We’ve been putting together a list of documentation to get together before we leave home. We’ve got most of it together, but there are still some things we need to collect. None the less, we thought our list was complete enough to share it with the world. If you happen to see (or not see as the case would be) something that should really be included, please let us know.

I’ve divided things up a bit based on how we plan to store them. In all cases, we are going to scan everything (front and back of credit cards). A copy of the scanned files will be left in our safety deposit box on a USB thumbdrive where my sister can access them should we need her to. Another copy will be encrypted and taken with us on our laptop. Those same encrypted copies will be emailed to ourselves just in case we lose our laptop on the road.

To carry with us:

Passports
Driver’s License
International Driver’s Permit
Vaccination Records
Health Insurance Cards
Credit Cards
Bank Cards
PADI Dive Certificate
Spare Passport Photos
Traveled Earth Business Cards

To leave in the safety deposit box:

Ashley and Our Safety Deposit Box

Last Will and Testaments
Living Wills
Enduring Power of Attorneys
List of Bank Accounts
Birth Certificates
Social Insurance Cards
Engineering/Teaching Certificates
Saskatchewan Health Cards
Marriage Certificate
Full Health Insurance Policy
Ashley’s Engagement Ring

Digital copies only:

Past Income Tax Records
High School Diplomas
University Degrees
University Transcripts
Criminal Record Checks
Resumes
Doctor’s Notes/Prescriptions
Eye glass Prescription

We were recently  interviewed by Amy and Kieron for their blog Don’t Ever Look Back.  Among other things, they have been conducting a series of #rtwsoon interviews showcasing burgeoning travelers as they prepare for their round the world trips.  Amy and Kieron themselves are in the midst of preparing for their own RTW adventure beginning shortly after ours on July 26th, 2011.

Follow this link to check out our interview #rtwsoon Interview: Mike & Ashley – Traveled Earth

Somewhat recently, I read a post by Lauren at Never-Ending Footsteps titled Why Choose to Travel Long Term.  I really liked the post, because it got me thinking: why do I want to travel? It suddenly dawned on me that this seemed like something I should have already thought a great deal about. You’d think answering that question would be easy for someone who had already handed in his resignation, sold his house, and booked a one way ticket to Cancun.

Truth be told, I hadn’t given the question one iota of thought. It’s been over a year since Ashley and I decided to travel, but not a minute was wasted thinking about why. Not one.

I’ve since spent a couple of weeks rolling the idea around in my head. Thank goodness I came up with a few reasons of my own. It would have been embarrassing to realize I didn’t actually want to do it at this stage in the game.

I just want to be happy.

No surprise here, so does everyone else. Still, this is probably the biggest reason I came up with for why I want to travel. Now I wouldn’t say I’m unhappy with my life as it is now, I have a lot going for me. I’ve got a reasonably good job, I’m happily married to Ashley, I have good friends, and a good relationship with my family. I wouldn’t say I’m unhappy.

Then again, I’m not as happy as I could be.

Here’s a quick fact. When I try to think of the happiest I’ve been, I keep coming back to the month Ashley and I spent backpacking across New Zealand. Canoeing the Yukon River comes in a close second, followed by our week in Cuba, and our trip to Las Vegas last winter. There’s definitely a pattern emerging: travel and Ashley.

If I keep doing what I’m doing, I can look forward to a whopping 3 weeks of travel a year. That’s only a little under 6% of my time that I can spend doing what makes me happiest.

Kissing in Kluane

Where does all the time go?

Despite my generally happy life, I spend very little time doing things that I want to do. Let’s break it down.

9 hours – Work
2 hours – Commute to Work
1 hour – Eating (okay, I like eating but not when I don’t have time to cook anything decent)

Take out 8 hours for sleep, and that leave a whopping 4 hours to spend doing things that I like. Some days I’m lucky and I get to go to my Karate class, visit friends, or play board games with Ashley. Other days I waste it on the internet, watching TV, and reading a book. Either way, I’m spending 75% of my waking day doing things that don’t make me happy.

What am I looking forward to?

I like to see a steady improvement in my life. I really enjoy setting goals, and working towards them. That’s probably why I’ve started so many hobbies over the years. As much as I hate to boast, aside from the fact that I’ve never become good at any of my hobbies, I’m pretty much at the top of my game right now. Ashley and I own a house outright, we’ve completed our university education, and we’re both employed full time. I’m 28, so I can look forward to 37 more years of full time employment before I reach 65, the retirement age here in Canada.

What changes am I going to see in those 37 years? I can imagine moving into a larger house, then moving repeatedly every 5 or 10 years as I advance my career. I’ll probably start working more hours as my job expectations continue to advance, and I’ll eventually lose touch with the once held notion that there are things I enjoy doing and I could be doing them if I weren’t working so much.  All in all, not too much left to work towards except retirement.

The theory of relativity.

In super simple plain language here’s my layman’s interpretation of Einstein’s theory of relativity: The world, the universe, and everything is only as big, small, detailed, or simple as you personally can perceive. You can’t experience anything more, only guess at what more there is based on your perceptions.

