I usu­ally start the plan­ning for a trip ages before I actu­ally go away. I work as much as I can and save as much money up as I can, so the plan­ning part is the only thing that keeps me sane. I work a bit over 300 hours in 2 jobs and this prob­ably for over 6 months. But I know all this work will have an end even­tu­ally and my goal (going trav­el­ling) is keep­ing me motiv­ated. So I have a lot of time on my hands in which I can think about what to take with me, where to go first, what to do, who to meet up with, and so on.

Here’s some points you might want to con­sider, espe­cially if you’re a firsttimer:

1. The Decision to go Travelling:

   This might seem to be quite an easy point. Believe me, the first time you decide to go on a long-haul trip is the hard­est. You might have an apart­ment, a car, an unwill­ing part­ner, par­ents, friends and/or rel­at­ives that want to dis­cour­age you from going away or a well paid job. It might seem quite daunt­ing as well to leave all your famil­iar sur­round­ings for an exten­ded length of time.
   All these things are quite eas­ily solved though:

   • Rent out your apart­ment (it’s an extra income, while on the road or it con­tin­ues to pay for your morgage). Maybe the new ten­ant wants to rent the place fully fur­nished. If not you can store your stuff some­place, or sell off as much as you can. You can always buy new things when you get back home.
   • Sell your car or find a place some­where to store it.
   • If you man­aged to secure a great job once, then you can do it again. A sab­bat­ical is quite com­mon now as well, plus vis­it­ing dif­fer­ent coun­tries and cul­tures can only look good on your cv.
   • If you have a part­ner that does not want to join you, then this might be a prob­lem. You can always com­prom­ise and cut the length of the trip. A strong rela­tion­ship should with­stand being a few months apart. Think of it that way. If you don’t go trav­el­ling, although you really want to, then this can’t be good for the rela­tion­ship, can it?
   • As for the last point, just take a few pic­tures of your fam­ily with you and maybe some other things that remind you of home. Ask friends and fam­ily to come see you at some point. Call home from time to time and keep in con­tact with emails.

2. Set­ting a date for Departure

   should be the next point on the agenda! Many people just talk about going away. They tell you that they want to do the exact thing like you and tell you stor­ies about how they almost went trav­el­ling. What they prob­ably did wrong was not set­ting a date. Make sure to give you enough time to sort out your stuff. Pick a real­istic date. Make sure you know how much money you want to take with you and how long it will take you to save up that amount.

3. Book your Flight

   This is an import­ant step. It basic­ally means that you’re com­mit­ted to going away. Either that or throw­ing away the money paid for your ticket. You should do this as soon as you’ve picked a date. Remem­ber that tick­ets are only valid for max­imum one year, so if you stay longer then book one way. Doing this is usu­ally a bit more expens­ive, but at the same time it gives you more flex­ib­il­ity. Plans always change and you might end up some­where you never thought you’d visit. Then one way tick­ets might actu­ally save you some money!!
   I’ve found STA Travel a good place to start hunt­ing for good flight deals, but there’s loads of other options out there on the net. Take your time to shop around and grab the best offer.

4. Get a Visa

   You might actu­ally want to do this before you book a flight. Then again, depend­ing on where you go, you might not even need a visa or you can get a visa on arrival. Just to be on the safe side, see for your­self. Con­su­late or immig­ra­tion web pages should have the rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion. Nowadays you can even get online work­ing hol­i­day visas within a day, so don’t worry too much about it, unless you have reason to believe there might be some prob­lems. Let’s have a look at some of these problems:

   • You might not get a visa for some Muslim coun­tries if you have an Israeli visa in your pass­port. Harsh, I know.
   • If you’ve been to a TBC high risk coun­try for more than 3 months, then you need to sup­ply a chest x-ray for work­ing hol­i­day visas to Aus­tralia and New Zealand.
   • Depend­ing on your coun­try of ori­gin you might need to provide proof that you are able to fin­ance your stay (if you’re from one of the so-called industry-nations then don’t worry about this)
   • It’s been known that Irish people could not get a visa on arrival for Indone­sia and were not allowed to board the plane unless they could provide an Indone­sian visa stamp in their passports.
   • For most coun­tries your pass­port needs to be valid for at least another 6 months. It’s prob­ably bet­ter get­ting a new one if you only have a year or so left on it.
   • Reg­u­la­tions change, so if you are unsure about any­thing, go online and check it out…

