…and Then PNC Changed the Foreign ATM Withdrawal Rules

The issues that go along with spending upwards of $75,000 on a vacation is not something most travelers ever have to consider.  But for our 18 month trip around the world, we were faced with some new challenges for this same reason. 

While the argument for how much a journey like this should cost is best served for other articles, one of the biggest struggles long-term travelers have to face are the bank fees that are associated with such a large amount of spending.

After many years of paying comically high fees without any other recourse, banks are finally starting to understand the fact that people do not want to pay foreign transaction fees to access their money. We thought we found a great policy with our bank, PNC, but the honeymoon was soon over just 6 months into our journey as the terms were recently changed back to the archaic fee structure we were trying to get away from. 

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How to Travel Chitwan to Varanasi in the Same Day


To have your concept of a slow travel day be completely redefined, take a vacation to Nepal. Where traveling a 200 km distance at home would take a little under 2 hours, that same distance between Kathmandu and Pokhara will take around 7.  No matter the route, a long and bumpy ride is in your future when traveling in the country, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

So when the time came for us to depart Nepal for neighboring India, we got very excited. Not so much for all the things worth seeing in India, those go without saying, but rather due to the fact that we can get back to using trains as our primary mode of transit.  They are just as slow as anything else, but being able to walk around or stretch out on a bed can make a considerable difference during a travel day that seems like it will never end.

But before we could get back to our favorite mode of travel, we had one large hurdle to cross. One long day that I have always considered to be my most dreaded of this 18-month trip: traveling from Chitwan National Park, Nepal to Varanasi, India.

That day had arrived, and we were mentally prepared for a long and tiring journey going to a city that is, quite frankly, not that far away.

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F.A.Q. About The Trek to Everest Base Camp You Need to Know

During our research for the trek to Everest Base Camp in Nepal, we had a hard time finding answers to questions we thought were of absolute importance. 

Questions like “how do you buy used gear and sell it later?” and “what are the rooms like?” were met with very few responses that did not help us in the slightest.

So rather than putting together comprehensive guides for the trek like our friends at The Planet D and Escape Artistes did, as we highly recommend them, we're looking to the more obscure.

This F.A.Q. article has been designed to answer the questions that you may not find good answers for elsewhere (because we did not in many of our searches before the trek). 

Some of the questions included are a bit more common, too, but are important enough or asked enough that we felt we had to share our input as well.

It is also worth noting that our trek was done in the end of November when the temperatures were dropping but not incredibly cold (the coldest night was -20C, but always warm-to-hot during the day). 

Likewise, some of these questions may be seasonal, and we can only offer our input keeping this in mind.

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Wahiba Sands – An Overnight Dune Bashing Adventure in Oman

Truck Tracks in the Sand in the Wahiba Desert, OmanAs the desert accounts for roughly 82% of the land mass of Oman, you would be, quite literally, missing a large part of the country by skipping a trip out into it.

Our trek into the desert was only a one night stay at a camp located about 30 kilometers inside the Wahiba Sands region of the country, and turned out to be the highlight of our stay in Oman.

The following photo essay is a selection of our best photos from the 400+ we took during our overnight stay in this stunning destination.

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