Letting Family Know: Part 1- Needing Advice

The process of planning a year long around the world trip has given me a good idea in the logistics of traveling for an extended period of time. I thought at one point that planning this trip would be incredibly difficult but along the way I have found that, thanks to the internet, it has been relatively painless process albeit time consuming. The one thing I am still having trouble with is deciding what I want to do about telling family that I want to take 14 months off to go travel around the world. When I went to Europe last summer for 3 1/2 weeks they thought I was crazy, and even more so when I went to the Middle East this August for another 3 weeks. So telling them I want to take some 60 weeks off will be a bit of a challenge.

Right now they are aware that I am going to be buying a one way ticket to Japan to see Asia for approximately 6 months. Slowly over time I have kept creeping up the amount of time I told them that I would be gone as my first iteration of planning for this trip was about 4 months worth of travel. I have been fairly confident in telling them that I will be going on my route all the way from Japan to Indonesia. They are already expressing how crazy I am and how they think I won't have the money to do all of it even though with 9 months left of savings I am about 2 months worth of travel ahead of that segment of the trip. My girlfriend is aware of what I am intending to do, and she is supportive of it (thank you!) especially since she'll come and visit in Thailand and maybe South America. But right now I am trying to think of ways to tell my family about this blog and my trip. Here are some of the ideas that I have come up with, knowing that the final response will be much like previous ones:

1) Just show them this blog and not give anymore details until they read through it all

2) Inadvertently start talking about the trip in the time frame of "a year" and go from there

3) Do nothing and just keep traveling and let them see where I am at from emails and my daily travelogues

4) Have a big reveal on facebook where I just tell everyone who is watching at once

It is still a bit of a hard decision for me on how to break the news in the easiest way possible. I am letting it slip out more with closer friends to gauge reactions and those are, for the most part, supportive. There will always be one or two people that do not understand why I am wanting to do it and say I am crazy, but I take that as a compliment.

Does anyone out there have any advice or ideas on how to tell family of the planning for a gap year or how you did it if you have been on one before? The other thing that is troubling me is not only how to go about doing it, but when would be the best time to bring it up. The trip is still about 10 months away and I am thinking I should wait until it is a little bit closer to discuss it completely. When I finalize and execute my plan for telling them of my adventure I will make a new entry to summarize what I did, and how it went. But until now I look forward to your comments and suggestions because frankly, I am stumped.

Budget Requirements: Part 2

With the new itinerary adding more days to the trip as well as a new region of the world, I feel its appropriate to update my budget to reflect this change. For the most part the addition of visiting Central America would not affect the overall budget to terribly much on a daily basis, but rather just increasing the overall total. To be complete though, I wanted to do this quick update to have the most accurate reflection of what I am looking to spend.

Pre-Trip
Vaccinations: Hepatitis A & B, Yellow Fever, Typhoid: Up to $200
Visas: Up to $850 at current values, could be less
Plane Tickets: ~$3500 without Easter Island, +$500-600 with.
Health Insurance: $550 for a year, likely extended a few months to include the last few months
Trip Insurance: Up to $520
Pre-Trip Purchases: Clothes, Shoes, Supplies: Up to $200
Inflation: Estimated Price Increases, Emergencies: Up to $750
Netbook/Electronics: $400


During Trip
Hostel Nights: $15/night avg
Food: $10/day avg
Sight Seeing / Daily Transportation: $15/day avg
City to City Transportation: $5/day, travel 1 every 5 days
3 Week Japan Rail Pass: Current price, $575
Big Purchases: Scuba Diving, Day Tours, Shows, Cirque du Soleil in Tokyo/Macao. Up to $2000
Airport Transfers and Departure Taxes: Up to $500
Potential Tours with Companies: Everest Base Camp trekking up to $1000
Souvenirs: $1500 including shipping home occasionally. Likely purchases include shot glasses, shirts, and small display pieces from each country.
Bank Fees: 3% of CC/ATM transactions, about $500

This total for ~415 days would be approximately $30,000 or $72.29/day all included with $45/day going for daily expenses.

This number is very high, and will likely be a lot less. An expensive country like Japan will be offset by a cheaper country such as Laos and India. A preliminary comparison of costs estimated a savings of around $3000 for hostels and transportation being cheaper than budgeted. Not all hostels are $15/day, in fact most of them are a lot less. Nor will I probably spend $1500 on souvenirs or $2000 on big site seeing purchases. These savings could be used to offset other unexpected costs along the way - or on the extreme off chance, help out in case I cannot save that proposed amount. I will not go halfway when I travel just to be able to travel longer, instead my goal is to see it all and travel comfortably on a budget, so if I have to end earlier, so be it.

My savings plan is going well. There is still 9 1/2 months until I plan to leave, and as long as my savings goes steady I will be able to save enough to reach the goal, but I am only leaving myself a few thousand dollars to return on above the budget to get a job and start life up again. Here's to the next 9 months of savings!

