Things to Do Before the Trip
Posted: September 2nd, 2009 by Courtney
Picking up and leaving your job, apartment, and all our things takes more planning that you might think. We have made a list of all of the things we need to do before we leave and wanted to share it with anyone who might be thinking about taking a round-the-world trip of their own.
Health Insurance and Immunizations: After our work health insurance runs out, we will need to find an inexpensive option for emergencies. We are researching both US health insurance and travel insurance. (Yes, you do need both!) For our travel immunizations, we went to the Long Beach Travel Clinic. The government run health clinics had much better prices and since our HMO health plans didn’t cover travel immunization, this was the best option for us.
Visas: In order to work in Australia we will need to apply for a working holiday visa three months prior to our arrival. Other visas we will have to get in route.
Sell Our Stuff: We are hoping to not have to put anything in storage, but that means we need to either sell, give away, or asks our friends and family to store everything we own.
Cancel Utilities and Subscriptions: Its amazing how many memberships and accounts we have to cancel from cable, water, and gas to gym memberships and magazines.
Consolidate Bank Accounts and Credit Cards: We have decided to keep one internet savings account, two credit cards, and two checking accounts. One of the things I learning while traveling in Europe is that if you only have one checking account and something happens (a fraudulent act that freezes your account), you are going to need a back up bank account.
Change Address: For all of the accounts we are keeping we need to change our address.
Photocopies of Important Documents: We will be giving important document (i.e. passports, health insurance, tax information) to our parents in case of an emergency. We are also planning to make scan of these items so we can store them in our email accounts.
Move Out of Our Apartment: We are going to pack up all of our things and move out on October 2nd.
Say Good-Bye to All Our Friends and Family: Hopefully we will get to see everyone at the wedding!