I thought this travel lifestyle was meant to be easy. As is often explained, just cut out the unnecessary spending, save a few thousand pounds and off you pop for a lifetime of happiness.

Obviously the problem comes when that money starts to run out, what do you do? Well in our case, we set up home in Bangkok for a year to give the funds a little top up while Kirsty teaches English as a second language. Saving while working abroad, perfect! Problem is, That’s not as easy as it sounds.

Unfortunately, saving in Bangkok is not that easy as it sounds, in fact it doesn’t matter where we are. Anywhere that’s not our ‘boring old hometown’ makes it harder to save. We love where we’re from, it’s home to our friends and family but we’ve seen it all before, no excitement comes from walking out the door each morning.

At home my friends could come round on a Friday night and we’d stay in because we didn’t feel like we were missing anything by not going out. As I look out my window here across Bangkok’s skyline that’s not the feeling I get, I want to get out and make the most of being here, explore the streets.

Before we started our life here I remember us saying to each other “We’ll still live like backpackers and just save the extra money we’re making”, it sounds like a great rule to live by but in reality it’s a very tough one to follow.

We’re not backpackers anymore, we’re not waking up every few days somewhere new surrounded by new people. On the road luxuries such as nice food and fancy clothes meant nothing because so much else was going on, so much more to take in.

We’re not so easily distracted anymore, we have a routine, we hang around with the same people and go to the same places.

Perhaps a bit too much of this?

We want to go out to expensive restaurants, spend each sunday piggying out at the expensive buffet with all the other expats and go out and buy nice clothes. Wearing the same outfit every time I go out doesn’t cut it when we’re with the same people all the time. When I’m living a life that’s so much about making money, I don’t want to feel like I have to budget every last penny but there’s no other way.

This isn’t to say I’m not loving living in Bangkok because I am, that’s the problem, I’m loving it too much. I just wish I was a millionaire so I could make the absolute most of it, because that’s my biggest fear.

What if I live here for a year and don’t enjoy it to the level I could? I might look back at my time living in Asia with regret.

But there’s another side to the coin, I worry that if we do spend too much, go to the posh side of town each weekend and drink in the fancy bars and spend freely in the shopping centres that I might go home with nothing. I want to travel after Bangkok, I don’t want this to be the end of my journey.

At the moment, the truth is, we’re probably spending more than we would like, we try to avoid a few things to save money but the lure of many is too much to resist.

We’re trying to find a balance, one that gives us the best of both worlds, but is it possible? Have you taken time out of travel to increase your savings? How did it go? Did you reach your goal?

Saving While Working Abroad -

I’ve seen many posts about staying fit while travelling and thought I’d add my own thoughts into the mix.

Many of the younger backpackers out there are just living it up for a few months and don’t have the time to exercise or watch what they eat and nor do they want to. That’s not to say they don’t find other ways of staying slim:

The Shits: A fool proof way to lose weight and one that seems to be very popular, it’s a like a craze, everyone gets involved.

Not Eating: The moneys running a bit tight so you chose beer over meals, saves the money and the waist line.

Poi swimming in the street - all in the name of exercise.

Drunken Dancing: Throwing shapes, jumping around, it’s just like doing a fitness DVD minus the instruction and plus a Thai Bucket.

Sex with Strangers: They say sex is one of the best way to burn calories so why not?

Intense Sweating: Who needs exercise when you can lay on the beach all day and sweat heavily while getting sun burnt?

There you have it, 5 fool proof and completely healthy ways to keep the weight off on the road.
Can you think of any more?

Noplacetobe does not accept any responsibility for the death of or injury of any readers following these suggestions.

Alternative tips for staying fit and healthy? -

We’ve been on the road for over 150 days so I thought it’s a good time to look back at our choice in backpacks and see if we made the right decision…  In our first post on backpacks I wrote about how I chose from the hundreds available and things we were both looking for – now I’ll review whether those things are still important and if we still love them.

