Summary of our Countdown List

INTRODUCTION: How does one go about planning for a career break? START A LIST! My indispensable 2Do iPhone app kept me on task. Now that we are transitioning from the Planning Phase to the actual Trip, I recently decided to go through and publish the list of things we accomplished over the past 6 months in the event that someone may find this information useful. I know there are things we forgot to ‘write’ down on our list, but here’s the general idea.

BACKGROUND: We are a married couple in our 40s with a furry child (aka. dog), living a relatively simple life in a quaint neighborhood of Kansas City. We have resigned from our jobs and are about to spend our savings on a trip around-the-world for 8 months. We have a house/dog-sitter and we will continue to pay our household expenses while on the road. Although we’ve been daydreaming about such a trip for a while, we started getting serious about 6 months ago.

Read further for our 6-month, 4-month, 2-month, 1-month, and 1-week checklists....

Housesitter + Dogsitter

If we didn't love our dog so much, this trip wouldn't be so difficult on our emotions and finding her a wonderful dog sitter while we are gone!  If we didn't have the dog, it's very likely that we would make a clean break and sell our house or put it up for rent.

We went back and forth with options for maintaining our household and dog in our absence, and we kept going back to finding somebody who loves dogs, who would be willing to live in our house and watch our dog in return for free rent.  Hmmmm.  That's a "tough" decision for anyone, really.  Free rent plus being a temporary dog owner without the permanent responsibilities?  Sign me up.

Another good reason to break the ice about our trip to everyone we know, is to ask for leads on potential house/dog sitters.  In a short amount of time, we actually had several viable leads from reliable sources.  We were very hopeful that we didn't have to go through a house/pet sitter service and begin interviewing strangers who would suddenly become entrenched in our very personal lives.

Ultimately, however; our first hopeful choice was a friend of ours who already watches our dog when we are out-of-town and is familiar with our house.  Our wish was to not pressure our friend into doing something she didn't really want to do.  So, we waited patiently and established other leads, just in case.  It's great news for all of us that she has committed to staying at our house for the entire time.  We couldn't be happier with the decision and a huge weight has been lifted of our worrying shoulders.

Now, we can move onto other worries...such as making a decision on health insurance and so forth.

Everyone Has Been Informed...We Think

It took a few weeks, but we think everyone we have any connection with on a regular basis has been informed of our upcoming plans.   Letting people know at my work was difficult because of the tremendous sense of responsibility I feel for the work I do, and the perceived difficulty in the near future of transitioning the workload to someone else.  I also work with amazing and fun people, who I will miss dearly.  They have been extremely supportive of everything that has gone on over the past few years, and our upcoming round-the-world plans!  I also felt guilty notifying my fellow officers in the professional associations that I serve on, due to the inevitable and unfair inconvenience I will cause them.

All-in-all, everyone has been nothing but supportive and agree that this is a wonderful opportunity.   That makes us feel a lot better.  We haven't had to answer the curious questions.  Everyone seems to understand why, and longingly wishing that it were them instead.

4-5 month advance notice at work is more than adequate, but a few of the main reasons we wanted to let people know was because we wanted to talk freely about our plans.  It wouldn't be fun, keeping it from our co-workers who we see everyday.  Another reason is to secure a leave-of-absence, if that is an option on the table.  It's better to start the conversation with your employer sooner than later, to give them time to work out the logistics with Human Resources and such.

So, we think the cat is completely out of the bag now.  If not, it was unintentional.  Now you know!

Creating Web Profiles - www.airbnb.com

I went ahead and created an airbnb online profile. Why now? I think it takes some effort and thought into creating a profile that resonates with other members who may be willing to rent their space to us. We don't want to sound creepy or suspicious or anything! Also, the profile reveals your track record and how long you've been a member. I figure, it's better to start building a long-standing membership profile now, hoping for good reviews and references. Next? Set up some house sitter profiles. You never know when we can jump on an opportunity overseas to house sit.

Maintaining Health Insurance During a Career Break. Who Knew There Were So Many Considerations!

Although we feel our travel insurance would be adequate while traveling, what happens if one of us needs medical attention and we are sent back to the States?  Unfortunately, travel insurance typically ends as soon as you land on U.S. soil.  A more likely scenario is upon our return where there is a vulnerable period where the travel insurance will no longer protect us, yet we may not be employed in order to qualify for employer-provided-healthcare.  Even if we did find employment, there may be a pre-existing condition clause with a waiting period on that policy.  Either way, we would be uninsured when we return to our “real” lives – something that makes us very nervous. 

One way to avoid being uninsured when we return is to maintain continuous coverage in the States during our absence.  Sounds easy enough, but apparently it’s very complicated.  A couple of excellent blogs have helped highlight some of the complexities with health insurance in the States.  Both blogs are available through the Meet, Plan, Go website.  They are both, a “must read”:  TravelHealth Insurance Providing Creditable Coverage and HealthInsurance for American Travelers.   Frankly, we hadn’t even thought about needing to maintain health insurance in the States while we travel, but after reading these blogs, we definitely think that is the way to go. 

Let us break it down for you.

International Power Plugs

When using electronics from the US in other countries, you need to ensure you have a converter to convert the foreign voltage and frequency to US standards (110v & 60hz); otherwise, you will run the risk of frying your electrical item since most other countries use voltage greater than 110v.  Also, you will need adapters so your US plugs will be able to actually plug into the sockets in foreign countries.   The only electrical items we will carry are our iPhones.  Luckily, Apple had the forethought to make the standard USB plug converter that comes standard with most apple products - including iPhones - capable of running on voltage from 110v to 240v and both standard frequencies (50hz & 60hz).  So, we will not need an actual converter; only the adapters to allow us to plug it in. 

I used the following web site to help determine which plugs/sockets are used in the over 20 countries we plan to visit so we could get those adapters. http://users.telenet.be/worldstandards/electricity.htm

Although a lot of the countries we will visit have different sockets, the European "C" plug is compatible with most of them.  The "C" doesn't work in the US or Japan, but that is okay since our normal plugs work there. The only adapters we think we will need are the "C" and the "I" that is used in Argentina. We could just buy simple adapters fairly cheap, but we bought the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit for ~$40. It has more adapters than we need, but felt more comfortable using the Apple products since we know the quality is great and they are made to work specifically with Apple products. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB974ZM/B 

We could probably get by with just one set of adapters, but we'll plan on two sets so we can charge both our phones at one time.  No need to start friction on who gets to charge first. I'm sure there will be plenty of other opportunites for disagreement along the way :)

P.S. Since the iphones coverter is actually connected via an USB cord, you could also just plug that into any computer to charge the iPhones.