Month: August 2016

We just booked our first leg of the trip!

February 4th we’ll be traveling from San Francisco to Taipei! We chose this date to avoid the early Lunar New Years closures, but be able to see the Lantern Festivals.

It feels really real now. We have a date, which means we will need to give our apartment complex notice by January 4th. I’ll have about a month after leaving my job to get our home sorted and what whatever we are keeping packed up and stored. In this month, we’re also planning a week at Disney World & Universal and a long weekend in Las Vegas. Should be an interesting month…

T-5 months!

I had no idea adjusting the various insurance policies we have would be such a nightmare. It seems like everything is based around the idea that everyone has an address that very rarely (if ever) changes.

1. Health insurance – I have a couple of quotes, but need to work on this more. Since we’re losing our employer’s policies, we will need to get both an independent, US-based plan and a traveler’s plan.
2. Car insurance – I think we will need new policies on the car if we admit that we are no longer living at our apartment. Jason’s parents will have one of our cars because they’ll have the dog, so I’m guessing we’ll get an AZ policy.
3. Renter’s insurance – I was actually going to let this one go because none of the stuff we are keeping is particularly valuable and will be locked in a storage unit. Even if an earthquake caused the ground to open and our storage unit to fall in, it wouldn’t be a huge deal. (But now that I think about it, renter’s doesn’t usually cover earthquake damage… right?)

Clearly there is still a lot of work to be done with this – I’ll try to keep you guys updated.

Other than insurance, we’ve started talking about what we need to get rid of and even gave away my fish tank! I’ve collected a ton of boxes from our office’s recent move, so if I had the time, I could even start packing! We go on a trip to Italy in about 3 weeks and when I get back, I’m going to let my boss know my last day will be December 30th. January will be the epic month of organizing, selling, donating, tossing, and packing.

I also need to get on the international driver’s licenses – this is a one-time visit to an AAA office, so perhaps I could focus on this baby step and do it Saturday!

Update 8/30/16:

I’ve been working on this here and there for the past week and here’s what I’ve come up with so far –

1. Health insurance – we are going to declare our income for 2017 as the lowest possible to qualify for Covered California, so we benefit from the subsidies since we don’t know how long the trip will be. If we return before the end of the year and work, we’d pay back anything we are ineligible for, plus a possible penalty fee.
2. Car insurance – going to talk to our car insurance company about dropping the car we are leaving here to liability only (it is going to sit in storage) and if the car staying with Jason’s parents needs an Arizona policy.
3. Renter’s – not sure we will keep a policy open since we don’t really qualify without a residence and all of the valuable stuff is in the bank safe deposit box. If the earth opened up and swallowed our stuff, it wouldn’t be the end of the world – we don’t have expensive furniture, clothes, or kitchen stuff.

Also – we both got our international driver’s permits last week so that’s one item off the list of things to do 😀

We’re currently working through a list of items that need to be sorted out before we leave. I’m sure I’ll write more about some of these as the weeks go by, but here’s what we’re currently thinking about –

1. Selling, giving away, donating, or tossing out most of our stuff. We’re breaking our lease, so what doesn’t go into our storage unit needs to find a new home, even if it’s the trash.

2. Forwarding our mail to one of our parents’ homes or a mail service. What’s our address when we don’t have a place to live?

3. We still need to find a temporary home for our cat. Boba will be staying at Jason’s parents’ house.

4. Health insurance – both for travel and also a US policy, since we won’t have our employer-sponsored plans after we quit our jobs.

5. Packing – what to bring and what not to bring. Jason and I are planning to travel with carry-on size suitcases and backpacks.

6. Deciding where we are going first, buying our one-way plane tickets, choosing where to stay when when we get to our first destination. As of August 7th, it looks like this will be Taipei, Taiwan, but it is totally subject to change. (Done 8/27!)

7. Break the lease (30 days notice) and give notice to both of our employers.

More on each of these to come 🙂

At T-6 months, I guess it’s time to get the blog moving. The idea of starting a blog has been in the back of my mind since the trip really started coming together months ago, but it has never seemed to be the right moment. Maybe it will never be, but I don’t want to be driving to the airport thinking “I should have started blogging months ago…”

Jason and I have been planning an adventure for almost 5 years now. It has taken many forms, but in the last 18 months, we’ve narrowed it down to being a trip through parts of Asia and Europe with no firm end date. We are planning to leave in late January or early February and don’t know when we’ll be back.

So welcome everyone to the Drifting Compass, following Jason and I on the journey we have taken to calling the Adventure. We know it will have it’s ups and downs, but it’s a dream that’s been a lifetime in the making <3