To recap:
I have the amazing Caribee Fast Track 75l and Poi’s has the Grand Air 70l.

Do you regret the size?
Well at first I thought mine wasn’t big enough, in the last few days before we set off I had to re-pack my bag under the eyes of Poi – “you don’t need that, you certainly don’t need the fourth dress? Are you really going to use all of this make up?” Surprisingly enough I haven’t missed any of the things I purged from my backpack (although some things did make their way back in before we left).

Now five months in we have chucked away A LOT of stuff! And if we didn’t have the space we could easily throw away a lot more… we carry it because we can! Given the opportunity (anyone want to buy us some bags) we would downsize, but we travel relatively slow so our bag size isn’t as big of a deal as it could be.

Poi's swish bag

Who carries what?
By the second or third stop we had got into a routine of who carries what. I have wheels so I drag around all the heavy stuff including the shoes, toiletries and books, whereas Poi carries anything that’s light(ish) in his backpack. I also have a day bag which we keep all the important/expensive stuff that we want to keep a close eye on – this never leaves my side! This works out quite well as Poi doesn’t need to worry about carrying a day bag on his front and I have a personal slave – my backpack is generally too heavy for me to lift up stairs and because I’m carrying his shoes/book/shampoo etc he has to carry it for me!

Are they missing anything – what would we change?
The fast track bag is designed so it can be used both as a pull along and a backpack but as you might imagine the main emphasis is on being a pull along bag. This means the straps for a backpack aren’t great and provide very little support. The bag is also very square and doesn’t fit on my back at all well.

nice and square

In the first write up I was looking for a bag that I could pull along and have the option to wear it on my back. I have never once done this; it’s so much easier to carry it when there is stairs so really I could just have any type of pull along luggage! It’s great having “the option” to in principle but if you really want wheels just get normal luggage, if you want a backpack get a backpack…

Overall
We both agree if we could start again we would maybe force ourselves into buying slightly smaller bags but for what they are we are very happy. One thing we would still definitely chose would be getting a front loading bag. They are just so much simpler to find things.

The best thing about Poi’s bag is the way it has two separate compartments in the main bag. He can separate his clean clothes from all our washing and find things really easy. As I’ve said above my bag is great because I don’t want to wear it on my back and it gives us an easier way to carrier heavier items – for this in particular Poi is very grateful.

And Finally – How many times has Poi accidentally smacked an old woman in the face on a bus with his bag?
Once.

Backpacks – revisited -

Two of our friends are starting a three month backpacking trip around South East Asia in January and recently they have started asking us what they should buy or put on their Christmas list.

So I thought it would be good to share with you guys; some of the things we can’t live without, stuff we ditched within the first month, what we have picked up on the way and others that are now on our wish list (but either lack of money or unavailability have stopped us from getting).

Our Essential Packing List for Backpackers

Things we can’t live without

Our netbook Samsung N145 - We have an earlier version, the N130 and we loved it from day 1. So far it has performed great, we can check e-mails, write blog posts, edit photos etc anywhere we want, putting it down is the hard part.

Olympus TOUGH – 8010 – I got the 8000 (technology moves too fast) for my 21st birthday as I am pretty accident prone and it hasn’t given up on me yet. It is really good for under water shots (it can go down 10m) and so far has survived being thrown around at waterparks and canyoning.

iPod touch 32GB – Poi’s classic gave up a few months before our trip, so was replaced by this. The apps are amazing and it is really useful on the go especially as we don’t have any phones!

Pacsafe Travel Safe – this was bought on a whim in a sale, but it’s used every day. We don’t carry much money or anything on us but use this portable safe, hidden in one of day bags on buses etc. When staying at hostels we attach it to a bed leg or something similar and we can leave our passports and credit cards locked up without worrying about them, even in the dodgy hostels. Great for peace of mind.

Pen and paper - Brilliant for writing down ideas or doodling, it’s so useful, we’ve even had to buy more!!!!

