The longer story for those interested:

I was staying at Home Plus Hostel in Budapest. It’s a small hostel (only 5 rooms) and I had been there for a few days, so I knew all the staff and they knew me. At the time, I was the only person in my 8-bedroom dorm, so I popped my phone into charge and didn’t lock up my backback as I went out for a quick dinner. I was gone for around 45 minutes. In that time a guy checked into the hostel for the night, went into the room, scoped it out for a while before deciding to go through my backpack and take my laptop, camera and iPhone. As he was leaving, he stopped to talk to the receptionist about where the closest market was. This was when I came back from dinner and walked right past the thief on my way to the kitchen to open the bottle of wine I had just bought after dinner. I chatted with some of the guests and then made my way back to my room to check on text messages I had missed while I was out to dinner and discovered what had happened.

I ran out to the receptionist and explained what happened (it had been about 10 minutes since he had left at this point) and the receptionist mentioned the guy seemed extremely nervous while he had been talking to him. I bolted outside to see if I could catch him, I had no idea what he looked like but my adrenaline was pumping and I was frantic and cursing myself. Literally, the one time I hadn’t locked up my stuff or taken it with me in the 8 months I’ve been traveling.

I made my way back to the hostel and started taking down information. The guy had booked a night at the hostel through hostelworld.com, so I had his name, e-mail address and phone number as well as a description of what he looked like from the two people who talked to him. While he was checking in he mentioned to the receptionist he was heading to Bratislava the next day. We called the cops and I enabled the tracking software on my phone and computer (Prey Project) and started trying to look up this guy using the name and e-mail address he had given. The employees at the hostel also sent an e-mail out to all of the hostels in Budapest, Vienna and Bratislava explaining what happened and to be on the lookout. I also looked up the train schedule and found  there were only a handful of trains heading to Bratislava the next day, I mentioned it to one of the guests who knew what he looked like and he agreed to go with me the next day to see if we could catch him. At this point I thought he was just a normal guy who saw a window of opportunity, took it, thus leaving me with a fairly good chance of catching him, especially if he connected to the internet with my computer or iPhone.

The cops arrived and I gave them all the serial numbers and prices of my missing items for their police report (which I could then use for my insurance claim) and then started drinking my wine, hopeful and stressed.

The next day we headed to the train station but didn’t have any luck, the devices hadn’t been connected to the internet yet and we hadn’t heard back from any of the hostels. Fast forward two days and we finally get some news. The same night (just 30 minutes after I had been robbed) a man checked into a hostel 3 blocks down the street and promptly broke into two locked lockers and stole all of the electronics before leaving. This hostel had a video surveillance and caught the guy on tape so I went with my buddy (who came with me to the train station) to this hostel to check out the footage and verify it was the same guy. It was.

Watching the tapes, he checks into the new hostel with a different name and ID, wearing different clothes and with a small (roughly 28 L) backpack. A few minutes pass and he exits the hostel with no backpack before returning 5 minutes later carrying a large duffel bag. He then, presumably, robs the two lockers and leaves 5 minutes later carrying only the big duffel bag, never to return.

At this point I realize he’s a professional crook and that he probably is going to try and turn the items for cash ASAP. I track down a few used computer shops in the area and start looking for my stuff, but, unfortunately, nothing pans out.

In the end I’m bummed because I lost all of my photos/videos from Jordan as well as my entire Eurotrip thus far; I feel violated and like he got the best of me, which is a crappy feeling. On the plus side, everything stolen was insured so I’ll be able to replace it. The staff at the hostel was absolutely amazing at helping me get the police report filled out, sending e-mails and giving me a free place to stay until everything was settled. Plus, my mom immediately went out and shipped me a new phone so I’d have something to stay in contact with for the rest of my trip, got to love the support.

I should be getting a new camera in the next few days so I can still document and enjoy photographing the rest of my trip. The trip will continue as planned; I’ll update this blog with stories, logistics and photos upon my return to America and probably daydream about somehow catching the guy who stole my stuff if it ever gets connected to the internet.

