport, pin-codes, …
What needs to be done about administrative issue? Taxes, banks, retirement payment, ...
What needs to be cancelled before departure? Newspapers, telephone, subway pass, …
This is the most time consuming part of the preparation and the most boring as well!

Website

We decided on a website instead of a blog. This is much more expensive, but we could not find a blog filling our expectations. This was a huge project, but we have now exactly what we wanted and we will be able to use it for earlier as well as for further travels!
If you need great Webmasters, our dear friends Alexandre & Nicolas did a superb job, we can give you their contacts.

Contact us

Do you have some questions?
Is there something you want to share with us?

And please be a bit patient if we do not answer immediately, we might be trekking, or on a boat for a couple of days, or just too lazy to go online!
Needless to say there are also the obstacles of being confronted with to a local “broad band” Internet: 56,6 KBps with for 14 persons, believe us, we have been through it!

Gilles Barbier
Heidi Sequenz