My first travel tech was a pen flashlight and a Walkman. That allowed me to read the massive copy of Let’s Go Europe in the hostel dorms without bothering anyone too much while listening to one of the mix tapes that I had with me. This was way back in 1987 on my first real adventure between high school and university. A 6 month backpacking trip in 1987 around Europe and Morocco.

We quit! Yep, we quit our jobs! February 9th, 2017 is our last day. Paul gave notice just before Christmas and I told my boss on Friday the 13th! The humour of that, while lost on some people, was not lost on me and I will admit to a giggle about it. Luckily our coworkers are very excited for us and have been great. For both of us the build up to quitting was bigger than the reality. It was almost like nothing changed but then reality kicked in and “shit got real”. So, we quit, now what? Everything! All the stuff we have talked about but couldn’t or didn’t act on needs doing. We need to decide what we are keeping, what’s going to charity, arrange last-minute appointments, organise our finances, pack and test pack. There is so much to do. I say this as I sit here typing but consider it a needed break since I made a bad decision about cleaning the BBQ and then using it, but I digress.

We use different cards in Canada than when travelling. At home we’ve churned cards for Aeroplan points and used different cash back cards. This has saved us money on purchases and allowed us to build up a big pot of Aeroplan points. These will allow us to fly with points between the major regions of our upcoming RTW trip. When we are on the road though we are more concerned about the banking fees. For that we need different accounts/cards. Typically when we’ve gone on holiday, we haven’t worried too much about banking with credit (CC) or debit cards. Not too smart as travel banking for Canadians can eat up a good chunk of your funds. We always made sure we had some local currency (from previous trips) and then just withdrew cash from ATMs at the airport or in the towns when we got there.

Decision Made! What? When did this happen? I know it’s been a while since I took the time to write out something about our plans. Partially because we have been super busy and some things took much longer then expected so we weren’t sure what was happening. We also had some changes in the family that had us questioning our decisions. The quick catch up:

• June – accepted offer on the house, Paul ruptured his Achilles.
• July – sold trailer, truck, passed home inspection. Paul is in a boot and needed driving around, Helen searches for apartments and packs.

Packing up the house

• August – moved from larger 3 bedroom home to 1 bedroom apartment. The movers found Paul’s lost watch in sofa. Paul still driven to work which was considered in the apartment search. We needed a place close enough to make the quick walk to and from work for dropping him off and picking him up. Reminded about Calgary’s tendency to go overboard on summer road construction. There was no need to have the train tracks and fire hall so close. Find out Helen’s Dad has lung cancer. Determined the balcony has a supernatural presence.
• September – do we go? Meeting with Financial people to see how much this will affect our future? Do we want to leave family now? Paul is a Kijiji King and selling things like crazy. He finally got the boot off and is able to start driving himself after a week!!! Ironically the construction I had battled through on the roads ended… sigh. Suspect banshee is living on the balcony.
• October – finally agree to sell the dining, end and side tables that Paul made… this was a big one for me. After several long considerations, potential regrets and random musings we decide to continue with our plans. There are a lot of unknown factors and if we let them stop us now, we may never follow through with our dream. Still avoiding the haunted balcony. Families consulted and all approved.

Furniture that Paul made

So now what? Decide when we want to go? This one was easy, our lease and Paul’s contract are up February 28, 2017 so that makes sense. Decide where we want to go! Easy right? Sure, put stickers all over a map so we know where we want to go. Decide on your “pillars”, places that you won’t miss and then look at going between areas. Is it easier to break them down to segments? What about getting to and from islands, exploring the off the beaten track areas. Then you need to consider the weather, seasonal times when not good to go, getting Visas, festivals… and the list goes on and on. This has been almost as hard as the real decision to go. We’ve read and researched so much it’s almost overwhelming.

So far we’ve come up with this list of countries we’d like to see. I’m sure it will morph over time but it’s a good starting point. Planning our RTW route started out as what seemed like a massively important and overwhelming decision. After much research and brain racking we came to the conclusion that for us, it really didn’t need to be. We decided to start in Thailand, in SE Asia as we’ve been there many times and it’d let us get our traveling legs.

Expect The Unexpected

Choosing a travel pack is a major decision when traveling. The wrong choice can have a big impact on a trip. Dragging a roller through sand to your beach side bungalow, carrying a duffel bag by its single carry strap for half an hour through a city or seeing your backpack come up the luggage carousel ramp with one of its shoulder straps torn off is no fun. If you know exactly what you’ll be doing on your trip then choosing a travel pack to avoid frustrating scenarios is fairly straight forward. However the longer the trip, the more likely you’ll be in a situation that you didn’t expect.

Airline carry on rules can vary wildly. They each have their own specific guidelines for items that you can bring on-board a flight. Some even allow for a secondary “personal item” like a purse or laptop bag. If you do your research you’ll find lots of people saying a 45L pack is good for carry on. As you’ll find out, this is not always the case. If you aren’t exactly within an airline’s requirements it’ll come down to the whim of the staff working on the day of your flight. Unfortunately people are sometimes unpredictable and inconsistent. So if someone tells you they were able to carry on a 45L pack on say Jetstar or Ryanair, it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to do the same the next day.

What’s the definition of home?

It sounds simple doesn’t it but I’m not sure that it is. I was born in Liverpool, England, Helen was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. We both moved to Canada with our families. Helen at the young age of 4 and myself at 13. Years later we met in Saskatchewan in 1991 and since then have spent our last 23 years living our adult lives together in Calgary, Alberta. Also, we’ve spent many months in Thailand since our honeymoon in 2000. Therefore it would seem that home should probably be one of these places right?

28 days later and we are back! It wasn’t years on the road but it was a good test of living out of our new Gregory 38 L and 40 L bags (J38 and Z40). The traveling with carry on only experiment was definitely a success. It sure was liberating being able to walk off the plane with all our possessions on our backs. We flew Air Canada, Thai Airways International and the regional Thai Smile. Absolutely no problems on any of the flights. Over the years we grew to hate waiting for our luggage to come out on the carousel. That’s because twice it was lost and was a major hassle. Eventually it showed up but this worry is no longer a concern. 😀