Cheers and I’ll see you all in 4 months!

These highlight posts are chronicles of my year-long trip around the world. Every day I write down at least three highlights from my day, and at the end of each month I go back through the daily highlights and compile my favorites. The highlights are in chronological order and if you’re curious, the how and why of my documenting methods can be found here.

My second month highlights include my road trip through the north and south Islands of New Zealand and my journey back to Australia where I spent a week in Melbourne before heading out to Perth to meet up with an old friend, whom I’ve known since 6^th grade. On to the highlights!

The Penguin Hop

In the far south of New Zealand is Curio Bay, which is one of the few places in the world where you can get close to Hoiho penguins, one of the rarest penguins in the world. I arrived just after sunrise and had the bay all to myself to watch about 15 penguins waddle around and interact with each other.

My favorite thing to do was follow a penguin around until it needed to hop onto a rock. It would stop and assess the hop, pause for dramatic effect and then blast off onto the ledge. I love the penguin hop. I penguin hopped up all the stairs on the way back to my van before leaving.

Entertaining Myself with all the Down Time

I was on this road trip through New Zealand for 14 days. I was sleeping and eating in the van and driving like a mad-man, trying to see as much of the country as I could; I didn’t have internet and radio was spotty. I didn’t realize it at the time but the amount of human contact I had was minimal—even though I enjoy my alone time, after 3-4 days the novelty wore off and I realized how nice it is to be around people, even if you’re not directly interacting with them.

A majority of the alone time was spent filming and getting weird for my video, however some other activities manifested to fill time. Some of my favorites were:

• Taking a detour to stop at Lake Tekapu to take-a-poo and the port-a-potty (it says Long Drop Lodge: Short Stay Only) in Cozy Nook

• Thinking about how a bird is the most pretentious animal because it walks around holding their arms and hands (wings) behind their back, all smug-like.
• Seeing thousands of sheep eating grass peacefully and then honking my horn and watching them jump and run (I wish I kept a tally of how many times I actually did this).
• Watching the sunset in Raglan to take the photo below and engaging a New Zealand couple in conversation as they were walking home, refusing to accept their obvious we-want-to-leave-now social cues because it had been so long since I talked to someone.

• A majority of my clothing is made by icebreaker; as a fun marketing ploy they print out “baacodes” on all of their clothing garments, allowing the user to look up their baacode and learn about the individual farms where the merino wool for their items of clothing came from. Well, I took it one step further and went and found the farms in New Zealand where some of my clothing came from.

Kaikoura

On the north-east coast of the South Island is a town named Kaikoura. I stopped here for a few hours to admire their beautiful black sand beaches before heading to Ohau Stream. During the winter, hundreds of New Zealand fur seal pups travel up this stream to the waterfall where they interact socially with each other while their mothers are feeding at sea. While I was here there were about 5 pups playing and interacting with each other in the small pond, you can see 2 of them splashing in the bottom right of the photo.

The Helpful New Zealanders When My Van Got Stuck

I told a more detailed version of this story at the bottom of my logistics post. But basically, I got my campervan stuck Questing for Awesome; I had to spend a good chunk of money to get it out and it put me in a pretty sour mood for the next 24 hours. After reflecting on the whole incident I realized I had overlooked the positive aspects and the amazing displays of humanitarianism.

Thermal Park in Wai-O-Tapu

Glow Worm Caves

The glow worms are an interesting insect. This particular type (Arachnocampa luminosa) is endemic to Australia and New Zealand. The glowing is caused from a chemical reaction from excretion, so basically, the beautiful glow you see is from the poop/butt.

The insect spends the majority of its time in the larvae phase (glowing phase) where they hang down poisonous silk snares to catch their food. When they pupate into an adult fly, they have no mouth and no way to eat, so their only job is to mate, lay eggs and then get cannibalized when they get stuck in the silk snares.

