It happened again this month…. isn’t this list supposed to be smaller than last months? Well it’s unfortunately not, instead of less to do, we have even more. Again!
This is our fourth installment of the TO-DO List of a lifetime. For those of you just tuning in, we will be leaving everything on the list and just striking it out as we go. Items in Green are new ones, and stuff in Red we are almost done with.
Financial
Sign up for Charles Schwab Account(Zero ATM fees World Wide) Done – worked awesome in Mexico, save us over $15 in ATM fees!Setup layered bank accounts & train parents to dump money between accounts so we don’t have to while connected to shady Wi-Fi spots- Figure out car insurance – Apparently it can be difficult or expensive to get car insurance when you return home if you have a gap in coverage (Our insurance agent is a friend who will actually be meeting us in Guatemala in the early part of our trip, so he will help us figure it out)
- Sell Hannah’s car – Any one interested? It just got a brand new transmission this month!!! That hurt the RTW fund but at least we got some airline miles…
- Spend a few dollars on all mileage credit cards just before we leave to keep miles/points from falling off
- Cancel UN-necessary Credit Cards
- Refinance House – rates are low and we stand to lower our payment by $300/month, which will help to soften the blow of 15+ mortgage payments for a house we aren’t living in!! Nearly done just have to sign a couple hundred pieces of paper!
Friends & Family
- Setup Skype with family/friends – Hannah’s parents are taught
- Host a grand going away party
Gear
- Buy net book for trip
Buy small clear tackle/storage box for Hannah’s make up- Buy Large tackle/storage box for medical kit
- Organize Camera / Tech bag
- Finalize Packing of main packs
- Buy a external hard drive – We decided we needed one of these after reading several blogs about how slow it is to up load to a cloud drive while traveling.
Planning
Set a general route and time line– See or Route!Nail down next years Christmas plans with Hannah’s Parents– Done we have Hannah’s Parents signed up for Untied Credit Cards and they are each flying free one way! Yeah finally done!Book our Spanish school and Home Stay for July in Guatemala when we have friends joining us!
Health
- Hep B vac for Adam (two down one more to go)
- Hep A Vac for both of us in May/June
- Typhoid Fever for both of us in May/June
- Yellow Fever for Hannah
- Tetanus for Adam & Hannah (Our insurance covers all of our vaccinations, but from what we have read may insurances don’t; so if that is the case for you, for cost reasons many people opt to get them while on the road early in their journey)
- Schedule Knee Doctor just before we leave (Don’t want to be limping around the world)
- Dentist appointments- scheduled for June
- Hannah eye exam June (To keep lifetime warranty on Lasik surgery)
- Change Hannah’s birth control to IUD (We don’t need a permanent tag-a-long, yet!)(appointment set)
Household
- Rent Our House
Find Tinkerbell a foster home-Thank you Becky for volunteering- Sell unused stuff on eBay / Craig’s list (In process: $75.60 Profits so far)
- Donate stuff that’s not worth listing (5 large garbage bags & counting)
- Put everything else into storage
- Find a place to store Adam’s Truck
Find a good place to store Hannah’s Wedding RingsOrder Hannah a cheap wedding band(To ensure others know she is taken!) Done- Drink 18 bottles of wine (Where did we get all of this wine?) – Three Down, 15 to Go! We actual got a bottle as a gift this month, so we will have to drink an extra to make up for it.
- Consume
3019 bottles of salad dressing (We eat salads daily and when Hannah sees a deal watch out!) - Forward our mail somewhere (Any volunteers to collect 15 months of junk mail??)
New house hold items (Thanks Hannah)
- Paint the bathroom, it is kind of an intense green color right now and both of us are not crazy about the color and hope it will help get the house rented!
- Replace a light switch upstairs that is having issues, we don’t need any problems while we aren’t there.
- Fix broken snow-blower, haven’t used it in 2 years and attempting to use it February and no luck….
Travel Documents
- Travelers insurance
Add pages to passports, although we just heard that doing it abroad is easier
- Get passport pictures
- Scan documents – Passports, all receipts for travel insurance claims, all travel confirmations, credit card contact numbers
- Get international drivers license – We have the application
- Setup Storage on cloud drive & Show Dad how periodically download (We were planning on using Amazon’s drive or is there a better one?)
Work
- Write letter of resignation – Adam (Is it wrong to be really excited for this one?)
- Ask for leave of absence – Hannah is doing this next week!!