Flip flops – We wear them nearly everyday, I have Animal Swish Flops which are made of neoprene so they are really comfortable and Poi’s are more heavy duty ones from Karrimor

Things we originally packed but proved useless

Probiotics – I bought these as I read they can help with travelers sickness and counteract the side effects of our malaria tablets, but they tasted and smelt of sick! We stopped taking them after about a week and chucked the lot of them away. No regrets as yet.

Jeans – I didn’t tend to wear them much in the UK but Poi brought some along, by Hong Kong they hadn’t been worn once so they were ditched. I think if we were traveling in Europe or a cooler climate we would have kept them but Asia is far too hot

PacSafe 120 – We both packed one but we ditched one at second stop in Hangzhou. They’re heavy and a bit of a pain to use. Especially as we lock all our valuables in our portable safe. The other has been used on two train journeys and once in a hostel room in the past three months. The main reason it hasn’t been chucked is that we spent quite a bit of money on them.

Things we have picked up on the way

Another Netbook Samsung N150 - By Thailand we were getting fed up sharing one whilst the other had to use the iPod touch, so we took the plunge and got some money off because it’s bright yellow!

Canon PowerShot SX30 – We picked this up in Hong Kong and it has been invaluable ever since. It’s a good bridge camera and  takes better photos in a range of light conditions than my Olympus. My brother bought this for us to help out with his letter art photography business (it’s pretty good if you’re looking for a unique gift)

Bottle opener – self explanatory! But we made a rookie mistake of not bringing one!

Scissors – again, can’t believe we forgot these! So far they have been used for a range of things including cutting backpack straps and Poi’s hair!

Things we wished we packed (ahem our Christmas list)

Hair dressing scissors – We’ve been looking for these since Vietnam, I’m now Poi’s hair dresser, but as I only have blunt scissors he tends to get a bowl cut! They’re also useful for cutting fringes. We’re so desperate for these we’re getting them sent from the UK.

Amazon Kindle Wireless - before we left we thought this was “just another gadget” but now we’re on the road and we have had to carry 5/6 off books this is a smart idea. If you can afford it before you set off I would definitely recommend it.

Better day bag – I have a pretty good Berghaus 25 l bag, but in Asia I get hot and sweaty in seconds. If I could repeat my purchase I would buy one with a mesh back system so the main pack is away from my back like the DEUTER Futura 32 Backpack

Tea bags – this is more personal preference, but Poi really has been missing his tea, so next time we will pack a few for those craving days

Note: If you click on some of these links and buy the products we will receive a small percentage.

Essentials, Trash, Wants -

Over the last couple of months I have been researching how we should carry all our money round the world with us. Defiantely couldn’t be just in notes!!! I had a look at current accounts, most charge you an arm and a leg to use the card abroad – no go! Then I had a look at credit cards, a few of these charge you at 0% for using them overseas both in commission and loading fees. So now we have to look at our own bank accounts and finances to make sure we were getting the best deal whilst we were overseas.

From reading other blogs it seems that being in the UK we are pretty lucky to have free basic current accounts. Unfortunately somehow we may have taken advantage of this a little too much and now hold 6 different current accounts between us.  At the moment we are proud customers of Lloyds TSB, 2x NatWest, Barclays, Santander and Nationwide. They have all had their different uses over the years but it has come to the point where we need to close some of these down.

Three of these accounts are not really going to be useful while we are travelling so will be closed (natwest, Llloyds and Barclays). Nationwide use to be brilliant with 0% fees in Europe and a 1% fee worldwide, however in November this is changing to 2% fee everywhere, so will also now be closed.  So that leaves Santander, this will mainly stay open as their credit card offers brilliant rates abroad and we need at least one bank account to keep our millions in!

or gold??

Santander zero credit cards has 0% commission and 0 fees including withdrawal fees, but the downside, it does charge 29.9% interest on cash advances.  The only way to apply for the credit card is to have a current account, so we opened a joint account which will be our main account whilst travelling.  The current account also offers 6% interest on credit balances up to £2500, which is a lot better than most saving accounts.  However their debit cards are cards from hell when travelling charging you not only commission but a loading fee! We’ll be taking them just in case but hopefully will never need to use it.