Never have I been so stoked to spend money to marvel at glowing poo-poo. Found the photo below from here, because it was too hard to take a decent photo with my camera.

Zorbing

When I first created my bucket-list I added a lot of items for the sake of adding items. As I’m actually crossing stuff off the list I’m realizing some of the items (like “Zorbing in New Zealand“) aren’t the most important things to me, but instead, are a fun way to quantify hard to define goals like “seeing the world.” By breaking up a large goal into smaller (sometimes seemingly unimportant) pieces it’s easier to see yourself making progress.

Melbourne

Melbourne is a cool city. I stayed at St. Kings Backpackers hostel and met some really fun people in my dorm, one of whom commented on my snoring with: “your snoring is like rain falling from the sky, so peaceful.”

The city itself has a very young artist feel; there’s interesting architecture, graffiti and a hip vibe all around. Walking around Melbourne at night was one of my favorite activities; I also met up with “La Jane” who is a-friend-of-a friend. We went out for drinks and antipasto and she let me crash on her couch for a night (my first couch surfing experience of the trip).

Seeing the Southern and Indian Ocean in 1 day

Western Australia’s Cape-to-Cape Mountain Bike Race

I met up with my good mate Steve in Perth just in time for his Cape-to-Cape mountain bike race—a 4 day race starting at Cape Leeuwin and ending at Cape Naturaliste. I was the road crew and was responsible for cooking meals; setting up and breaking down camp; and shuttling him to and from the start and finish lines in his beast of an automobile: The Defendah.

One of my favorite moments from the race was after day three, where the race ended at Colonial Brewery in Margaret River. We purchased a growler of their pale ale, took it back to camp, and after enjoying the contents of said growler, afternoon napped so hard under a shady tree that our kindergarten selves would be proud.

For September (month 1) highlights click here

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Hope all is well with you beautiful readers out there. I’m almost a month into my Eurotrip. I began in Madrid, Spain, flew to Dusseldorf where I met up with my girlfriend before heading out to spend a week together in Amsterdam. After sending her back to the States from Dusseldorf I activated my Eurail pass and headed out to Belgium for a week.

After Belgium I came back to Germany and met up with a friend I met in Melbourne who is from Bromskirchen, I then made my way south to meet up with my half-brother who lives in Freisen.

Currently, I’m in Interlaken, Switzerland and will be enjoying Switzerland for a week or so before heading off to Austria. I’m moving around every other day it seems and have been spending a lot of time on trains, which I don’t mind as it’s a beautiful way to see the different countries.

Oh, and the featured image was taken at the Ahuriri Bridge campsite, where I camped on day 5 of my New Zealand roadie.

Auf Wiedersehen for now!

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The featured image was taken at the Uluwatu temple in Bali and is the last picture I have wearing my sunglasses as shortly after, a monkey stole them and then destroyed them since I didn’t have any food to trade him. DAMN YOU MONKEY!!!!

Currently, I’m just over halfway through with my 12 month journey and wrapping up my time here in Jordan before heading to Spain to start my 3 month Eurotrip.

My first month spans my departure from America to Australia. I landed in Sydney and made my way up to Cairns and back by greyhound bus before flying to New Zealand, where I picked up a campervan in Christchurch. Every day I write down at least three highlights from my day, and at the end of each month I go back through the daily highlights and compile my favorites. The highlights are in chronological order and if you’re curious, the how and why of my documenting methods can be found here.

Saying goodbye to what’s comfortable

It was definitely hard to say goodbye to friends and family. I had been living in California for 8 years and I was enjoying bartending a few nights a week to support my lifestyle, while still having plenty of time to enjoy the Central Coast and the people in it. The last week before I left was filled with anxiety; I had sold, donated or discarded everything I own (except for 2 small boxes of sentimental items and my dog); decided to start a long-distance relationship for the year (still stoked on this decision); choked back tears during goodbyes; and taken every opportunity to question if should really do this. Ultimately, it was the support from the people closest to me that sent me into the journey smiling.

