Pre-Trip Preparation
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flickring Around the World
Hopefully soon we will have many many photos in here. We’re using flickr to host photos while we’re traveling. It’s easy to upload stuff from internet cafes and it beats trying to store everything on our own, and then either losing them. Besides we can share them with everyone else.
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![Are we traveling light yet?]()
Packing, Packing, Packing
Are we traveling light yet? Wow! We have a lot of stuff for two people traveling light around the world. It’s embarrassing telling people your traveling around the world on a shoestring and then asking their help to pull your two large duffel bags, two fully packed back-packs and two or three carry-on’s out of the car for you.
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![Everyone Needs One, right?]()
Cafe Press Been in Effect, Go Get a Late Pass
Everyone Needs One, right? Is it cool? No. Is it fun, kind of. Is it needed? No. Are we making ANY money off of it? No. But we still have a CafePress store, so deal with it.
CafePress Store
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Mork to Orson, Come in Orson...
One thing we’ve been doing a lot of research on running up to the last days before we leave is telephones and phone cards. Keeping in touch with folks back home is really important to us so we want something reliable, but we also don’t want to pay a lot for that muffler.
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Plan D
Okay, this one is our bad. After getting screwed by the Irish travel agency back at Thanksgiving we decided on another course of action. “Originating” our OWE flight in the UK. It was going to be great, we would fly there for a few hundred, maybe catch a soccer game, stop in Dallas to see LeeAnnes family on the way to New Zealand and be on with our trip.
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The Itinerary - For Now...
Okay, the Irish screwed us. After going through everything, AND running our credit card they told us (by email) that they had quoted us for the wrong price. And it would be about 1,000 euros more!
Now I don’t follow the currency market like I should, but I do know that right now the exchange rate for US Dollars to Euros is no good, and a thousand Euros is …well, more that we want to pay.
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Our Men in Dublin
Ticket Plan B – Okay, so we’re going to use a travel agent in Ireland to purchase our RTW tickets, fly there a few days before we “Originate” our One World Explorer tickets and then fly to New Zealand. Crazy, yes, but it’s going to save us a bunch on ticket costs.
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One World Explorer Pricelist by Country
Okay, so one thing we learned very quickly from the One World Explorer FAQ is that OWE tickets are priced differently in every country they are sold in. Is that crazy or what?
Originally, we were planning on flying from the states for 4,900 USD plus tax.
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Tickets - One World Explorer
We’ve researched a lot of different options on Round the World tickets. It’s a great way to control your costs on getting there and back, because after you pay a flat fee you can use as many or as few flights as you want too.
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Travel Insurance
Going hand-in-hand with vaccinations is Travel Insurance. I’ve been out and about in the world before, but have never even considered getting it. But, this is a big trip and we are grown up now, so it seems like a good time to look at it.
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Bicycle Hire in New Zealand
For a couple of months we have been considering trying to work in some Bicycle touring as part of our travel. It didn’t take too long to identfy New Zealand as the place we wanted to do it in. It’s suppose to be one of the best places in the world for touring and camping.
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Vaccinations - Don't Leave Home Without Them
First stop on the road to Round the World Travel is the Doctors office. It may not be the most romantic or adventuresome idea, but I’m pretty sure that before the best adventurers and explorers headed out they got their shots. How much could Indiana Jones have gotten done if he were bed-ridden with Hep B while chasing the Ark of the Covenant?
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Hello World - A Word About Why We Are on this Trip
Maybe we need to explain a little about why we are doing this: LeeAnne and I have always had a bit of the wander lust. She’s a Returned Peace Corp Volunteer and I’m know in my office as “The Guy That Leaves, But Then Comes Back”, or “TGTLBTCB” for short.