Halifax’s clarity credit card just pips Santander zero as it offers a lower interest rate on cash advances – only 12.9%. This will be our main card for withdrawing money from cash machines and we have already set up a direct debit to pay it off in full at the end of each month.

Finally one of the NatWest accounts is my student account which kindly offers a 0% interest free overdraft for the next three years. So I have put the money to pay off this overdraft into a high interest account and will let it build up interest for a bit. (every little helps)!.

So overall we will have three credit cards and two Santander debit cards.  And Natwest will sit happily for the next three years building a bit of interest.

How have you managed your money whilst away? tips welcome….

Money makes the world go round -

We think travel insurance is pretty costly, at least £500 for both of us, although it is  expensive, we both agreed that it is mainly about insuring our peace of mind.  Kirsty is pretty accident prone (only she could go skiing and injure herself on the first slope) and her medical costs could easily rack up into the tens of thousands.  We’re also taking some pretty expensive stuff and would like to be covered if it gets lost or stolen and finally, we’re planning to do some dangerous sports so overall for our own good, mainly Kirsty’s, £500 is well worth spending.

What types of travel insurance are there

• Single Trip – cover for a short period of time usually up to 90 days
• Multi Trip – Annual cover for people who travel regularly, usually limited to 31days
• Backpacking – cover which is specifically aimed at people who will be travelling for a prolonged period of time.

Backpacking definitely sounded like us, so we started to research further into companies that were recommended for travellers. Straight to an insurance comparison website to have a look at all the different providers there are. The quotes at July 2010 were:

Companies

All quotes are for 12 months

World Nomads - £341 each

Sta travel – £101 each

ACE Holiday Insurance – £178 each

Down Under Travel Insurance – £187

Outbacker Travel Insurance – £124 each

Essential Travel Insurance – £142.99 each

Insurefortravel.co.uk - £181.69

Globe Link Travel Insurance – £165 each

Should you always pick the cheapest?

It depends, it’s all about checking the small print! Sometimes a cheaper policy charges higher excesses or they may not cover every activity you  plan to do.  We made sure we got insurance which will cover you for every eventuality rather than the cheapest.

We checked our insurance policy and the review sites to see if:

• We needed to be in your home country when you  take out the policy and when it finishes
• It covered cancellations and bankruptcy
• It covered all the countries we are likely to go to
• What the average response time if we do make a claim
• Can we specify how long we will be in the more expensive countries (USA)
• Are we able to tailor the policy if our plans change
• Does it cover us, if we are planning to work
• What extreme sports are covered, do we need to pay extra?

Sooo, who did we go for??

It has been difficult to chose some of the cheaper travel insurance plans as we have little set plans and insurance companies want to know everything up front.  World nomads offer flexibility on the road that is brilliant for us, if we decide to do something that is not covered by the policy we can just add it!

We are planning to insure ourselves at first for the cheapest cover with them, and then build on this if we need to. For example, when we go scuba diving about 5/6 months into our trip we will just change our policy online to cover us, doing this will save us over £100.

We are an affiliate of World Nomads, so any click throughs leading to sales will help to support this blog. Thanks

Travel Insurance -

Right now we’re in a weird stage of preparing for our trip, on one hand we fly just three weeks today but on the other I’m still working full time and Kirsty is on holiday (yup, she’s on holiday 3 weeks before we leave for the ultimate unlimited holiday).

The problem with this is, we still have plenty to do but not a lot of time together to get things sorted. So in order to ensure everything gets done that needs to be, Kirsty did one of her favorite things and created a list.

Take a look…….please tell us what we’ve missed??