Thinking I’m being cultured, actually just being an idiot

After the long trip from LA to Sydney my first order of business was the bathroom business. I brushed my teeth and turned around to face the stalls and was met with one of the smallest toilets I have ever seen. “You’re in a different country now, David. You can’t expect everything to be like America anymore. Get immersed in the culture, this is what you wanted, remember?” After calmly assuming the role of the Cultured World Traveler, proud of myself for my bathroom maturity, I made my way into the city. I was already mentally prepared for the tiny toilets the next time nature called, but was met with a normal size commode. What? I quickly checked all the stalls and found only one tiny toilet. My stupidity dawned on me slowly, slowly but surely. In my attempt to get “immersed in the culture” I had really just used the children’s toilet.

“Today my home is here, tomorrow, it’s wherever”

I’ve never had to worry about where I was going to sleep for the night, but now it’s a question I have to answer on almost a daily basis. 4 days into my trip I got off the greyhound bus in Brisbane; it was midnight and my next bus didn’t leave until 7am. Ain’t no thang, I calmly assumed the role of the Nomadic World Traveler and decided to sleep in the bus station. Nope, the bus station closes from 2am to 4am and I was kicked out. I found the most sheltered corner I could, said what’s up to the homeless guy in the adjacent corner and awkwardly tried to sleep for 2 hours. It was miserable, and by the time 4am rolled around I had assumed my role as the Cranky World Traveler. I walked into the bus station and saw the quote above written on a kiosk advertisement. It reminded me of how lucky I am to be on this trip and made my day.

ALL THE ADRENALINE!

The morning of this day I started off with a 14,000 foot skydive over Cairns followed by a 50 meter bungee jump complete with water dip in the afternoon. Skydiving wasn’t as scary as the bungee jumping and I think it’s because my brain couldn’t even comprehend how high we were when we jumped out of the plane; you jump out and you can’t even tell the earth is getting closer, it’s fun and then quite peaceful as you float back down to earth. 50 meters above a lake was easily comprehended by my brain and jumping off a platform head first, watching the ground come straight at your face gets the heart pumping. I slept well that night; my body completely devoid of all adrenaline.

Scuba Diving the Great Barrier Reef

This was a superb experience and has an entire post dedicated to it.

Redeeming my terrible trivia abilities

Trivia isn’t my thing, no matter how much I want it to be. But when the announcement was made that the most creative/funny team won VIP tickets for cheaper beer for the night, my eyes lit up like the night sky of San Diego’s 2012 Fourth of July celebration. I used a beer pong team name from my past: “We Don’t Jack Off; We Just Wash Our Dicks Fast” and easily claimed the prize. Too bad beers still cost $10…

The Australian coast from Cairns to Sydney

As I made my way back down the coast I stopped in Airlie Beach to take a full day catamaran trip through the Whitsunday Islands, stopping at Whitehaven Beach and for a quick snorkel in the fringing reefs. Whitehaven beach is only accessible by boat and is quite the paradise. The sand is 98% silica, which is why it’s so bright and white.

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Other highlights from the coastal trip include a hike up to the lighthouse in Byron Bay and my stop in Newcastle where I stayed with a friend from California and snapped the second picture from Nobby’s Breakwall.

Planning New Zealand

I had 0 plans about what I was going to do when I got to New Zealand and with a few hours of research I was able to pull together and plan this itinerary.

Most visitors to this blog in one day

I posted my gear list post and linked it on a few popular websites and woke up to see a record number 1,253 visitors in one day to this blog. As of this writing, the gear post continues to be my most successful post (most viewed, commented on and most linked).

Getting the campervan for my New Zealand road trip

After arriving in Christchurch I had time to kill so I decided to walk to Escape rentals from the airport instead of paying for a cab. 7 miles and almost 3 hours later I arrived, sweaty and regretful of my decision, but stoked to see that this beast would be my home for the next two weeks. This would be my first time driving on the left side of the road and I’m happy to report the number of times I found myself wondering why there was “some idiot” going the wrong way in my lane (it was always the right-hand turns messing me up) can be counted on one hand.

