Home :: Journey with Gina
:: FAQ's
How much did it cost?
How long were you gone?
Did you travel solo?
Were you afraid?
How did you pack?
What was the weather like?
How much money did you take with you?
Did you quit your job?
How did you pay your bills?
Did you give up your apartment?
What did you do with your car?
Did you send postcards?
Did you need shots?
Do you speak other languages?
Was it hard to handle your vegetarian meals?
Did you take pictures?
How much did it cost to have all of those pictures developed?
How did you send your columns?
Did you keep a journal?
Were you afraid of getting sick?
Was it hard to plan the trip?
Q: How much did it cost?
Traveling in modest comfort for six months will cost you about $20,000 for transportation, lodging, food, fun, taxes, visas and insurance. Choking on the price tag? Here's some perspective: A BMW, an in-ground pool and carpeting for a 3,500-square-foot house each costs more than a trip around the world. Here is a reliable cost calculation that might sound better: $100 a day for the length of your trip. This is an average figure since some countries will cost less than others.
Q: How long were you gone?
Five months.
Q: Did you travel solo?
Yes. I put my world travel dream on hold for ten years in the hope that a companion would appear. It didn't happened. I'm in accord with a friend who said of her decision to travel to Europe solo when her companion canceled at the last minute: "I thought it was better to do than to regret."
Q: Were you afraid?
Yes. I had a general foreboding of the unknown, a cloudy conjecture about what I might encounter and my ability to handle it. I went anyway. One of my favorite quotes says, "We plan according to our hopes, we make decisions based on our fears." Not fulfilling my ten-year dream would have been a fear-based decision. I try not to make decisions from that place.
Q: How did you pack?
I took one medium-size canvas duffle bag with wheels and packed with room to spare for odds and ends collected along the way. A light, roomy bag doesn't pull muscles and allows for ease of mobility.
I began packing three months before my departure. For two months, I tossed in whatever I thought I might need. I also wrote down on slips of paper, items I had yet to purchase, and I packed them, too. A month before I left I revisited the bag, this time using a discerning packing formula: Take half as many clothes and twice the amount of money as you think you'll need.
Q: What was the weather like?
Because of my travel direction, destinations and the time of year - April to September - it was hot everywhere except for New Zealand and Australia where winter had just begun. Other than the one day it drizzled while I visited Bali, the trip was rain-free.
Q: How much money did you take with you?
$800 in American Express Traveler's checks and $200 in cash. Ordinarily, I would not carry that much but I was on a cruise ship for the first forty days of my world tour, stopping at remote ports like Easter Island where there are no ATMs. After I exhausted the cash and checks, my bankcard served me during the rest of the trip. I find ATMS to be the best way to access money overseas since the machines dispense the currency of your host country and provide the best bank-to-bank exchange rate. At the time I was traveling the fees were nominal but they have begun to increase to as much as $3 per overseas transaction and two per cent of debit and credit card purchases.
Q: Did you quit your job?
Yes. But that certainly isn't a requirement for taking a trip around the world! For me, it was a deliberate part of a larger plan to launch a new career as a writer. Though my employer gave me the option to take a leave of absence, I declined. The people I know who have traveled around the world all took successful leaves of absence and if they wanted them, had jobs when they returned.
Q: How did you pay your bills?
I enlisted the help of what I call a "Home Coordinator." My home coordinator paid my bills, screened the mail, checked my apartment and held the authority to act on my behalf in an emergency. A home coordinator is someone you know well, whose judgment you trust, who has a track record of reliability and who isn't planning any major life changes while you are away.
Today, online bill payment is common and could be transacted while traveling. But when I'm on vacation, I don't want to bother with paying bills other than the ones I incur at the time of my trip. Next time, I will pay what few bills I have through automatic checking withdrawals.
Q: Did you give up your apartment?
No. Though I would have liked to sublet it, I could find no takers.
Q: What did you do with your car?
Initially, I planned to store it. But my insurance company would only cover my car if someone planned to drive it. I asked that my home coordinator be listed temporarily on the policy. The insurance carrier mandates that persons named as alternate drivers be relatives. I indicated that since they would not cover storage or drivers unrelated to me, there seemed no logical reason to maintain my policy while traveling. After checking with her supervisor, the insurance company representative informed me that they would make an exception.