General

Packing
Decide how much of my stuff Poi is willing to carry (none)
Pack Safety
Get malaria tablets
Try malaria tablets
Buy medicine that is legal in all countries we are going to
Sign up to foreign consulate website
Travel insurance

First Country

Get Chinese Visa
Decide where we want to go in China (we have a few options)

Money

Exchange money, how much and what currency
Sort out bank accounts – Close accounts.
Tell banks we are going travelling – no fraudsters have taken the cards
Decide where we are going to stash money

Bye Bye

Say goodbye to all our friends and family
Get drunk a few times and cry (Kirsty)

Flying

Go to the airport
Check in

GO!!

Many of these tasks are already underway but just need completing, we’re not that unprepared I don’t think, I say that now but I know we’re gonna be running round all over the show come the last few days…..all part of the fun?

Title Image: Flickr – John.Schultz

To Do List/Panic List -

All of the Visa’s are sorted out by the Chinese Visa Application Service Centre. Their website is really easy to navigate and is full of useful information, including flow diagrams of how to apply and how long it will take. It is a very simple process all you need to do is fill in a two page form, with all the basics including name, occupation and where you are planning to go.

There seems to be two sticking points however that may make the process a bit more tricky, if you are a journalist or you want to travel to Tibet. Both of these may result in being called in for an Interview so best to avoid if possible.

There are a range of visas that you can apply for but the one for us was of course ‘tourist’. We could either apply for a 30 day single entry visa or a 60 day double entry and seeing as we’re not quite sure how long we are plan on being in China, we could have been cutting it fine with just 30 days. Also remembering we planned on visiting Hong Kong before entering back into China, the double entry visa was definitely the one for us.

Creative Commons: Max Braun

There are two main ways you can apply for your visa:

Via post

This is the option we went for and found it very simple. All of the necessary documents are easily found on the website along with information on how to go about filling them in. Once you have filled in your application form, a payment authorisation form and completed your checklist, you simply send it all off by recorded delivery and your done. All that’s left is wait to receive your passport complete with visa back in the post.

The website advises that applying by post can take between 5 – 14 days, however we got it bang on the five mark which makes it just as quick as applying direct to the centre. The only negative of applying by post is that it cost us £30 more. £20 more in administration fees and £10 to send it via special delivery.

Direct to the centre

You can apply for either standard or express service in the centre depending on your needs. The express will give you a visa in three days and is £15 more expensive and the standard will give you a visa in four. You have to fill in the application form exactly the same as the postal service and book an appointment online to be seen at the centre. You then go to the centre at the allotted time and hand in your application form then return three/four days later to pick you your passport and visa.

We opted to for the postal service as there are only two centres (Manchester and London) and we don’t live anywhere near them.

The experience of getting a Visa for China was made very easy by an efficient process, lets just wait and see what it’s like when we want to enter Vietnam.

Title Image: Creative Commons – Flickr – Simon Hua

Chinese Visa – UK Application -

From very early on we had decided that one of the most important things we would buy for our upcoming trip were our backpacks. I really really really like shopping, but all this saving has forced me to buy less and less. So now I have replaced clothes shopping with window shopping for the perfect backpack.

When I first started looking I asked myself a few questions:

* How much space do I want? – 80/90 – I am a girl and a hoarder?!
* How much space do I need? – I settled for 65/70 litres
* Front or top loader – front for easier access
* Wheels or back? – I’m a bit of a weakling , wheels if possible
* What is my budget? – It was an investment so around £150

Creative Commons: Lululemon athletica

Why do you want a wheeled bag?

Speaking to a few of my female friends who had already been travelling, they told me that they wished that they had taken less stuff (no doubt I’m going to have to learn that the hard way) or they had a wheeled bag. One friend confirmed it would be possible to wheel a bag almost anywhere, other than stairs of course, which sounds great to me.

It seemed that most bags I looked at either didn’t have a pull out handle or were just to similar to a suitcase, unable to convert to a backpack. I wanted both, I already had experience of a wheeled bag without a pullout handle whilst travelling to the world scout jamboree in Thailand and vowed never to use such bags again!. It constantly flipped over and by the end of the trip I wanted to throw it out of the nearest window… and I only travelled with it twice!