Useful Planning Links - The Best Sites Out There

There are many travel sites out there that offer information for planning trips, be it a short weekend to a long term adventure. There are so many, in fact, that finding one that has the accurate and proper information you are seeking can be quite a challenge. My goal in this blog is to be a comprehensive site to offer the best information from first hand experience in planning a year long around the world trip. I wont be an all inclusive information site, but by reading my blog from beginning to end someone should be able to have all the resources and first hand tips to plan their own amazing trip, to any location, on a budget.

In the course of my previous travels and planning this trip, I have sifted through hundreds of sites to find the best tips to help me plan my time and money in an effective manner. On the sidebar I have a section entitled "Useful Planning Links" that includes my favorite sites for information regarding all things travel. They are, to put it bluntly, the best of what they offer and the only sites I use while planning my trips. This section and post will be continually updated as I come across more useful links that I would like to pass on. A brief description of these sites is given below:

Airfare

Kayak: Kayak's search engine crawls hundreds of airlines and booking sites to find the best price for every route imaginable. So far I have yet to find a price on another site that is cheaper, especially when booking international tickets from North America.

Seat Guru: Seat Guru lists the optimum and poor seat locations on every plane with appropriate seat layouts and information. Do not get stuck with a bulkhead seat or with loud engine noise ever again.

USA Transportation Security Administration: The USA TSA has a lot of valuable information useful for traveling by air. While most of these rules are specific to the USA, a lot of it is now common practice around the world as well. Great lists of what is legal and illegal to take in a carry-on and packed luggage and outlines of the 3-1-1 rule. Useful to travelers from around the world.

Transportation

Seat 61: Seat 61 primarily outlines the costs and timetables for most of the train routes from around the world. There is some information on buses and ferries for major routes although this information appears more limited than for trains - especially for buses.

I Hate Taxis: I Hate Taxi's is a great resource for finding airport information and costs for different modes of transportation to get into the city. Odds are if you haggle, these prices can go down sometimes more than what is quoted from my experience, but it is a good reference.

Accommodations

Hostel World: Hostel World is one of the leading hostel search engines with thousands of hostels listed throughout every country around the world. They have a massive review system and hosted pictures to help you find the best hostel for your money.

Hotels Combined: Hotels Combined is like Kayak but it is purely dedicated for hotels. This site searches multiple hotels websites and booking engines to find the best fares for all hotels. It has a great filter feature to allow for greater control to find the hotel you need.

Comprehensive Sites

Trip Advisor: Trip Advisor is a complete travel site with information on many countries from around the world. Great for hotel reviews and first hand accounts as well as top destination choices

Bootsnall: Bootsnall, like Trip Advisor, has a lot of country specific information that is incredibly useful for travelers. They have a large RTW travel section in the message boards with other similar travelers giving great advice.

Wikitravel: Wikitravel is setup in the standard wiki format with user submitted entries. A standard entry has data such as 'Get In,' 'Get Around,' 'What to See,' 'Where to Sleep,' and general costs as well. One of my favorites.

Other Travel Services

Cruise Critic: Cruise Critic is the ultimate source for cruise planning. Their message board is a valuable source of information and the posters are nothing short of die hard when it comes to all things cruising.

Travelpod: Travelpod is one of the best travel blog hosting websites on the internet with some of the best features and integrated travel map. A great message board of travelers giving great advise and travel discussions. I am currently the local expert for Ohio and my travelogues can be found hosted on this site as well.

XE: XE is a currency exchange monitoring website that has the most up-to-date exchange information for all currencies around the world. It is a great planning tool when trying to budget for your trip.

Embassies Abroad: Embassies Abroad has a list of every embassy located in every country around the world. It is a great tool to find out where you can go and obtain a visa during your travels.

USA Center for Disease Control: The USA Center for Disease Control offers a lot of information on staying healthy in countries from around the world. It also gives information regarding recommended and required vaccines and what dieseases are present in the country you want to visit. Useful to travelers from around the world

USA State Department: The US State Department has a lot of up to date information regarding the conditions of countries around the world and if there are any safety threats present. For US citizens this is also the resource to find out visa requirements for countries you intend to visit. Citizens of other countries should check their respective state department for up to date visa information

As you can tell, there are a few topics that I have not found great sites for yet. If you know of a topic that is not on this list, please let me know and I will check it out and put it in the links section!

In addition to these websites, I also love the style of publications that Lonely Planet publishes for travel guides, particularly their "On a Shoe String" series which has the best tips for traveling on a budget. But be wary though because once hostels, restuarants, and other establishments get published in these books their rates climb due to sudden popularity. They are great to have on hand while traveling if you do not intend to have constant internet access, but like most of these planning links, they should only be used as a loose reference at most and not absolute truth.