5. Get some Shots!

   Make sure all your reg­u­lar vac­cin­a­tions, tetanus for example, are up to date. Then, depend­ing on where you’re headed, you need to get some spe­cial shots:

   • You def­in­itely need Hep­at­itis A+B. This is a combo shot and con­sists of 3 sep­ar­ate jabs. You need to leave 4 weeks between the first and the second and to get a 10year pro­tec­tion you need a third shot 6 months after that.
   • If you intend to go to rural areas in Asia then you should con­sider get­ting inocu­lated against Japan­ese Enzeph­al­itis. Also con­sists of 3 sep­ar­ate jabs. The second one needs to be done either 7 or 14 days after the first and the last on day 28 after the first.
   • Going to north­ern Africa, India or South­east Asia? If you answered yes, then you prob­ably need a jab for Typhoid. It’s only one shot and it gives 80% pro­tec­tion. I was one of the unlucky 20%. Believe me, you do not want to get sick with typhoid fever, unless you like pain.
   • If you’re vis­it­ing trop­ical Africa or South Amer­ica, then Yel­low Fever inocu­la­tion is a must. It’s only one shot, pro­tec­tion starts 10 days after the shot and lasts for 10 years.
   • As for mal­aria med­ic­a­tion: I don’t take it. I usu­ally have some emer­gency pills with me, that will get me to the next hos­pital. tak­ing them reg­u­larly made me always feel hun­gover, para­noid and bor­der­line schizo­phrenic for a few days. It’s my own per­sonal choice though.
   • IMPORTANT: You need to see a prop­erly cer­ti­fied doc­tor. He or she will tell you what shots you really need. In some coun­tries, like Ger­many, there are trop­ical insti­tutes that are spe­cial­ized on travel inocu­la­tions. After a shot you might feel a bit dizzy, unwell or even sick and the spot where you were injec­ted might hurt for a few days.

6. Pack your Gear!!

   Per­son­ally I think a back­pack is the only viable option to carry around your stuff, so make sure to get a sturdy one. One that with­stands the forces of nature, being thrown around, sat on, rained on, stomped on by angry water buf­fa­loes or peed on by silly dogs. The smal­ler the size of the thing the health­ier your back will be after a long walk search­ing for a spare gues­t­house room. Less is more! If in doubt don’t take it with you. It’s bet­ter to wash your shirts more often than to carry a sup­ply for 2 whole weeks. This is hard to do if you’re a girl, I under­stand that *Evil grin, which imme­di­ately gets fol­lowed by real­iz­a­tion that one made grave mis­take writ­ing this, but now has to live with the con­sequences*, but try to keep everything to a min­imum. Here’s some more stuff you should consider:

   • Pack some med­ical sup­plies. Just the basics should be enough. You can buy whatever else you’ll need when you actu­ally need it.
   • A large sarong type thingy is a good altern­at­ive to your usual towel. It’s light­weight and dries within 5 minutes in the sun.
   • Pack a deck of cards, a small chess set or some­thing sim­ilar. You’d be sur­prised how much need you’ll have for that.
   • A small wine opener is a must.
   • Well, these were just some sug­ges­tions. It’s up to you what to pack, but remem­ber that you have to lug it around as well.

7. Mis­cel­laneous Stuff

   Almost there. Just a few more bits of advice.

   • If you carry dive equip­ment or other bulky stuff, then you’re likely to carry more weight than is allowed by your car­rier. You can always scam your way on board without hav­ing to pay for excess lug­gage. Just tell the check-in guy that you called their hot­line a couple days ago and they said it was alright. Check in early as well, as the check-in people have more lee­way then.
   • Don’t for­get your pass­port or tickets!
   • Fly late after­noon or early even­ing. That way you won’t feel so guilty about empty­ing the plane’s alco­hol supplies.
   • Don’t listen to me on that last one. Alco­hol dehyd­rates you and you’ll be a lot more jet­lagged, not to men­tion the hangover. But still, it’s for free…
   • Take some tis­sues with you to the air­port. There’s prob­ably people need­ing those. The longer you stay away the more you’ll be needing.
   • Have at least a vague idea about where you’ll be stay­ing for the next few days and how to get from the air­port to the guesthouse

So, that’s it but keep in mind that this list is by no means exhaust­ive. Plans change. All the time. So just go with the flow and enjoy yourself.

See you out there, people…