For the next instalation of highlights – October (month 2)

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London was quick, cold (first time I had to wear a long sleeve shirt), full of history and proper markets with delicious food. I leave for Jordan this afternoon for 3 weeks before heading back for 3 months in Europe. Cheers!

How do you keep track of your greatest life experiences/accomplishments? I can finally admit my memories alone just don’t cut it. They fade and get influenced; however, when I read something I wrote describing the experience, the memory is refreshed and I can recall it like it happened yesterday. After 5 months on the road, I’ve finally found the most effective way (for me) to document my traveling. It will allow me to accurately list the top 10-20 experiences from this 12 month trip and it has turned into a positive daily reflection tool, which I will continue after this trip with an emphasis on personal goal assessment and completion.

Since I’m on the go most of the time, it’s inconvenient to be constantly pulling out a pen and notebook to jot down information—not to mention it makes my OCD senses tingle looking at a page of unorganized notes. Instead, I use the notepad in my phone to note what I need at the given moment—the cost of a meal, funny quote, correct spelling of a town, etc.

In the morning, I go back through the phone and fill out my journal in a nice, organized fashion, reflecting on the entire day before writing out the daily highlights. Then I appease my OCD and delete the unorganized phone notes. A typical entry can be seen below; it includes the date and the daily locations, meals, expenses, highlights and any miscellaneous notes (still hadn’t gotten used to it being 2013 yet).

I wanted to keep a daily journal of my travels for both sentimental and analytical reasons. The sentimental aspect tracks meals, interesting thoughts/revelations and my daily highlights. Before I left I set a goal for myself to record at least 3 daily highlights. Initially it was just to keep me appreciative of the journey I was on, but it ended up evolving into much more.

Monthly and trip highlights – keeping daily highlights allows me to go back at the end of the month and reflect on my 10-15 top highlights of the month. When I finish the trip I can go back over my monthly highlights and figure out what the top highlights of my entire trip were. When I continue this practice in my post-travel life, this will be a great indication of the goals I accomplished during the year.

Remembering the small stuff – As I travel the world, constantly being exposed to different cultures and experiences, it’s easy to imagine I have some absolutely mind-blowing days. Days leaving me in disbelief of my life right now, my pen moving manically on the page as I try to capture the essence of the experiences. It’s easy to get caught up with these times and forget about the small stuff. I would have forgotten narrowly missing the daily, afternoon Bali island downpour by pulling our motor scooters into a side-of-the-road shack, eating some delicious local naci champur and talking about nothing in particular for 2 hours until the rain relented. The daily highlights help me remember the seemingly insignificant moments, which can turn out to be some of my favorite memories.

Staying positive – driving through New Zealand I managed to slide off the road and get my van stuck bad enough to require a tow truck to get me out. It took a large portion of my budget allocated for much more exciting travel and put me in a dismal mood for the rest of the day; until I sat down to write out my highlights. I like to keep them positive, and as I pondered the event I realized how incredibly lucky and wonderful the experience was: I didn’t get hurt, the van (which I didn’t buy insurance for) was perfectly ok and I got to experience the amazing kindness of the people who stopped to help me. Something unexpected had happened to me; initially, I decided to dwell on the negative, and let it ruin the rest of my day. The highlight reflection is a constant reminder of how lucky I am, and it helps me to spend my time being thankful, rather than bitter.

Substitute for daily journaling – Initially, I was sitting down every day and journaling exactly what I did. It was boring, time consuming and lasted just 17 days before I gave up on it and relied exclusively on highlights to give me a reflection of the day. As my travels progressed, I found myself looking back on my entries, reading highlights like “Nugget point” and not feeling the nostalgia I felt reading my earlier journal entries. The highlights evolved into what I call “elaborative highlights.” So, “Nugget point” would be expanded upon to include what I did there and why it was a positive experience for me.

