One Year of Travel – What We’ve Learnt

First Year Anniversary

Our first year anniversary has ticked over.  It is so hard to believe that a year ago we made the biggest move of our lives.

Life as we knew it had changed forever.  With no home and all our worldly belongings packed away in a 7×3 metre storage unit we set off with no real set plans apart from the first house sit assignment confirmed in Thailand.

Well with 12 months under our belt we have travelled to 8 countries – Australia, Indonesia (Bali/Northern Sumatra), Malaysia/Borneo x3, Singapore x3, Thailand x3, Vietnam, Cambodia and China.

“We asked ourselves the question – do we have it in us to do this?  Sometimes the best answer is just fronting up.  Not caring how long it takes to get there.  Just knowing you had it in ya to leave in the first place”

To Plan or Not to Plan – That is the Question

Everything we read about long term travel said ‘do not make any plans, keep travel as fluid as possible’.

I knew straight away that this was going to be a challenge for me.  I am a planner.  It is what I did for a job for many years. All my friends were well aware of my ‘Lindy Lists’.  I loved to plan!

Because of our house sitting we do have to plan in order to be in the right place at the right time.  Timing is critical especially if you get ‘back to back’ assignments.  You need to know where you have to be and where – down to the exact day.

In between our house sits however, it is a different story.  We use this time to visit the country we are in or travel to one close by.  We usually have a rough itinerary in place but not down to the finer details (which is how we used to travel).  This leaves us with some flexibility. 

Booking Accommodation

‘Just wing it’ all the travel blogs say.  Apparently you can get the best deal if you just walk in.  Well this has not worked that well for us.

There are a few reasons why we like to book at least one or two nights ahead of our arrival.

1. Although we try to pack as light as possible, we still have 15kg packs and day packs.  This is a lot of weight to lug around wandering from place to place looking for that good deal.  It would be different if you had your own transportation to get around.  We do make a note of possible places to try and they aren’t always that close to each other.
2. Sometimes we arrive late in the day.  The last thing we want to be doing is traipsing around a strange place as darkness descends.
3. We have ‘winged it’ at a couple of destinations and we have found that we haven’t actually saved us much money.  Many of the places are managed by staff who are not authorised to ‘do us a good deal’.  There is a better chance of negotiating a reduction on further nights if you want to stay on extra to the initial booking.
4. There are certainly things our room must have and the biggest ‘deal breaker’ is AC.  We can handle the outside temperatures while sight seeing and walking around (just).  It’s less tolerable when you are trying to sleep or rest.  We have found that by doing our research, we can cover off a few essentials we want our room to have.
5. If we book one or two nights and we don’t like it, we can decide that we will move on and find somewhere else in the town.  We keep a look out on our walkabouts and call in for a room viewing and then negotiate the price with them.

Sight Seeing

Now this is when I do make a list.  If we are on limited time in a certain area, we will sit down and research the ‘must see’ in each area.  We then look at the price and discuss if it is worth doing.  Will it be worth spending the money and will we regret not doing it once we leave. 

This can sometimes be challenging. Examples of this would be:

1. We paid a substantial amount of money in Pemuteran, Northern Bali for a guided snorkeling trip.  The snorkeling in this area is world renown and rated to be in the top 10.  We decided to spend the money and it was a fantastic trip.  Because of this, we haven’t felt the need to book on any other snorkeling excursions since.  
2. Our stay in a forest retreat in Semilok, Borneo to experience the Orangutans and Sun Bear Sanctuaries.  Yes, it was luxurious but was so well located to both sanctuaries that it enabled us to spend more time at these facilities.  It was also the main reason why we had come to Borneo.
3. During our 12 months of travelling, we have only booked on one guided tour.  This was in China.  We decided to ‘bite the bullet’ and book a 8 day tour from Beijing to Shanghai in the lead up to our house sit.  In hindsight, we still think that this was the best decision for us.  China is a difficult country to travel around solo.  Yes it can be done but man is it hard.  There were more advantages than disadvantages with being on an arranged tour.  It made our Visa Application slightly easier (still a pain though) and also our travel and entrances into attractions more smoother (less lining up).  Although it blew the budget it was still worth doing.  

