Another question we frequently hear about our upcoming travels is something like:
What are all the things you have to do to prepare for a trip like this?
Regardless of my answer I eventually end up referring to what I lovingly refer to as “The List”.
[Aside: I’m the hyper-organized type. I suck at improvising, being creative, and flying by the seat of my pants. My wife Juliann is excellent at all of those things and she drives me like a farmer drives a stubborn mule to be more freewheeling.
I’m making progress. Slowly.
But I’m an excellent planner. And organizing something on the scale of an open-ended, round-the-world, who-knows-where-the-hell-we’re-going-to-end-up trip is the type of challenge that gets my motor running.]
We started creating The List in the spring of 2015 and it quickly swelled to nearly a hundred tasks, some of them large, like “sell house”, and many of them minor, e.g. “renew passport” and “buy underwear”.
We’ve been chipping away at it for over a year and now we’re down to the last 15-ish items. In the interests of satisfying curiosity and just plain weird pride, we’ve published The List below at its full unholy ohboy-did-we-do-a-lot-of-shit length.
Items are roughly in reverse order: things at the bottom were completed a year or more ago, those items near the top still have yet to be completed.
So without further ado, here she is…
The List
- Move all things into storage
- Port cell #’s to Google Voice number
- Rm credit card for Xbox live autorenew
- Export phone photos/video to laptop
- Pack up phone and send back to Verizon
- Post all stuff we want to get rid of to Facebook (round 2)
- Cancel all services we won’t need (Hulu, Xbox, etc)
- Reserve storage unit (2 weeks out)
- Cxl cable, return modem, pay bill
- Call electric company, trash pickup company to confirm we can pay bill by phone after departure
- Close local bank accounts
- Cancel car insurance
- Sell cars
- Get dental records
- Confirm continuation of life insurance
- Order sneakers
- Get meds for Traveler’s Diarrhea
- Create “onward travel” tickets
- Pads and padding for furniture while in storage
- Get antimalarials
- Research antimalarials: take throughout or only preventatively?
- Figure out payment of all utilities
- Research: what skills are children expected to have upon entering kindergarten?
- Purchase travel insurance policy via World Nomads on Bootsnall
- Heartworm and Frontline for dog
- Visits to all family and friends
- Drop dog off in Georgia with family
- Go through all boxes in basement, set aside everything to be discarded
- List all clothes needed from Ex Officio, buy them
- Buy toothbrush covers
- Buy new clippers or replace battery
- Plans for selling cars
- Scan all passports, driver’s licenses, cc and debit cards, social security cards, travel insurance docs, health records, vaccination records, etc and email copies
- Vet records for dog
- Get son fingerprinted
- Lay out all gear and clothes to be packed, estimate size of pack needed
- Schedule Big Brother Big Sister for pick up
- Schedule 800 Got Junk pick up
- Book first 4 weeks of accommodations
- Schedule out last two months of tasks
- Renew credit and debit cards if necessary
- Set up Outlook 2016 on phone
- Calculate additional tax burden if living in NY
- Schedule movers
- Schedule last physician visits
- Book flights
- Set up Surface Pro
- Upgrade development (coding) software
- Vanguard e-delivery
- Test sound notification for texts for middle-of-the-night work emergencies
- Route GVoice -> Skype -> international cell #
- Renew drivers’ licenses if necessary
- Port all pics to Google Photos
- Order Surface Pro 4
- Call Vet to schedule checkup for dog
- Research life insurance (keeping current plan vs. some other plan)
- Contact travel medicine center
- Install GVoice, and test incoming calls and texts to GVoice
- Verify with dentists that teeth are good to go
- Contact provider about moving to my company insurance, getting all cards before departure
- Close safe deposit box
- Get fireproof box, move all safe deposit box documents to it
- Renew passports
- Call Verizon Wireless: can I upgrade to a new iPhone 6 unlocked? Will it work overseas with different sim cards?
- Arrange home for dog
- Research schooling on the road for pre-K, kindergarten
- Post more items for sale/for free online, start clearing out room by room
- Talk to family member about snail mail
- Configure LastPass to require new login for each session
- Verify that Oct-March is good time in SE Asia
- Review this checklist
- Set up Schwab checking account
- Cancel old business Visa
- Research banking solutions to minimize foreign exchange fees
- Move all passwords online
- Sell house
- Confirm plans with business partners
- Budget out annual expenditures
- Research travel insurance
- Confirm health insurance
- Exit business #2
- Confirm timeline for switching health insurance
- Buy guides, rough out first year travel itinerary
- Talk with realtor about selling house
- Fix leak in basement
- Deploy online backup solution
- Confirm can use my phone with SIM cards on the road
- Research phones
- Talk to pediatrician about immunizations, etc for son
- Change student loans to electronic billing
- Talk with CPA about traveling