Yellowstone, Bryce, Zion, Nova Scotia

a trip around the world is not complete without a trip with mommy

Utah and Arizona - bryce was my ultimate favorite. super hot though! and of course the best friends animal sanctuary

Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore - i need to go to yellowstone again and scope out those wolves

Nova Scotia - PEI - land of "anne of green gables" is def worth another trip and perhaps a round of golf

Misu is such a cutie pie

just thought this was a cute picture of misu bisu.
miss her!!

Visas

we recommend finding out which countries require visas. country embassy websites, as well as the very useful lonely planet thorn tree travel forum were our main sources.

some countries (S. Africa) don't require visas, others (Zambia) you can buy when u enter, others (Australia) you can buy online, and then others (Tanzania and China), you need to buy beforehand.

Tanzania was pretty straightforward...i just went to the embassy in NYC and turned in my cash, passport, pictures, and self-addressed envelope and a few days later, a visa was delivered.

China was a bit more complicated. the visa process requires a detailed itinerary (blah blah blah) so i just went to a chinese travel agency which promptly made up a bunch of details for $25. we are def. an organized bunch but not that organized that we have all the minute details of China planned.

what is a bit annoying is how much us citizens have to pay vs. non-us citizens. alan only paid $50 for his tanzania visa, but i had to pay $100.

Budget and Expense Tracking

being the anal-me, created an easy to use spreadsheet to track spending. spreadsheet should automatically calculate category spending.

also an expense tracker to keep track of how much i owe everyone...

REI has everything!

cmc says convertible pants are the way to go....

so i went and bought a pair. of course, the normal women sizes are wayyyy tooo big so if you are a tiny asian girl, i suggest hitting up an REI store and buying girl sizes. plus, its cheaper too. mine also comes with its very own rape whistle too.

i signed up for the $20 lifetime membership at REI which is then supposed to dividend me back 10% of my annual purchases. could be worth it?

Packing...

which backpack to get? i had no idea what kind to get, but went to both paragon sports, as well as ems. both stores recommended the gregory deva 85 especially for smaller-framed women.

Money Matters

Priscilla and Alan did a bunch of research to find out which ATMs and cc's are best suited for travel since we don't want to pay those exorbitant bs foreign exchange fees. Isn't there a lawsuit going on re: that?

Credit Cards - Capital One appears to be the only cc with no foreign transaction fees. Plus, you can upload your own image to the card. Mine is of misu, of course.

ATMs - Commerce Bank looks to be the winner. By keeping $2,000 in your account, all ATM withdrawals are free and all ATM charges refunded to you no matter where you are. Also, there is no foreign transaction fee. I think that Capital One bank doesn't have foreign transaction fees either, but ATM charges may not be refunded.

Probiotics

so cmc recommended taking Probiotics daily during our travels.

Probiotics (according to the web) contain 10 billion live organisms of Lactobacillus acidophilus, friendly bacteria naturally found in the intestine. Clinically studied Lactobacillus acidophilus supports a healthy intestinal system, making it difficult for unfriendly bacteria to survive. When good bacteria are reduced our immune system and digestive functions may decline.

anyways, i bought some just in case. cmc just went on a two month jaunt in SE Asia and even with eating street meat, she did not get sick once which she credited to taking probiotics every day. if probiotics is the reason, sign me up!

Vaccinations

the best source for what vaccinations is probably the cdc website.

vaccinations can get pricey and i'm not sure all insurance plans cover them.

we were incredibly lucky that my former firm's medical center offers free vaccinations whether they be for personal or business travel so if you are planning to travel, check before you quit.

we ended up gettng these vaccinations:

• Meningitis
• Polio booster
• Typhoid
• Hep A/Hep B - both are a six month process so will need to get the final shots when i come back from my trip
• Yellow fever - keep the yellow vaccination card w/ ur passport as some countries require proof of the yellow fever shot
• Routine stuff (MMR, chicken pox) - if you haven't already from when u were a kid

we also got perscriptions for Malarone (malaria) and cipro (traveller's diarrhea) which we had to pay for. boo...but at least we saved on the vaccinations!

RTW Tickets

First and foremost, we arrived at a preliminary itinerary which of course changed daily.

Next, we had to find how to get to all these places. Given my former life in equity research, researching the best ticket (fare/flexibility/ease of use) was the first and most important task in planning our RTW travel plans. Given that our itinerary spanned the globe, we figured a flexible and cheap (if possible) RTW ticket would be our best bet.

I happened upon a NYTimes article, "Traveling the Globe on a Single Ticket" which was a great start. We contacted both AirTreks and AirBrokers for preliminary quotes, but to our dismay, dates were inflexible. We wanted to be able to to change our plans accordingly especially if we decided to stay in one place longer.

We found that the three major alliances offer RTW tickets based on mileage or continents traveled and allowed for date flexibility. Tickets are also good for one year (i think).

One World (AA, British Airways, Cathay, Quantas) has two options: oneworld Explorer which is based on the number of continents traveled, as well as Global Explorer based on mileage. The oneworld Explorer allows up to four segments within each continent. There was even a dedicated phone number (American - 800.247.3247) to help with reservations. I also liked that we were given a reservation which we could continue to make changes as we saw fit over the course of a couple of months.

Star Alliance (United, Singapore - largest alliance) bases their RTW by mileage and website even has a handy mileage calculator. There were also a ton of options (RTW, Europe Airpass, Japan Airpass). Booking a ticket, however, required calling one of the reservation desk airlines. We called United. The process was incredibly painful as reservationist had little experience booking a RTW ticket. The initial process took more than an hour and the ticket was only on hold for less than a week.

Sky Team (Continental, Air France, Delta) also bases their RTW trip by mileage. Too bad the airlines do not cover much ground. The reservation desk (through Continental Airlines) was incredibly helpful (maybe because i'm Silver Elite), but the alliance just did not fly to where we wanted to go.

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In the end, we opted for the oneworld Explorer spanning five continents. I liked the dedicated reservations office, as well as the better price.

With our ticket, we were allowed to travel four segments w/in each continent with a total of 20 travel segments (includes overland). As of June, the total is now 16, i believe.

*Tip* Alan also found another loophole to lower the price of the ticket. For some reason, RTW tickets based out of London are cheaper. As a result, we booked our RTW oneworld Explorer through the London AA office. Our ticket starts/ends in London and we are going to use our miles from other airlines to get to London.

Our total ticket (including service charges, taxes, FX rate) came out to $4,228.08 vs. ~$5,500! Good deal in my opinion.

Introduction

so i recently resigned from my job in equity research in order to jaunt around the world for a few months. after college, i worked non-stop for nearly seven years and am completely burnt-out and tired. have decided that taking my "gap year" late is better than never at all.

my itinerary so far....

August 08 - Africa (Tanzania, Zanzibar, Zambia/Zimbabwe, Capetown)
September 08 - China incl HK, SE Asia (Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore)
November/December 08 - Australia and New Zealand
January 09 - Brazil

am hoping to post updates along the way but who knows since not taking a laptop with me.