How House Sitting Has Worked for Us

House/Pet sitting has taken us to some pretty amazing destinations and we have stayed in some lovely homes.  When we originally came up with this idea, we thought that we could fit in some assignments between travels.  It has actually turned out that we fit in our travels between assignments.

Although it is free money wise,  it is not free time wise.  If you think that it is a free holiday opportunity you aren’t doing it right.  We make a point of ‘staying put’ during our assignments and the pets are our first priority.  This has so many benefits for the pet owner, the pets and us.

We are usually ready to come off the road by the time we get to our next assignment.  We’re more than happy to ‘be normal’ and play house for a while.  To cook meals in a real kitchen, to have a washing machine and a full size bathroom.

I get to catch up on my blogs and vloggs and to be able to sit down with a drink and watch a movie on Netflicks or Apple is a real treat.

It has been wonderful to meet such lovely hosts. We keep in touch with them all for updates on how they are getting on and what the pets have been up to.  Fortunately we have had invites back for resits which indicates to us we are doing a good job.

Over a 12 month period we have completed 14 assignments totaling 207 days.  This not only goes towards us meeting our budget goals, but giving us experiences that money could never buy.

Keeping to the Budget

How do you work out a budget for an adventure such as this?  Firstly we had to have something to base our formula on when trying to work out how we could make this dream work.

Having a rough time period that we thought we would be away from New Zealand for and a set amount of savings, it was a matter of dividing our savings by the amount of time away.  This worked out at $80 per day.

We also had our last trip to Vietnam to go off.  Our accommodation was similar to what we thought we would stick to this time.  Street food is never an issue for us and we prefer to eat this way anyway.  If we could include transport and sightseeing, we hoped that this amount would be achievable.

As it has turned out, Vietnam is the cheapest country to travel around.  This meant that the other countries we spent time in challenged us to try and keep within budget.  Even taking house sitting into account, it was difficult to stay within the range on a weekly/monthly bases.

In most of the countries we have visited, it is cheaper to eat out at food stalls than going grocery shopping and cooking a meal at home.  China has been the only exception where we have found home cooking to be far more economical in the area we stayed in.

So How Did We Do?

I’m meticulous at keeping a spreadsheet on our daily spends.  I have columns dividing what we spent our money on and how much.  This auto totals everything so that we can see at a glance how we are tracking.

Everything is taken into account.  This includes air fares, groceries/food/drink, transportation, doctors, dentists, medications, clothing/shoes, entry fees, tours, attractions, visa’s and even our treat luxury stays in Phuket and Bangkok.  Nothing escaped my evil eye. We did not include travel insurance or our medical health checks in Bangkok.

Averaged out over our 12 months of travel we have spent $93 per day.

This still seems a lot of money seem we have had so many house sitting assignments  We have had more air fares to get to some of our assignments so this has pushed the daily spend up.

Although over budget we are comfortable with our level of spending.  We haven’t missed out on seeing or doing anything in the places we have visited.  Yes, we have had to rough it at times.  Some of the forms of transport and accommodation have been challenging.  There are no fancy restaurants nor expensive bottles of wine (actually hardly any wine at all).  This has only enhanced the experience.  We can fondly look back and remember that bumpy, dusty ride on the local bus for 6 hours in Thailand.  The creaky, shared bathroom in the historical guest house in Georgetown, Penang.  Going bush in Northern Sumatra. The funny part is when we talk about memorable moments the two luxury stays are never mentioned, a big change from our previous travel life.

What Keeps Us Sane

Family and Friends

By far the biggest struggle is missing family and some major milestones that have happened while we’ve been away.

My darkest moment would have been when our daughter gave birth to our first grand child.  I fought with the urge to return to New Zealand to try to be of some assistance and to meet our grandson.  I will always remember the moment he was born, I was in the middle of a huge shopping centre in Malaysia and we were trying to get a SIM card so that I could have mobile data.  When the news came through I had what you might describe as a ‘mini meltdown’ in the middle of the mall.

The sad passing of Scotty’s mum was another moment we needed to push through.  Although expected, it was still a time that we felt very far away from everyone.

The marvels of social media means that we can still be part of these milestones in real time.  The video chats back home are a great way to catch up and keep up with what’s going on.

