Followers

Saturday 19 February 2011

Feb. 18, 2011

I'm looking at health/travel insurance online today, do I need to include para sailing and extreme skiing, (or anything with the word "extreme" in it)? Me thinks not.
The malaria prophylaxis is still an issue. At $4-7 a pill/day we need to look at the actual time we're going to spend in high risk areas. The other thought is can we buy them cheaper in South East Asia? We tried that once before for Belize and couldn't find them in the pharmacies.
We did decide on a last day of work, May 7. Not as big a deal for us because we're travel nurses and we've only been on the job for a few months and everyone knows we will be leaving soon.

Saturday 12 February 2011

Feb. 12--3 months to go

List of things to think about:
Paying for the air fare when we figure out which countries we will fly out of
Finding a place to leave the 5th wheel and vehicles
Finding and paying for travelers health insurance
Cancel our current health insurance
Think about what to pack and what to pack it in
Cancelling the cell phone plan
Look for a debit card that doesn't charge fees for overseas
Pay for the cruise in Sept. out of Rome before May
Get more online guide books after we figure out for which countries we need guide books
Leave our masks and snorkels packed with a friend to bring to Thailand and Rome
Hand in our notice of resignation

Sunday 6 February 2011

Feb. 5,2011

This is the first post of our Round The World trip (RTW). How it got started:
Carol and I were looking at a dive trip to Thailand sponsored by our friends Steve and Kathy Van Holton that looked too good to pass up. Then we got an email from our friends Roger and Debby Francis inviting us on a Mediterranean cruise to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. We couldn't turn them down, even though I've never been on a cruise.
We work short term assignments as nurses so we figured we could plan it out to go on both of them, one mid-June and one in mid-Sept. So, fly from here to Thailand and back to the USA, try to get an assignment for three months, and then fly to Rome. Or, if we can't get an assignment, we'd have to hole up in our RV 5th wheeler somewhere for those three months and spend money in the good old USA. Hmmm- or we could save the money from the return-to-USA trips, and live cheap in Southeast Asia and sightsee, then travel to Rome for the cruise in September. And WOW, that would be an Around the World trip, something that we haven't done before. As Steve would say "Another New Adventure".
Strategy: There are companies that offer RTW air fare, valid for one year, based on how many stops you make and how many continents. So what we need to do is start deciding where we will take-off and land. At this point we want to fly to Vietnam, overland through Laos and Cambodia to Thailand where we'll do the dive trip and tour with Steve and Kathy and the ANA group. Then over or through Burma to India's east coast, through India, over the war counties, (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran) to Turkey, through Turkey to spend some time in Greece, and then on to Rome for the cruise with Roger and Debby. Pre-buying the air fare will allow us the option of jumping on a plane in whatever city we need to, based on running out of money, family emergencies, homesickness or any other unforeseen event.