On the other hand I didn’t really want to compromise on the backpack part and go for a suitcase. There might be times when it is necessary for me to carry it, and I wanted the option to do so.

So what did you go for?

I stumbled across Caribee, an Australian brand new to the UK. They make all sorts of different sized bags but most importantly, I had found my bag! The fast track model has wheels but a stable handle and also converts into a good backpack with lumbar support.

Me and my new Caribee pack.

Do you like it?

The bag is a bit on the heavy side weighing in at just under 4kg, but the wheels are big and I have tested it on a range of terrains in the UK and it has passed with flying colours. No flipping over, and whilst running for a couple of trains I’ve carried it on my back – perfect J

The only con of this bag is that when you attach the day sack to the front it does tend to fall over! Also the day sack isn’t that good with just very thin straps, especially when you compare it to poi’s so I decided to replace the day bag with my own for our trip. Apart from that though this bag seems pretty perfect, it has got a lot of space in it and does have a separate compartment at the bottom to put my shoes and dirty washing.

I love that this bag is front loading as it means I can get to my stuff easily and with the packing cubes I have just bought, I reckon I can just about keep my bag tidy (please don’t hold me to that).

Poi with his Caribee Grand Air, stuffed with pillows for affect.

How about Poi?
Poi’s bag was pretty much decided for him. He liked the sound of Caribee too (he’s not really into the whole research thing). His only preference for his bag was that he wanted it to be front loading and a backpack – no wimpy wheels for him. Within seconds of seeing the website he had settled for the grand air model. This is extremely comfortable and has plenty of features including lots of hidden away pockets for all those important items. He really did seem to get the better end of the deal, his bag looks great.

Inside of the Caribee Grand Air

And that’s it, we bought them a couple of months ago and now we’re just waiting to get on the road and give them a proper test…

Backpacks! -

So we only have one month to go now! (Did the title give that away?) Like I’ve said for every month marker it has come round so quick, each one being more and more significant, this of course being the biggie! Are we prepared and just waiting for the departure date to come round? Nope. We’ve still got loads to get done, so its panic stations all round.

To make things worse (how can things be bad we’re about to set off on the trip of a lifetime) Kirsty is away in Devon for two weeks with her parents so I’m left to do all the hard work myself. At least she is getting to spend some quality time with her parents before we disappear off, for who knows how long and where.

Whilst on the subject of where, we’re still not really sure what we’re doing after China yet. Its getting to that point now where we are starting to wonder if maybe we should have planned more. “No”, is of course the answer but heading off half way across the world with no real plans, is going to take some getting used to for us travel newbies, it’s normal to be nervous right?

Despite spending most of last month trying to promote the Radisson hotel competition we entered, we did get a couple of bits done. We finally got round to getting our visa’s for China sorted and they should now be back on their way to us. We also followed the crowd and got some (business/advertising? Not sure what to call them) cards made with Moo cards. When they arrived, a few days after ordering, I was well impressed with the quality especially considering how cheap they are, so definitely a good buy.

No Place To Be Moo Cards!

As for the competition, as you probably guessed we didnt win, I definitely would have mentioned it by now….. the best position we got to was 20th, even if it was only for a few hours, not bad considering over 11,000 people entered. A massive THANKS to everyone who helped out and voted! In a way I’m glad the competition is over, we can now get back to sorting things out for our trip and working on our blog, both of which were a bit neglected over the past few weeks.

On the non-travel front it has been a busy month as well, all in the same week we had Kirstys Birthday, her Graduation and our two year anniversary. Not one of these days did I actually see Kirsty, so the celebrating has to wait, they’ll be plenty of time for that though as not long from now we’ll be spending every single day together, Isn’t Kirsty a lucky girl!

So to sum up, we’re going away in four weeks, were not very prepared, we dont know where were going and we’re not going to see each other for the next two weeks. Never mind, several leaving dos are nicely planned, so we’ll get through them (and the subsequent hangovers) and then worry about the rest of it after!

One Month To Go! -