We really appreciate the time our friends make to keep in contact with us and to show an interest in what we are doing and where in the world we are.  We are always interested in hearing what is happening in their lives and it is certainly our major lifeline to home.

Blog and vloggs

Blogging about our trips and making videos is extremely time consuming.  It is not something I usually do when we are on the road so our house sitting gives me a good opportunity to catch up on our travels.

I’m not the most technical minded person so creating our own travel website and Youtube channel was challenging.  The video editing takes the most time as often I have many hours of footage and photos to cut down into a 10-15 minute movie.  

If no one else reads them or sees the videos, it is still a great personal record of our life and I can’t think of a better way of archiving all the things we’ve seen and done.

I try to keep them as informative as possible with the hope that we may be able to assist someone else who may be thinking of travelling an area we have been to.  We read many blogs and watch countless Youtubes when deciding on a destination.  We find that this is a great way to research. To read and watch fellow travellers first hand experiences.

House Sitting

As mentioned earlier, house sitting has enabled us to take time out from being constantly on the road.

There is actually some truth in saying that you can have too much of a good thing.  It would be difficult and exhausting to just keep constantly travelling.  Seeing and doing something new everyday does have its limits.

If we didn’t have house sitting then we would certainly be looking at having some ‘stay put’ time and consider leasing an apartment for a month or more.

Down Time

Thankfully we kept our subscription to Netflicks and access to Apple Movies.  We look forward to sitting down in the evenings with a drink and watching movies.  This is our chill out time together.

Scotty will often put on a movie or two while I’m working on the next blog or vlog.  He gets to watch all the action/war movies he likes without us having to debate the caliber/quality or necessity of having to watch it!!

Exercise

We do try to keep as active as possible.  This is usually in the form of walking or hiking.  This is especially achievable when we are looking after a dog which requires a walk 3 times a day.  We aim for a daily distance of 8-10 km.  More challenging in the tropical heat that’s for sure.

Our Essential Must Have’s 

We watched many Youtube videos on what you should pack for long term travel.  You need to make everything you pack count.  Justification needs to be made as to why this item is taking up room in your pack.  Is it worth the weight to lug it everywhere.

It is the little things that can make your life on the road a little bit more comfortable.  Things that you may not have even thought about.

These are some of our ‘must have’ that are in our pack:

1. Good devices.  ipad, tablet, desktop computer (we use Surface Pro), multi-port travel adapter with USB charging ports, HDMI adapter (to plug into TV to watch movies off devices).
2. Not only do we swear by packing cells, but we also use straps to bind them into a roll.  This doesn’t save on weight but it certainly saves on space.
3. Ice cube containers (I know what you are thinking) these have come in so handy.  There is nothing better than having ice to put into your beer or gin and tonic at the end of extremely hot day tripping around.  Many of our guesthouse rooms had fridges with a small freezer compartment.  I found these chocolate molds in a shop in Langkawi which stack inside each other.  They have made the best ice containers with minimal space.
4. Collapsible silicone cups (hot/cold).  These have come in very handy as not all rooms come with cups or glasses.  Perfect for those happy hours or night caps.
5. Portable clothesline (self explanatory really).  Liquid laundry detergent is great for hand washing (better than soap or body wash) but also great for those times we have been lucky enough to have a bath in our room.  The detergent works wonders as you walk backward and forward (like grape stomping I suppose).  The liquid is carried in a small drinking bottle to cut down on space.
6. Silicone ear plugs.  These a lot more comfortable and more efficient than the foam plugs.   
7. Comfortable shoes.  This is something that we have invested money in.  Because of the walking we are up to our 3rd pair of trainers.  Good quality walking sandals are also a must.  We recommend Keens as I have had mine for 4 years now and must have trekked hundreds of miles in them and they are still going strong.  I won’t win any fashion awards with them but I am long past the point of caring about that.
8. Good mobile phones.  Some of the best photos we’ve captured have been on our phones.  Always purchase a local SIM card and mobile data plan upon arrival in a country.  A mobile with a local SIM makes life so much easier.  We have both been very impressed with my Huawei Mate 9.  I brought it before leaving NZ mainly because it takes a dual SIM card.  This means I can still keep my NZ SIM active whilst using a local SIM.  However, the best feature has been the camera.  It can take the most amazing photos (except for night shots – can’t beat our Sony A6000 mirrorless camera for that one).
9. VPN – this ensures a secure internet connection wherever you are.  We were using Tunnelbear. In China we had so much trouble accessing our usual websites we have switched to Express VPN.  This has been way better and quicker.  You can also be confident when online banking that your connection is safe.

