When planning my one year trip around the world, I predicted that I would spend the most money in the Middle East as well as Europe. After tabulating my spending breakdown for the entire year, I found out I was completely wrong!
In this one I share my total expenses after travel hacking, volunteering, visiting friends, and spending money to explore this beautiful planet we call home.
One of the unfortunate sides of long-term travel is that we alter the subtle details about our lives in a way to fit in and be inconspicuous.Â
If two Americans walking around gawking at food and architecture with giant cameras isn't obvious enough, we really don't want to draw more attention to ourselves and the valuables that we may or may not be carrying.Â
So while we may look like tourists no matter what we try, we do our best to make sure we don't look like rich tourists, especially ones that would be easy prey for pickpockets and robbery.
When looking at the items we typically carry with us, one stood out as being something that would easily jump out to all would-be robbers.
So sorry, wedding rings, but you have to go.
Keeping our upcoming RTW trip a secret for the last 2 1/2 years has been one of the most difficult things that we have ever done. There were many days where we just wanted to announce it to the world but kept it secret for this very moment.
Planning for it? Well, that's the easy part!Â
Since we couldn't talk about our itinerary until now we had to put our energy elsewhere, and researching the world's best destinations has been it. Â But now that our intentions are out, lets get into the fun stuff.
After many hours of research into where we want to go and the logistical issues of making it happen, we have put together an amazing list of destinations we'd like to visit over the next year and a half. We're not buying a RTW plane ticket or booking many guided tours as of yet, so our itinerary could be open for change at any time. But what we do have in mind is a great target to start with!
So let us take you into our plan; the RTW itinerary to end all RTW itineraries!
Since founding Living the Dream we've been on two long-term trips and have had three staff members go off on year-plus journeys of their own around the world. Over that time you can say we've learned a thing or two about what is essential in preparing a long-term travel packing list.
In the past, we've all published our own personal vacation packing lists for our different journeys, but we want to go further than that today.
You see, these lists are great snapshots as to what we've personally chosen to take on our own long-term trips, but they do not get into the details of why we chose an item, why they are important to have, and most importantly, what you need to consider before buying them, too.
To help fill the gap, this travel packing list guide was born!