Half Year Break

So, after many discussions/arguments and drunken chats for over a year – Fabs and I decided we are going to travel for 6 months in Asia and Europe. There were many times we questioned our decisions, and still do sometimes. I feel on the edge between elation and doubts whenever I start thinking about our trip. So I created a pro and cons table as per below

Pro	Cons
Travel!	No income
Get to see all the monuments/etc. I wanted to see	HUGE expense - can be used for something else?
Enrich experiences and point of view	People's opinions (??)
Not working (!)	Bottom-line. MONEY.
Real bonding time with Fabs
Bragging rights
Less or no chance to do something similar in the future

And this sticker at work to assure me

YOLOOOOOOO!!

My to do list is very long – but here are the highlights of the pre planning that I’ve done

·       Applied for credit cards that gave me free points. I have Westpac Black and BankWest cards. Why two? Because:

o   Westpac Black: gives access to airport lounges and 50,000 points free + as I am a Westpac customer, the 1^st year annual fee waived + comprehensive travel insurance for 6 months as long as we have return tickets to Australia (more on this later).

o   Bankwest: 0% foreign transactions fee + 50,000 points free. Downside $160 annual fee which I hope will be offset over and above by the foreign transaction fee saving.

·       Booked our tickets back from Manila for 56,000 points – covered by our credit cards! We only paid $90 tax for both of us. If we were to fly from Singapore, it would be $450! With points we can change our tickets (cost 5,000 points each) and even cancel (cost 6,000 points each). In case we change our plans….

·       Applied for Citibank Plus card – so we can withdraw money overseas with (again) 0% foreign transactions fee

·       Used combination of Trello and Excel for my planning. As I don’t want to plan everything but would like to know my options, I jotted down activities/eateries/etc in Trello.

·       Done my research using Lonely Planet, posts on Facebook and Instagram, and friend’s recommendation. Most of these places are saved as stars in Google map.

·       I mainly use Booking.com to book accommodations, as they are all cancellable and no prepayment required. I also used Expedia – but only when they are on sale. I also booked several apartments in AirBnB.

·       Downloaded AirPlay so I can watch Netflix offline using my PC!

There are boring stuff as well, like packing/selling our furniture, booking storage, cancelling gazillion subscriptions and other life admin not worth mentioning.  

I am currently battling deciding what to pack, as we start in South Korea (freezing) and will end in Greece/Asia/who knows (presumably boiling)! Wish me luck. 

UPDATE - I was chatting with another friend that did the 6 months break last year. He mentioned when he was looking for tickets or accommodations - he used incognito mode in his search so the 'cookies' wouldn't pick it up. He reckons it saved him $$$!