Trip Prep
In short, planning for this trip, and executing the plan, was one of the biggest projects either of us have ever worked on. From the point we saw there was an opportunity to do this, to the day we left, there were dozens of moving parts to address, loose ends to tie up, etc.
Some of these obligations were small and reversible if we decided to change our minds (like cancelling Hulu).
Others, though, were significant and had a big impact on our lives and the lives of those around us (selling our cars, quitting our jobs, etc.). Basically these were the true tests of how serious we were about the trip.
deciding Where to go
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We had a few goals when planning where to go
Find cost-effective destinations (we’re on a budget after all!)
Build an itinerary heavy on places that we have not visited yet
Build an itinerary heavy on Spanish and French countries
We are already familiar or experienced in these languages, so we would like to hone those skills
Make sure there are plenty of outdoor activities during warm months
Plan for 3 months in France no matter what (France was the original pipe dream)
let the planning begin!
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It has always been a dream of ours to travel abroad for an extended period of time, so it’s been running in the back of our minds for years.
This dream began to materialize, however, 11 months before we ended up leaving. That’s when we saw there was a window of opportunity:
Scout has not started school yet
Renting our house became possible
We discovered that we could earn income while traveling
Our finances were in order
At 7 months before we left, the decision was made to go. This is when we made our first big purchases:
Airbnb for 2 months in Quito
Airfare to Quito
TEFL Certification class registration
Around this time is also when we decided on how much money would be allocated for the trip. Consequently, the budget began to take real shape in spreadsheet form.
let’s talk budget
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Since it is the most important aspect of the trip, we have an entire page dedicated to budget. Here, though, we can say that the following main guidelines were followed:
Use only cash or liquid assets (like stocks)
Do not pull from any retirement accounts (like our 401(k)s, IRAs, etc.)
Do not use home equity
Have an exit strategy if money runs out
Have at least 6+ months of return budget - need time to ramp back up into real life!
For more details, check out our budget page.
Leaving it all behind
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Jobs
Since neither one of us had jobs that could be done remotely, we quit!
We would both like to say that this was an easy decision, but we could not deny how big of a step this was. After notices were put in, there was no going back. Well, actually, both of our jobs offered for us to come back at the end of the year. We have found people, including employers, to be very supportive of a gap year.
House
When daydreaming traveling abroad, this was always a big question mark. What do we do with our house? Do we sell it? Do we rent it? What do we do?
We love our house and our neighborhood so we decided to keep our house and find renters - which did not take long! We were incredibly fortunate to have our very good friends rent our house (and our dog). One million thank you’s to Kristine and Tommy.
To us, there were several benefits to this:
Easier return budgeting - we already know our mortgage payment and there wouldn’t be any extra costs like deposits
Saved on potential storage - our garage has an extra storage area attached to the back, which is where we put all of our stuff
Landlord Insurance - since we were renting our house out, we needed to switch our home insurance to something called Landlord Insurance. It’s about the same price and includes optimized coverage for permanent fixtures within the house, and liability coverage in case your renters get hurt because of the house.
Pets
Like we mentioned above, we were lucky enough to have our good friends rent our house and watch our 125 lb chocolate lab, Winston.
One of the renters has a really cool dog, which Winston will appreciate.
Cars
Another one of those big decisions!
Although we did like our cars, it was an easy decision to get rid of them. Several reasons for this:
We were both making payments on our cars - so why pay interest on a depreciating asset for an entire year?
We did not have a proper place to store our cars
We can easily get a new car when we return
How did we sell our cars?
Frank’s car
To market this one, we put it on cargurus.com ($99 due if the car sells through them), autrader.com ($60 for 2 weeks), and Facebook Marketplace (free!).
In the end we ended up selling to a dealer that found the listing through Facebook Marketplace
Worked out a deal with the dealership where they would provide a loaner car until I was done with my job (I needed my car to get to work)
Jessica’s car
We used Carvana to sell this one, and it was the simplest car-selling experience we’ve ever had
After scheduling a pickup time, they just came to the front door, handed Jessica a check for the equity on the car, and took her old car away. This took maybe 10 minutes.
After Jessica’s car was sold, we had a 1 week gap until leaving for our trip. To close the gap we rented a truck to get around.
Cell phones
Each of us have had our cell phone numbers for a long time, so we needed to be sure we still had them when we returned. It would be cost prohibitive to just keep our plan with AT&T, so we made the decision to port our numbers over to Google Voice.
This is a service that allows you to make and receive calls anywhere there is internet (like wifi). Cost - $20 to port each of the numbers ($40 total) then nothing after that.
Note: Google Voice is not a cell phone plan. In order for us to use our phone numbers while not on wifi, we’d need to have a data plan on our phones. This is because we are actually using a google voice app on our phones, which needs data
While abroad we intend to pick up prepaid cell plans at the local provider. For example, in Ecuador we can get a plan for $10/month that includes unlimited Whatsapp, 3 gigs of internet, and 200 minutes.
Other bills
This was pretty easy, it was really just a matter of staying organized to know which ones needed to be cancelled, like:
Car insurance
Home insurance (needed to switch to landlord insurance)
Water
Electricity
Hulu
Netflix
Amazon Prime
Audible
Cell phones
Etc.
Packing
End goal was pretty straightforward - pack as little as possible while making sure we have everything we need for a year.
Since this is an important topic, we are going to have a full page dedicated to it. You can see that here.
In the end we ended up with:
2 giant hardshell rolling suitcases
1 carry-on hardshell rolling suitcase
1 backpack
1 stroller
1 hiking backpack
1 travel crib
2 purses
For more info on packing, check out our dedicated page.
Our stuff
Even though we consider ourselves to be pretty minimalist, we were amazed with how much stuff we had packed away in the corners of our small house. Since our goal was to use a small part of our garage to hold our stuff while we were gone, we had a lot of work to do to streamline.
This stuff included:
Scout’s toys
Random accessories for random things in our house
So many duplicate and triplicate tools
Jackets that we have not even thought about in years
Old laptops
Etc.
Most of our stuff had one of two fates:
Sold on Facebook Marketplace
Donated to Goodwill
