Planning

Not but three weeks into our year-and-a-half-long journey around the world did I realize my backpack had a hole in it.

Not just a tiny hole, one that you’d see after it was scraped against something sharp, but a big gaping hole along a seam that was only going to get bigger with each passing day.

Although my pack was almost 5 years old at the time, I was surprised that this had happened so quickly.  Not only that, it was at the bottom of the bag, one of the worst places it could have occurred.

Cue panic.

After a few minutes composing ourselves, we figured out a rather robust repair that lasted the duration of our trip.

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One thing I really hate when being out in the winter is having cold hands and feet. The rest of my body can deal with cold just fine with layers, but cold appendages, particularly when I’m skiing, are the worst- so much so that I often found myself quitting for the day, not because I was tired or had my fill, but because my hands or feet were far too cold.

So I went for the overkill method of staying warm and acquired a good pair of heated gloves and heated socks to wear while skiing. But I was curious, are these really a game-changer, or are they more of a novelty that only works part of the way?

While I am over-the-moon thrilled with how effective my gloves are, the socks are a different story. Although I’m glad to have both, I want to share some thoughts on each in this one.

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When you head out on a long-term trip, every single person you meet will ask you what your favorite experience has been. We have been asked this question hundreds if not thousands of times, and for several months it was very hard to answer as we have had just too many great experiences to pick the very best.

As a way to share our favorite experiences and give you inspirations for activities to do on your own long-term trip, we decided to put together a ranked list of our Top 10 experiences, destinations, restaurants, and moments from around the world.

When reading, keep in mind that we haven’t been everywhere. This list represents our favorite experiences, from all of the destinations we’ve been to, and will be updated as we travel more and find great experiences that make the Top 10.

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For the first route change of our year-and-a-half long trip, we were hit with a big one.

Just a few weeks before heading to Egypt a new batch of protests began. These protests were not like the previous ones, and I had a horrible feeling that our plans were about to change.

Within days of the protests that began in July 2013, the US government released warnings to avoid travel to Egypt as well as a “global warning” that was mainly focused on travel to the Middle East.

After discussing it with a friend who was coming to visit us in Egypt, we decided to change our plans.

We had one problem: Angie and I had already booked $857 worth of non-refundable plane ticket from Expedia for an itinerary of Istanbul to Cairo (Egypt Air),  Cairo to Istanbul (Egypt Air), and Istanbul to Bucharest (Tarom).

Not resigning ourselves to lose that money, our quest to cancel our Expedia itinerary and get a refund began.

If you find yourself in a similar scenario, you may need to try one of the following methods to get a refund for your non-refundable plane ticket.

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