Other Stuff
- Cancel cell phone service (Just before we leave)
Stuff we already did that you should too
- Buy an unlocked GSM Tri / Quad Band cell phone on eBay (You can then buy sim cards and pre-paid minutes abroad, under $0.10USD / minute in most countries)
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Ohhhhh….I remember these lists. I’m sorry to tell you they don’t get any shorter, but are totally worth it once you’re off and away
Rika | Cubicle Throwdown recently posted..A Year of Awesome.
Thanks for the light at the end of the tunnel! I wish the list would just disappear!!
Hannah recently posted..Coba Ruins
Hey – we would love to hear more about the bit at the end, the unlocked cell phone. We have no expertise in that area. Do you have a post or more info about it?
The Wandering Soles recently posted..How much is too much when it comes to planning a world trip?
We may write a post about it in the future but to answer your question – An unlocked cell phone is a cell phone that is not set to a specific carrier (example, Verison, ATT) Most phones do not come unlocked but they can be purchased online unlocked. The best place to buy one in my opinion is Ebay. What you need to look for is a “tri-band” or a “quad-band” phone that is listed as “unlocked”. The phone must be “GSM” and use SIM cards.
If you have a phone that meets all of the above you can then purchase a pre-paid sim card while traveling. Most convenience stores will sell the sim card itself and you can also purchase minutes too. Most times it breaks down to about $.05 – $.10 per minute.
We travel with two phones so if we split up we can reach each other, and we can also call home or any local numbers too.
Hope this helps, feel free email us if you want to know more!
Safe travels!
Adam recently posted..Cervezas of Mexico!
How exiting! Reading this post brought back some memories on when we went through the same preparation, I think we were a bit less organized than you guys
The pre-traveling months might be a bit tiring and stressful at times, at least it was for us, but the excitement of been able to go traveling soon and for long time kills it all. Once you are actually off you’ll think of these days with a smile on your face
Franca recently posted..6 Months Travel Anniversary – Now What?
Glad to hear we are organized, because I think we aren’t! This list brings on panic attacks I swear! I can’t wait until June 29th and we are FREE! Our biggest stressers right now is this house!!!!
Hannah recently posted..Cervezas of Mexico!
Just my 2 cents on the netbook, spring for one with some processing speed. The first one I bought about a year before our trip was super light and cheap but painfully slow. I ended up getting a Lenovo Yoga just before we left and I am in love – 13″ screen, less than 3lbs, great battery life, and converts to a tablet for easy movie watching on planes and buses! I little more than your typical netbook but so worth it for blogging. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ATANVLG/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00ATANVLG&linkCode=as2&tag=travel08d-20
Alissa recently posted..The Most ‘Wonder’ful Attraction in Australia
Alissa- Thanks for the tip! We bought a EE little thing and it was CRAZY slow, it last 2 days! But thankfully Best Buy has a good return policy, 30 days! We have been looking at http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+11.6%22+Touch-Screen+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Steel+Gray+Hairline/7569053.p?id=1218851719043&skuId=7569053&cmp=RMX we too want the speed, light weight, decent battery, small screen, card reader, memory, etc. We will probably purchase one in April and make sure it fits the bill! Thanks for the tips!!! Keep them coming!
Hannah recently posted..The Dollar Menu – Tulum, Mexico
I remember this list well. We several of the same things to do up until the very end, the good thing is that no matter what, when your departure date comes it’s time to go. You’ll find some of the things just don’t really need to be done.
The car insurance one stands out as odd. If you are keeping a vehicle then you probably want it covered as if there was an accident (ie fire) you’d be at a total loss. As far as having a gap hurting your ability to get insurance in the future? Never heard anyone say that…among hundreds of people that we know who have worked or traveled for years. It sounds like fishy advice (was the insurance salesman friend the one who said it!?!)
Have fun traveling, we’re excited to follow along…even if you are Packers fans! Too bad you’re going to miss Greg Jennings’ sensational year…
Matt @ LivingIF.com recently posted..He Said/She Said: Learned by Blogging
Glad to hear that everything will go by fast! As for the car insurance, our insurance is a good friend who owns his own agency. Apparently when we came back and attempted to get insurance on the car the rates would be higher because we wouldn’t have proof of prior insurance….and the rates would be high for quiet some time…so we will just fork out the $600 a year for insurance. That way his parents can use our truck if needed too!
Yes we are Packers & Brewer fans! We can’t wait to start traveling and get rid of these terrible to-do lists!!
Hannah recently posted..Introducing “Aaron”