What’s that mean? It means that the kid who spends his whole life locked in a closet has no idea what he’s missing out on. Sure, he can guess at what the world might be like, he knows his food comes from somewhere, but he’ll truly have no idea. Worse yet, what’s outside the closet won’t matter to him because he hasn’t experienced it and can’t comprehend what he’s missing out on.

Having been in a closet before, I know quite well that there is a heck of a lot that I’d be missing out on. The same thing applies to the world in general. I don’t know what I’ll find traveling, but I know there’s more there than I’ve experienced, and I want to make as much of it count for me as I can.

In closing.

Travel makes me happy. I’ll have 100% of my waking day to do what I want to do. I can hike, relax at the beach, or even try and get a job at my leisure. The important part is it’ll be on my terms. 37 years is a long time to spend working for someone else. Taking a break isn’t going to set me back significantly in the long term, and I’ve got a few years before I’m too old to have kids. It’s a big world out there, and I can’t wait to see it.

Ashley went through this same exorcise, you can read all about it here -> Why Ashley Wants to Travel.

It’s official today.  All the conditions are lifted, the deposit is paid.  Our house has sold.  We’re super relieved that it sold before our trip.  Looks like we won’t have to worry about renting after all.

Time to start moving, the official handover is May 27th, at 9am.

But tonight, we celebrate.  We’ve got a bottle of Champagne chilling in the fridge.

This last weekend, Easter weekend, Ashley and I made our way up to North Battleford, Saskatchewan to visit family and to celebrate my grandfather’s 77th birthday. We try to make it up that way at least once a year, sometimes for Easter, sometimes for Thanksgiving, so the trip was not a first for us.

With our imminent departure only 70 days off as of this writing, things didn’t quite feel the same as they had in the past.  It started with our drive up.  Passing through Saskatoon, the next major shopping centre outside of Regina, we had no choice but to stop for a couple of hours and try on backpacks.  We now know to budget more than two hours for trying on backpacks.  We could have easily used a couple hours more.  Sadly for us, but luckily for you, this won’t turn into a cliched “We Bought our Packs” post.  Though we will still subject you to one when we do.

We spent most of Friday eating and visiting.  Pretty normal, but the conversation seemed to keep coming back around to our trip.  I pulled out the camera and started taking a few photos.  Soon after, we started talking about camera gear we were taking with us on our trip.  One thing led to another and Ashley and I managed to convince ourselves that we needed an ultra wide angle lens for our camera.  I had no choice but to lock myself away for a few hours and do some internet research followed by a round of ebay bidding.  This process was a lot more painful than I first anticipated, mostly because of the old school 56k dial-up internet connection, and it certainly cut into my visiting time.

Saturday was the big family supper.  My great grandmother (98 years old) was there, as were my grandpa and grandma, uncles, aunts and cousins.  The whole works.  Again, we spent most of the day eating and visiting.  We talked about our trip, passed out Traveled Earth Business Cards, and started Project: Photos of Friends and Family.  The project itself is quite straight forward.  We are trying to collect photos of our friends and family to take with us.  It’ll be nice to have some photos to look at when we get homesick.

Saying goodbyes was perhaps the hardest part of this trip.  I think everyone was acutely aware that we may not see each other for a very long time.  Despite the tough goodbyes, it was nice to have the chance to visit one last time before our departure.

Here’s our project so far.  If you don’t see your photo we’d appreciate it if you reminded us to take one next time we see you.

Rough Itinerary - Click to go to itinerary

Cue the fanfare, today we present the Rough Itinerary for our RTW trip beginning on July 6th, 2011. If you take the time to review our Rough Itinerary, you’ll notice that we’ve left it quite vague.  So vague that we forgot to include any of the things we plan to do.

You’re telling me that you are supposed to put activities into your itinerary?  Are you sure?

To make amends, here’s a small list of some of what we are planning to do along the way.

Visit the runes in Chitzen Itza on route to Belize

By Fcb981 (Own work) CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

We’ll probably stay in Belize for a week or so.

By Nepenthes (own pic) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Next up, learning Spanish in Guatemala. From what we gather, we’ll spend about 5 weeks in classes while living with a local family.

By Joseandres96 (Own work) CC-BY-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Eventually, we’ll make our way to Ecuador where we hope to volunteer at Sacred Sueños for 1-3 months.

By The lifted lorax at en.wikipedia - Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Our next scheduled activity isn’t until the summer of 2012 when we plan to walk the 1900km Via Francigena.

By Laurom (Own work) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

We have to wait quite a while after the 80 day walk before we are allowed back into the Schengen Area due to visa requirements. This forces us to wait until July 2013 before coming back to Spain for La Tomatina in July 2013.  La Tomatina is a non-negotiable item on Ashley’s wish list.

By flydime (La Tomatina (25.08.2010) / Spain, Buñol) CC-BY-SA-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

From there, we’ve got another winter to while away before we go horseback riding yurt to yurt though Mongolia in the summer of 2014.

By Bouette CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Everything else we’ll make up as we go along.

What do you think – too defined? Too ambitious? Not ambitious enough?