A Country Round Up

This has been a hard one to determine.  Each country has had its highs and its lows.  Although it is difficult to generalise, we have come to the following conclusions:

Favorite Destinations 

We loved travelling to Kanchanaburi and Sangklaburi, Thailand.  At times it was challenging as all travelling involved local transport but that is what made it our most favorite experience at the end of the day. 

We were amazed and surprised at the beauty of Lake Toba in Northern Sumatra.  The people were so friendly on Samosir Island and getting around on a scooter was easy, safe and so rewarding.

Tam Kok in Vietnam was one of our memorable highlights also.  Although it was our 3rd visit to Vietnam we hadn’t visited this area before and we’re so glad we put it on the list this time.

Most Surprising 

Singapore was never on our places to visit.  The cost alone would have been prohibitive for our budget.  As luck would have it, we were accepted for a house sit there.  We have since been back for a total of four sitting assignments.

Having the luxury of time up our sleeves, we found the island to be full of cheap or free activities.  The walks, hikes and bike rides are endless. 

Eating doesn’t have to be costly either.  Of course you can go for drinks at Raffles Hotel and pay $34 for a Singapore Sling but we hunted out some amazing Hawker Centres (their version of street food).  Meals would cost us between $3 to $4 each.  Much cheaper than getting groceries and cooking at home.

Another pleasant surprise is that tradition and culture is still very much alive in a heavily commercial and westernised environment.  You just have to dig a little deeper to find it. 

Most Challenging

Borneo

Borneo was hard going for the time that we were there.  In hindsight I think that it is a country where an organised tour would be more beneficial than independent travel.

There is a lot of travelling involved to get to each destination.  It may have worked more to our advantage time and money wise if this had been included in a tour.

There is a waiting list if you want to hike up Mt Kinabalu.  Tour companies have set bookings so take small groups regularly.  We would have had to book at least 6 months in advance if we were to do it on our own.  This was not practical for us.

Sandakan which is situated on the eastern side of the island was the place where I felt the most unsafe.  Because of the unrest in the area there was an uneasy and uncomfortable feeling throughout the town.  It made us feel uneasy walking the streets and we didn’t venture far from the hotel.  It didn’t help when we saw military and police officers walking around in 4’s with sub-machine guns strapped across their fronts.

China

The language barrier makes China extremely difficult to get around.  We were pleased we ended up doing a guided tour prior to our house sit.  There are only a few signs in English, even at domestic airports.  This would have been a nightmare to navigate our way around on our own.  Due to the reluctance of many of the locals to speak English, getting assistance proves to be challenging.  It is also an expensive country to sightsee in.  The cost of getting to and going into the more popular sites certainly adds up quickly.  Who even knew that the winds from Siberia blow directly through Beijing…..jeez it was cold!! 

 What Have We Learnt

Firstly, New Zealand is a beautiful country.  We have the best reputation in the world for our beauty, our people and our safety.  There has not been one person to criticise us or where we come from.  Everyone speaks highly of New Zealand and they all want to visit some day (or have been in the past).

This makes us proud of who we are and where we come from.  It also makes us very aware of how lucky we are to call NZ our motherland.

Secondly, we never stop learning.  By listening to other travellers experiences we make up our minds on what is best for us.

We have met some amazing people on our journeys and thanks to social media, are able to keep track of them all and keep sharing our experiences.

“The best stories are when strangers end up together in an unfamiliar place.”

Where to From Here

Well we have some more house sits confirmed so we are not done yet.  We are all set for another year of adventures with new countries and new experiences.

When will we have had enough?  I can’t answer that question at the moment.  We’re not done with this life yet.  It will be either when we run out of our travel stash or we find something else that we want to do more.

“It didn’t start off as an adventure, it started off as a risk.  The next new thing is somewhere ahead”