Advertiser Note: I've been contacted by many specialty sites to be included in my links section, but for now I would like to keep this general travel planning only. Most of the sites that are included have breakdowns for individual countries and for now I would like to keep it that way as to not be an overload of information. While I appreciate being contacted about trading links, I will not link a country specific travel site for now. If you have a general travel site that would fall in this list, I would love to see it, but if it is specific to say, Peru, I am going to have to pass for now.

Airline Hassle: How to Complain Effectively

On my way home from Jordan in August I was faced with one of the worst airline experiences I have ever had. It began with a flight from Amman, Jordan to New York City which, as is usual with airlines, was overbooked. At first I was offered a $600 voucher and all expenses paid to take out a flight two days later. Unfortunately I was wanting to get home and decided to get on the flight, but after spending 12 hours with a crying baby, fighting kids next to me, and airline attendants doing absolutely nothing, I started to think I should have taken the offer. But that was only the beginning of the hassle. (Pictured: Waiting on a bus during a delay in Europe with no way out - May 2008)

My original plan was to have a 11 1/2 hour layover in New York City to go into the city and site see. Unfortunately there was some bad weather coming in, and I did not want to risk going into the city as all the sites I wanted to see were outside. I thought it would be better to try and see about getting on an earlier flight. To my usual luck, the weather was bad the day before and grounded all flights, so everything was booked. By this point I was past the point of no return and could not go into the city - which was getting sunny. Great. After waiting out my time I ended up getting on my plane waiting on the tarmac in a long line of planes, and we finally had our turn to take off, the pilot came on and informed us that bad weather in our flight path caused the air traffic controllers to ground us. To make a long story short, after 3 hours and 45 minutes sitting on the tarmac we were in the air, I missed my connecting flight home, and was lied to about being given a free hotel for the night.

The whole endeavor was a 43 hour door-to-door experience, about 10 hours longer than it should have been, with little sleep. So my first order of business was sending a formal letter of complaint to the airline to express my concern. Now I should note, my intention was only to convey the experience which had turned other fliers off for good, and to hopefully get reimbursed for my poor hotel experience. To my surprise I was not only reimbursed for the hotel, but was contacted by two unique vice presidents with personal emails, and given $100 vouchers from each of them for future flights. From this experience I have come up with a list of things to keep in mind when contacting airlines to express a formal complaint.


1) You are not going to get anywhere contacting customer service.
Airline customer service is nonexistent unless you are a platinum frequent flier. In fact, they hope that you will lie back and accept these issues as a side effect of flying. As most people will tell you, they won't give you that same luxury if you decide to be late, but are not accountable for them being late. With that being said, never, ever, ever, email or call customer service and expect to get a response. Instead, do a google search to find the emails of the executives of the companies and attach them all. Many execs cycle out emails due to this reason, so try them all. You'll be surprised to find that most of them may work. Additionally, include Christopher Elliot on that list too. His articles of travelers complaints are featured around the internet, including on MSNBC.com, and the sight of his address CC'd on an email brings executives to their knees.

2) Executives wont listen to angry rants, either
Just because you are contacting an executive doesn't mean they are going to instantly compensate you because you found their email. The last thing an executive is going to do to a person who is ranting and cursing is give them any money at all. It is much easier to let another airline deal with your rude behavior than to be bothered by it. With that being said, be polite. Clearly list out the scenario and how it affected you and do not limit yourself to a small paragraph. If it requires an essay, write it out. My responses back from both executives were both longer than my short story that I sent to them! Giving a clear understanding of what happened will help them feel the poor service you endured, and are more likely to come to an understanding.

3) Save receipts, and detail out any extra costs that were lost
If you had to incur extra expenses as a result of a delay or unforseen situation, save the receipts and clearly list out what they were and why you had to pay them while describing the event. A gate agent informed me that my hotel was for a voucher for $50 off, where the hotel told me that the rate was for a $50 room. At that time I was already at the hotel and I would have likely slept in the airport the 6 hours I was there if I had known. I had requested the money to be reimbursed, and was issued a refund check promptly, without even furnishing my receipt.

4) Don't be greedy
If you did not incur any extra expenses at the airlines fault, do not request compensation. Just because you had a delay does not mean you should necessarily be given anything at all. There are, after all, some things the airlines cannot control. Asking to be reimbursed for everything down to a $5 meal is a little much. Forget the cost of a meal and split the difference when requesting any sort of refund. Nitpicking is likely to be a straight shot to the delete bin.


While most of the delays are out of airlines control, and a sub-par experience can be written off, you should not be afraid to contact an airline about an extraordinarily poor flight. Without feedback the airline cannot take proper action, and will ignore it completely if you do not go high enough, and a similar situation may be passed on to another customer. In most cases the airlines do not have to go out of their way to reimburse anything, but for severe cases the airline will reimburse monetary losses plus issue vouchers for future flights to ensure your repeat business in the future. In the end the airline wins, the vouchers have to be applied to a flight which will most certainly cost more than what was issued, but it will likely tide you over enough to fly another day.