It’s taken a lot of research to find a provider of long term medical insurance that fits our needs.  I guess I’ve been reading forums, blogs, and emailing companies on and off since I wrote my first stab at a Travel Insurance Article way back in December.

Before I get too far into my own analysis, I want to stress this:

Read the fine print – Don’t blindly expect my analysis will be the same for you.  Companies offer different underwrites and benefits based on your citizenship and country (sometime province) of residence.  Unfortunately, you’ll have to do your own research.

My process for narrowing down insurance companies vaguely followed these steps:

Step 1: Figure out how long you need to be covered for.  In our case, it’s likely to be anywhere from 1 to 3 years, and perhaps longer.  This immediately ruled out annual plans that have maximum single trip lengths of 30 days.  It also ruled out single trip plans with a maximum coverage period of 6 months or 1 year.

Step 2: Decide what you want your medical insurance to cover.  For me, I really only need insurance to cover the very expensive.  I can handle paying for simple doctor visits and drugs out of pocket, especially in developing countries.  What I can’t afford is long term treatment in intensive care units, expensive drugs that I may need to take for the rest of my life, and medical extraction where I need to take an air ambulance to another facility for treatment.

Step 3: Get a copy of the actual policy wording for various insurance plans.  Read them and make sure they fit your needs as determined in Steps 1 and 2 above.

Step 4: Send some emails to your shortlisted companies and ask for clarification on their policy.  I had a few questions, and was quite surprised by some of the responses I got.

Here are the results of this process on several popular long term plans.

World Nomads – This is a popular insurance program amongst travelers.  There are lots of travel blogs sporting large advertisements for this company, a few paid reviews, and endorsements from Lonely Planet, National Geographic, Rough Guides, and more.  Going into it, this was my front runner.  Unfortunately they were ruled out in step 3 above.  The policy had this to say about renewals past 6 months for Saskatchewan residents.

An extension of coverage is not provided for Pre-Existing Medical Conditions and/or for conditions You suffered during the term of Your original policy, or if You are 60 years of age or over at the time of the extension, or where We have not been advised of any circumstances that have or may give rise to a claim under Your original policy. Your coverage under this policy may be extended up to a maximum Trip length of 365 days provided You have obtained an extension of Your provincial health insurance plan

There we have it.  A maximum coverage period of 6 months.  Not going to work.

Expat Network – I ruled Expat Network out with a simple email.  I explained that I was going on a RTW trip and asked for some clarification on a few items in the policy wording.  The response I got ruled them out:

Thanks for your email regarding the Expat Health Plan and your round the world adventure.

Based on what you have said in your email and the nature of your trip I’m not certain this will be the best plan for you. I think it would be better to consider a very comprehensive (100% medical) single trip travel plan which will suit your requirements more closely.

Seven Corners – There are two programs offered that I thought would fit our requirements.  Reside, and Reside Prime.  Again, it came down to the full policy wording.  In this case, the cheaper Reside option capped payment on all of the items I was worried about insuring against.  For example, hospital beds were limited to $600 per day, ambulance rides $1,500, extraction $25,000 etc.  So, Reside was out.

Reside Prime, on the other hand eliminated these restrictions, so it is an option.  The cost of Reside Prime to cover both Ashley and I with a $500 deductible is $1,744 USD annually.  I chose IMG’s plan below over Seven Corners based purely on price.

International Medical Group (IMG) – IMG offers several levels to their Global Medical Insurance Plan.  Like the Seven Corners Reside plan above, their lowest level plan caps all of the things I’m worried about paying for.  Again, hospital beds are limited to a maximum of $600 per day, ambulances $1,500, extraction $50,000.  The Gold Plan eliminates these caps.

We’ve chosen to go with their Global Medical Insurance Gold Plan with a $500 deductible for an annual cost of $1,646 USD.

Email Questions:

I thought I’d include some of the questions I asked the various insurance providers by email.  Depending on your trip, you may want to ask some or all of the same questions before settling into a plan.

1. Do you pay fees directly to hospitals, or are we expected to pay and be reimbursed?

2. Do you cover medications in your plan?

3. If I required ongoing treatment for something that came up while under my first or second year of coverage, would I be allowed to renew the plan and continue receiving benefits, or would I be barred from extending the plan?

4. Are non-organized sporting events covered, for example we join in a pickup game of soccer?

5. Would we be covered on multi day trips traveling by hiking, pedal biking, and equestrian (horse riding)?

6. Is mountain climbing covered, specifically mnt. Kilimanjaro?

7. Is there a list of countries where there is no coverage (most other plans exclude Iraq, and Libya for example)?

8. Is there coverage for motor vehicle accidents? Does it matter if we are in the vehicle or struck by it?

9. Is there coverage for motorcycle and/or scooter accidents if we are driving?

10. Would there be any chance that I would be evacuated to either Canada or the USA for treatment where I may not be covered under the policy?

There you go, IMG’s Gold Global Medical Insurance Plan (excluding the USA and Canada) looks like the best option for us.  Who do you use for your travel medical insurance?