As I have told you before, I am leaving my beloved city, Berlin, my friends and family behind to go out of my comfort zone and see the world alone.
It was not an easy decision, but that is another story you can read about here: https://compartilheviagens.com.br/travelling-alone-for-6-months-about-26-hours-away/
Before I can travel the world tomorrow with a free mind, I had to organize a lot of things at home… In this post I want to share with you what you need to know before you leave your city for good.
After I decided to travel on my own, I had to check my bank account. How much money is there? Then I had to make a choice of how I would like to travel. As I prefer to meet local people, I am very happy to use couchsurfing.com or work in little projects to get accommodation or food for free. Therefore, I decided I will need about 40,00 Euros per day including everything (accommodation, food, transportation, activities, etc.). In case you prefer to stay in a hotel or you want to eat in every nice restaurant, you should easily consider about 80,00 Euros per day. After that decision, it is just mathematics for how long you could travel. Of course you should always have some “emergency money” in case something unexpected happens and it costs more than you thought.
I hope I can travel about 6 months. Afterwards I had to decide where I want to go and book flights. As I want to travel independent, I decided to book just a one-way ticket to Bali, Indonesia with no flight back. First of all, because I don’t know for sure when and second of all because I don’t know yet from which country I am flying back to Germany.
The next step was to find out if I need to apply for a visa for Indonesia. As a German, I don’t need to apply for a visa in advance but in order to get a “Visa free visit” for 30 days in Indonesia, I already need a flight out of the country. So I searched for the cheapest flights out of Bali and surrounding via Skyscanner.com and found the flight from Lombok, an island next to Bali, to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia for 80,00 Euros.
Thank god, I already had a valid passport so I didn’t have to get a new one (with the Berlin citizen center, it would have been a big problem to get a valid one on time…). In case you don’t have a valid one, you have to apply for a new passport! The same for your driver’s license!
Afterwards I was thinking about accommodation in Bali and what I want to do there. I used my Facebook network and asked people for advices where to stay and great places to go surfing, do yoga or meditate in Bali. I got a great response.
However, I decided to use couchsurfing.com and stay with local people instead of concentrating on doing activities I could do nearly everywhere in the world. I was lucky enough and got the first ten nights covered by three different local couchsurfers from Bali. I am already very excited to meet them in person!
At that point, my trip was already as planned as it will get before I am leaving my hometown. Nevertheless, I still had to organize so much here in Berlin! To reduce my monthly expenses, I rented my room in my shared flat including all my furniture (two good things about it: first, the tenant is happy that she doesn’t have to buy any; and second, I am happy as I don’t need to find space where to put it). I also passed on my gym membership to a friend of mine for those months: two happy faces again. ☺ ☺ Moreover, I cancelled my phone contract and my German health insurance. So that I am still travelling safe, I had to get a travel health insurance for the time anyway. Hanse Merkur was my choice in Germany. Tip from my part as a doctor: It is better to take a travel health insurance for a longer period where you still might travel than to try to extend that insurance while travelling. It is possible that the insurance won’t extend and then it could get critical… In case you come back to your home country earlier, usually they give you the money back (you should check that before signing the contract!) Therefore, I paid for my travel health insurance for 365 days now… Just in case I am not back within those 6 months. ^^
I also needed to tell my clients that I will be working from Indonesia and Down under for the next months. Of course they were sad, but I still will be in contact with them thanks to the technologies like Skype, WhatsApp and the internet! ☺
That is the reason why I’ll also bring my laptop with me on my trip… In case you will do the same, you should back up all your data on an external hard drive or the cloud before leaving for your journey.
As I know, sometimes people lose their documents somehow, I made scans (to keep in my computer) and copies of all important ones such as my passport, my driver’s license and my vaccination card. For some countries you need proof of certain vaccinations in order to get a visa. As I still haven’t planned my whole trip, I want to have all my documents ready. I also bring a couple of passport photographs for visa applications or anything like that.
I still have to finish packing my backpack for those 6 months… and I also still need to clean my room.
At the end, I will have a farewell party to see all my friends and family again before leaving Berlin for such a long time… I will miss you guys so much!
You have ideas what else you should do? Just comment below!
Your excited travel girl,
Julie
To-do-list before travelling the world – short version:
- Decision “How long can I travel?” – depending on the money in your bank account and your planned expenses;
- “Where do I want to go? What do I want to see?” – your own dreams;
- Get a valid passport;
- Book flights (maybe just one-way in case you want to have more freedom) via Skyscanner.com;
- Check your visa requirements for the countries you want to visit -> fulfill those requirements;
- Find nice accommodation via booking.com or try out Couchsurfing.com;
- Rent your room, including furniture as it is a lot easier for you;
- Pause all your contracts: mobile phone, gym, health insurance in your own country;
- Get a travel health insurance for at least your planned travel time or even a bit longer;
- Sell your car or rent it for the travel time;
- Pack your backpack;
- In case you bring your laptop: back up all your data on an external hard drive;
- Scan and copy all of your important documents such as passport, driver’s license, vaccination card, etc;
- Have your flight details and first accommodation addresses print out or ready on your phone;
- Clean your apartment;
- Throw a big farewell party for your friends, family and especially yourself! ☺
