What We're Doing to Prepare...May Edition

Things have been busy (as usual), but I wanted to give a quick update on our progress and what we've been doing lately to prepare for our trip.  Our preparations fall into two categories:  House Preparation and Trip Planning.

Since we've decided to sell our house, this is what we've done on that front:

• Decided to hold a yard sale this summer to sell what we don't want to store
• Talked to our neighbors to let them know we are interested in participating in the block sale they typically do
• Put a couple empty (not anymore!) boxes in the basement where we can put things that we want to sell as we find them
• Started going through our stuff, personal and shared, and put them aside in the boxes
• Made a list of the things we need to do to our house before we put it on the market (painting a couple rooms to be more neutral, repainting the bathroom ceiling, staining our front porch steps, tidying up the landscaping/re-mulching (check!!), etc)

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As far as the trip planning goes, this is what we've accomplished recently:

• We each made a list of our Top 10 places we want to go, if money was no object, and not necessarily as a part of our RTW trip, just thinking in general (both of us ended up with 14, many of which overlapped)
• I started a spreadsheet containing a list of potential countries we will visit where we can fill in things like visa requirements and costs, vaccination requirements and suggestions, and the high season  for each location (not that we necessarily want to go in high season - often we want to avoid it!)
• I'm currently reading a few books about sabbaticals, taking time off, and long-term travel.  I have picked up some pieces of good advice and things to think about, and a lot of the benefit of reading them to me is just reinforcement that we aren't alone and we are doing the right thing for us
• Started talking more and figuring out details about what we are going to do when our house sells, where we will stay in the interim, what we will do with our stuff
• More research on destinations and workaways

Some things we are going to get started on soon:

• Look into specifics about costs/requirements of storage facilities
• Start making a list of things we need to purchase for our trip (so we have ideas for birthday gifts, etc)
• Get in touch with our connections around the world to see if we can tap into any opportunities
• Touch base with a real estate agent
• Do more concrete research on transferring our car lease, etc
• Make some decisions about our destinations - can we afford what we want for the length of time that we want?
• Put a departure date on our calendar!!!!!!!!

Obviously, there is a lot more to do and I'm probably forgetting some things that we've already completed or have left to do, but this helps to draw a picture of some of the things we are thinking about/working on while we aren't working, sleeping, working out, or playing.  :)