Q: Did you send postcards?
Ordinarily, I don't send postcards. For a trip of this magnitude it especially seemed like overkill, since I was writing a weekly column about my trip for a newspaper's website. But friends and family still wanted cards. They all said, "Just send one. You don't have to send them from every country."
I printed self-adhesive address labels and created a name list. As I mailed each card, I crossed off a name. Midway into my trip I had worked my way down the list. When I returned home, friends told me how much they appreciated receiving a personal card, and I felt glad to have made the exception on this special journey.
Q: Did you need shots?
Yes - for Polio, Yellow Fever, Typhoid and Hepatitis A. The Yellow Fever inoculation is required for entry into certain countries and it acts like a passport: If you don't have your inoculation card, local authorities will not allow you entry into their country. Some will offer inoculations on the spot but you may risk other kinds of infection should needles not be sterile. The other vaccinations I took at the suggestion of an infectious disease specialist.
Q: Do you speak other languages?
I have about a 50% facility in Spanish and my French is at 20%.
Q: Was it hard to handle your vegetarian meals?
No. I've been a vegetarian for nearly twenty years and I'm accustomed to managing my dietary concerns on the road. When English, French or Spanish weren't options, I used my "I am a Vegetarian" translation cards purchased from a company called, The Vegetarian Traveler in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The pack contains cards in sixteen different languages specifically describing what vegetarians or vegans will and will not eat.
Q: Did you take pictures?
Over 2,000. They are my favorite souvenirs. For my personal photos I used a 35 mm automatic with zoom lens and a digital camera that the newspaper loaned me for the pictures that accompanied the column. For trips of three weeks or less, I usually shoot with a manual 35 mm with a telephoto lens. If I'm in the mood to schlep more equipment, I'll also bring my wide-angle lens and an indoor flash attachment. For a trip of this duration, I preferred a camera that was lighter and less cumbersome, especially since I was managing two of them.
Q. How much did it cost to have all of those pictures developed?
About $300. Thank goodness for Snapfish.com. Currently, Snapfish charges $2.99 per roll and an additional $1.99 for shipping and handling. For $5.00, customers receive prints, negatives and unlimited digital storage on the Snapfish website. Customers can also share individual photos or entire albums with friends and family via the Internet. Anyone who wants copies of your pictures can purchase them on line with their credit card without involving you at all.
Other than being a satisfied customer, I do not have any other business or personal relationship with Snapfish.com. I just think the service is high quality, the best available for the money and is a boon to travelers like me who enjoy shooting large quantities of film. Compare for yourself.
Q: How did you send your columns?
Via 3.5 inch floppy disc from Internet cafes all over the world.
Q: Did you keep a journal?
Yes. It is a combination of my research notes, drafts of my published columns and lots of stories that are just for me.
Q: Were you afraid of getting sick?
What we focus on expands. So I focused on good health. In five months of travel to 21 countries, the only sickness I experienced was seasickness and I used ginger pills and behavior modification - fixing the horizon, keeping my stomach relatively empty - to manage it. I also took reasonable precautions before and during my trip: I visited an infectious disease specialist who is a world traveler, received the suggested inoculations and packed prescription antibiotics. I washed my hands regularly and when I couldn't, I used travel wipes. I took a multivitamin daily, drank bottled water, kept alcohol to a minimum and honored my body's sleep requirements.
Q: Was it hard to plan the trip?
No. The hardest part was deciding to go. Originally I had planned to cruise for four months so the itinerary was already established. But forty days into the cruise, the company operating the ship declared bankruptcy, which forced all passengers to disembark in Tahiti. I hadn't booked the trip directly with the cruise company but with a reputable travel organization, which refunded my money.
I began anew with the help of a Family/Independent Travel planner based in Connecticut who worked with different custom travel companies to arrange my new world itinerary. It took two weeks. This time I would travel by plane on an east-to-west open air ticket. The abrupt change in travel mode and itinerary created a much richer world tour and showed me that I was capable of handling whatever I encountered.
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