Most people I know have talked about their dream vacations at some point. Maybe they were sitting around a campfire, having a happy hour conversation, or creating a vision board. Once the decision is made to make those dream vacations a reality, there is some work to do. Long-term travel requires lots of planning and preparation.
These are the steps we took at the end of 2018 to start planning for our year-long adventure around the globe. There isn’t much I would change at this point in our trip. These will work for any kind of trip, whether you’re looking at a gap year after high school, an extended honeymoon, or a test drive of retirement.
**Note that some affliliate links are used in this post. By clicking them, you will pay no extra but we may earn a very small commission for the referral.
Eight Steps to Prepare for Long-Term Travel
1. Pick an Approximate Departure Date
You don’t have to set this in stone, but you do need to have an idea of when you want to leave. Otherwise, this post isn’t very helpful. Do you want to leave once you finish up a big project? Is the best time when your kids are done with their current grade in school? Put a goal date out in the universe to help you start planning the other important items around that general timeframe.
We chose our date based on the date our lease was up which was about seven months out. This helped us plan, but we knew we could always extend a month if needed.
2. Make a List
The first thing you should do is grab a notebook or an empty computer screen and brainstorm a list. We made a list of everything we knew we would have to do. There was room to add to it when we’d think of something. We had a copy of this book (I linked the newest edition), which was geared towards people a little younger than us but gave us a good place to start.
Our list was kept in my planner so we could look at it daily. I love having a written list that I carry around with me. We highlighted, scribbled on it, and happily crossed things out that were completed or irrelevant over time. Our list included even the most mundane things, like when to communicate our plans and what items we needed to find storage for while gone.
3. Figure out your Destination(s)
This is the fun part. It’s taking your dreams and laying them out on paper. Some people want to live in a different country for a while. We planned to move around and explore the countries on the other side of the world that are hard to get to in a short vacation. New Zealand, Australia, Africa, and Southeast Asia were at the top of our list.
The best thing we did for this was to purchase this book. Can you tell we are obviously big fans of Lonely Planet? We went through every single country in the book with four highlighters. One color for the countries that are absolutely necessary for us to visit. Another color for the ones that we were very interested in. A color for the countries that we would visit and enjoy if we were close and it was convenient. Lastly, a color for the countries that we were not interested in because of safety issues or others.
Once we sliced and diced the possibilities, our list had about 40 countries on it. It was overwhelming, so we divided it into different “missions,” each focusing on a specific region. Then, we prioritized which we would plan first and stuck to it. We decided to focus on Asia & Australia first and then plan others while on the road.
Read more about how we planned while traveling here.
4. Come up with a Budget
How much money do you have to spend? You can visit anywhere in the world on any budget, depending on how you want to travel.
Full transparency: we have been saving money since we sold our house in 2016, but we didn’t necessarily have a plan for what to spend it on. There was a discussion about getting a cabin in the Catskills at length while sitting in our apartment in Brooklyn. We also talked about buying a house when we moved back to Minneapolis. I think we both knew we weren’t ready to commit to any one place. That was when we decided that we should travel, and we consciously decided to save as much as possible each and every month so we could stretch it as long as possible.
Everyone will be different, so there isn’t a right or wrong amount. The most important thing is to be realistic and build in wiggle room if something happens.
Read our top six money-saving tips that helped us afford a year-long trip.
5. Start Making Good Money Choices Now
The first thing we did was organize our wallets to ensure we were maximizing the points and miles we would accrue on our credit cards. Our flights to Christchurch, New Zealand cost us a total of $26.00 because we were able to use miles to pay. This saved us over $2,000. I can’t stress the importance of credit cards when it comes to travel. We use them for everything and pay off the entire balance each month before any interest is applied. We maximize every offer emailed – Chase just did one for AirBnB where you would receive 5% back and we made sure to use it for booking our most expensive stay in New Zealand.
Here are the two credit cards we would recommend to anyone that is looking to do more travel:
The Delta American Express – We have used this card for a few years, especially when we were traveling a lot for work. We have the Platinum because the annual fee includes one companion flight each year and other money-saving perks on ride shares and hotels. If you sign up using this link, you can get a 90,000-mile BONUS. That is more than double the amount we got when we signed up.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred – This card gives great Travel rewards and comes with great benefits and kickbacks. We have used our rewards points in the past to purchase our flights to Costa Rica as well as hotel stays. Using our referral link to sign up, you can get yourself 75,000 points as a bonus. We love this card. Visa is accepted everywhere, so this is a good card.
The other thing I would recommend is reading all the fine print on your bank accounts. Make sure you aren’t paying any fees on your accounts. After reading their fine print, we ended up closing a bank account because they were not very customer-friendly.
6. Determine Plan for “Real Life” Things
Do you own a house? Have a car lease? Are you attached to your Aloe plant and your succulent garden? List out the things that you own or are responsible for and get a plan for them while you are gone.
We were renting a house and so we planned our departure date for the week after our lease was up. Unfortunately, we had leased a car, so we needed to figure out what to do with that and it took some time. We also decided that we were going to get rid of our furniture and items instead of finding a storage unit or solution, but that’s another big decision to make.
We didn’t finalize any of these things until closer to our departure, but we had them on our list and began brainstorming and researching during this time frame so we wouldn’t be rushing and making rash decisions later on.
7. Take Care of Medical Business
Make all your appointments. We visited the dentist for cleanings and to have a filling or two replaced. The eye doctor checked our eyes, and we ordered new contacts. We also got physicals (thanks to our company offering $100 gift cards upon completion).
On top of the usual check ups, you also want to talk to your doctor about your travel plans. You will need vaccinations for a lot of destinations around the world. It’s best to speak with your doctor ahead of time and figure out when you need to make the appointment to get the necessary shots (usually it’s about 2 months before you travel).
When we were prepping for our long-term travel, there was a shortage of the yellow fever vaccination. That changed our plans to visit Tanzania because that vaccination was required. Check the CDC website for all the most current requirements for foreign countries.
8. Check your Documents
Make sure your passport does not expire soon and that you have the required number of pages available. Most places require you to have a valid passport for at least six months with at least one or two blank pages.
Once we had our rough draft list of countries, we went through and researched what each one requires for passports and visas. This helped us map out what we would need for paperwork. It sounds like a lot of work, but with the internet, the information is all very accessible and easy to find by a simple google search.
Final Thoughts on Prepping for Long-Term Travel
This list will help you get through the planning process three to six months out. Once you get closer, make sure to read our checklist for long-term travel prep within three months of your departure date. We are super happy to answer any questions about the planning process. Just drop us a comment below or email us at thetumblingnomads@gmail.com.
