Trip FAQ

We get a lot of really great questions about the trip and thought it would be useful to capture them all here for your reading pleasure.

Why are you doing this?
Because life is short, we’re adventurous, and two people we love were struck with serious illnesses in their 30s. We’re not waiting around for later when we can do it now. You can read about the “why” in detail here.

What was the decision process?
Once the hangover wore off and we decided we were really going to go through with this, we started planning. First we did the research on how much it would cost, then we decided how long we wanted to be gone, and then we did the math on how long it would take to save the money. In the meantime, we started downsizing our possessions right away. We made up a list of places we wanted to see and started telling people. You can find out more about our decluttering and saving efforts on the blog.

What does your family think about this?
Our families have been very supportive. We already live 2000 miles from them, so what we are doing is not so difficult for them to accept. The calls home will just be more exotic.

What are you taking with you?
We each get one backpack (Betsy’s was reviewed here.) We’re compiling a list of all the items we’re taking over here, but the short answer is a few changes of clothes, a laptop, camera, Kindle, toiletries, and 2 pairs of shoes.  That’s it.

Are you selling your house?
Yes. We debated this for a while, especially due to the economy, but we just didn’t want to deal with the hassle and expense of being landlords while we were gone. We have set up a website for our house to see if we can sell it ourselves.  We will formally put it on the market in February 2010 (though feel free to make an offer today!). We aren’t sure if we are coming back to Seattle at the end of the trip, so this makes sense for us.

What are you doing with all of your stuff?
Stuff, what stuff? Seriously, we expect to have very little stuff remaining when we go. We are currently selling/donating just about everything we own, and we’ll be left with a box or two of items when we’re done. Betsy’s mom is going to store those for us. We are mainly using Craigslist, but we are also hosting a Birthday Boutique party for Betsy to share some of her nicer things with her friends, and in the spring we will likely join with friends for a yard sale to finish off the rest. A friend has graciously offered to hang our artwork in his home while we are gone.  We’ve had fun getting creative with the decluttering process over the last year.

What will you do for work when you get back?
We really don’t know. Warren is doing pretty well with his side business of moving existing websites over to WordPress, and I’m writing. Whether these two things (or something else) ends up sustaining us remains to be seen. Hopefully we’ll find something that pays enough for us to stay on the road indefinitely. But if not, we’ll come back when the money runs out and get jobs (we have a separate savings account for “re-entry”). We’ve both had success in the corporate world, and if we need to we’ll go there again.

Where are you going?
Good question. We’re starting in Ecuador, and we plan to travel around South America for several months. While we do have a list of where we’d like to go, we have made a pact to only plan our trips one at a time. That means we can’t decide where we want to go next until we get to Ecuador. This will help us live more in the moment and also open us up to suggestions by other travelers and residents in the areas we visit. We don’t want to travel by an itinerary, but we will also not be jetting off to distant places. We’ll take a more or less logical route from place to place, extending our stay as long as possible to get the best rates and enjoy a more relaxed experience.

How long will you be gone?
“Gone” is a relative term. Wherever we are together is home, so it is only “gone” to the people who are still here. We’ll be traveling for 3 years or so. If it works out like we want, we’ll continue a lifestyle of work and travel for many years, but we haven’t nailed that down just yet.

How did you save the money?
We did it the old-fashioned way, by paying off our debt, living well below our means, and saving half our income this past year. We also sold quite a few of our belongings and banked raises and tax returns instead of spending them. We’ve been pretty frugal, and with the economic mess of 2009, it wasn’t hard to do because everyone else was buckling down, too. We’ll sell our house and furniture in early 2010 and the car right before we leave in September 2010. You can find out more about our savings plan and the steps we took before we started saving.

Will you come back to Seattle?
Hey, if we can’t plan destinations on our trip more than one at a time, how in the heck are we supposed to know where we’ll end up? We really don’t know. Seattle is a great city, and we have no objections to coming back here. But the world is a big place and we’ll likely land somewhere else.

What are you doing with your pets?
This is one of the hardest parts about leaving. Our dog will be going to stay with a good friend (the same one who will be holding our art), and our cat is going to live with Betsy’s mom in New Mexico. Skype will allow us to still see them on our calls back home, and we will miss them very much (though there will be more room in the bed at night).

What is you need something while you are gone?
Some of my friends are really worried about my ability to cover up my gray hairs and buy clothes while on the road. You know, it’s not like we’ll be living in a hut the whole time. We’ll be going through plenty of cities and can pick up what we need where the locals shop. If it is too big to keep when moving to a different climate (like a coat), we’ll just donate it and get another when we need it. Since we’re traveling slow, this should not be a big problem.

What will you do for medical care?
Before we leave we’ll get the necessary checkups and shots. For most medical expenses we will pay out of pocket and see local physicians (or witch doctors, depending on the illness ;) ). The insurance is really just there for a huge emergency that would take us back to the States.

Will you get insurance?
Yes, we will have insurance specifically for travel. It will have a higher deductible and only be used for major injuries/illnesses (the kind that would likely send us back to the US). For everything else, we’ll pay out of pocket.

How will you get around?
We’ll get around like the locals do with buses, cabs, walking, bicycles, boats and public transportation. We’ll fly when going long distances, but that should be fairly infrequent.

Will you take your car?
We do not plan on renting a car, though we have considered keeping our car for a road trip through South America. That is probably not going to happen, but it is a possibility. If we did that we would sell it before we left South America for Africa. Betsy will take a long road trip across the Western US in our car before we head out on our trip.

How will you get your mail?
There are services that will receive your mail and scan it for your review. They will even deposit checks and take certain actions on your mail if you want them to. The service we have investigated is Earth Class Mail. We have friends who live on a boat and they are happy using the service, and many long-term travelers we know use it as well. It should be more reliable for us than forwarding to a relative because we can view it at any time. To help even further, we have canceled all our catalogs and magazines and downsizing mail as much as possible.

The absolute coolest thing about SENDING mail, however, is our Send Out Cards account. Betsy bought this to stay in touch with clients in her consulting business, but we quickly discovered how easy it is to create cards from our travels to share with friends and family without worrying about stamps.  We can’t wait to use this on our trip to create cards from Warren’s pictures without worrying about international postage – all from a few keystrokes!  In fact, if you’d like to get a postcard from us on our travels, just send us your name and address before we go and let us know.

Will you keep up your blog while you are gone?
Of course! We didn’t create all this just to drop off when the fun started! You’ll get regular updates from the road and can still email, though we may not be as timely in getting back to you depending on our internet access. And Warren will have some amazing pictures to share, I’m sure.

How will you color your hair and get haircuts?
Just like the locals do! When we are feeling a little gray or shaggy we’ll just stop in the local barber or beauty salon for a touch-up. We may have varying degrees of success with this, but that would be expected back in Seattle if I changed salons every month. Warren now has a buzz cut, and Betsy’s hair has recently been cut short, so it should be pretty easy to keep up on the road. We can probably both go to a barber!

Why are you staying gone so long?
Like I said earlier, home is wherever we are and “gone” is a term used by other people. I guess it depends on your perspective. It is a new phase in our life, not really just a trip, so when you look at it that way it doesn’t seem very long. Three years is as long as we could finance in our savings timeframe, so that is what we are doing.

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