The analytical aspect tracks dates, spending, locations, planning, tasks to complete and other miscellaneous logistical notes. I have found this helpful (the more specific, the better) for writing blog posts further down the line. I know exactly where I was on what day, where I stayed, what I was doing and how much I was spending, which is helpful for answering logistical questions from people interested in visiting the same places. It’s also helpful when cross-referencing pictures; I can use the date stamp from the photos to see where the photo was taken and what was happening.

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It’s my last week in South Africa and I can’t recommend this country enough. My favorite stops were Drakensberg and Coffee Bay and when I get all caught up with pictures you will see why.

This post should serve as a precursor to the next few posts which will be the monthly highlight from my trip so far: funny anecdotes, interesting experiences, weirdness, etc.

The featured image was taken on Koh Samui island in Thailand and the sign translates to: please don’t litter.

The quick break down

Total spent: $2,035.16 NZD ($1,660.49 USD)

Total Distance driven: 3,630.9 km (2,256.14 miles)

Average Fuel Efficiency: 8.37 km/L (19.69 mpg)

Top 10 experiences I’d recommend

• Moeraki boulders
• The lighthouse at Nugget Point
• Hoiho penguins at Curio Bay
• Lake Wanaka
• Black sand beaches in Kaikoura
• Seal pups born and raised in the Oahu Stream
• Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland
• Waitomo caves
• Bridal Veil Falls
• The costal drive between Kawhia and Raglan

These last two were on my to-do list but poor weather prevented me, the surrounding area was absolutely gorgeous and I will make sure I have enough time to do them next time I get to NZ.

• Milford Sound
• Hiking Mount Turangi (Mt. Doom from LOTR)

If I were to do it all again

• Take 6-8 weeks instead of 2
• Bring a travel companion, both for the company and to help pay for gas (largest expense)
• Adjust my South Island route to include the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, the Able Tasman National Park, and Arthur’s Pass National Park
• Adjust my North Island route to include stops north of Auckland like: Warkworth, Kaitaia, and Cape Reinga, and hit the east coast towns like Whangarei, Paihia, or Kerikeri.

Other tips

• Never pay for internet. Every public library has free wi-fi, and so does every McDonald’s
• New Zealand changed their rules for freedom camping, so if want to avoid a fine when you pull off the road to camp, and get out view from the main street. Show up late and leave early and you should be fine
• If you can’t find a good spot to pull off the road, 24 hour establishments like McDonald’s work well if you have blackout curtains to make it look like no one is in there. Again, show up late and leave early, and you shouldn’t have any problems
• New Zealand is green for a reason—it rains a lot. Have back-up plans or be able to wait out the bad weather.

The rest of this post is dense (photos and video of this trip can be found here); I wrote it for my analytical homies and for anyone who is interested in the nuts and bolts of planning a similar trip.

You will find information on the route I took, where I camped (used the Department of Conservation to find free campgrounds), my expenses, and some ideas on things to do, how long to take, and funds to budget.

Route

Day 1 – Flew from Sydney into Auckland (slept in airport)

Day 2 – Flew from Auckland to Christchurch, where I picked up my camper van and then headed south to Waimate and Glenavy (camped on the side of the road)

Day 3 – Glenavy, Hampden, Moeraki, Brighton, Milton, Nugget point, Purakaunui falls, Waikawa (Camped at Penguin Paradise Holiday Lodge)

Day 4 – Waikawa, Curio Bay, Slope Point, Waipapa Lighthouse, Bluff, Cosy Nook, Te Anau (camped at Queens Reach Conservational Area)

Day 5 – Te Anau, Milford Sound (almost), Kingston, Queenstown, Wanaka (via crown range), Omarama (Camped at Ahuriri Bridge Campsite)

Day 6 – Omarama, Lake Pukaki, Lake Tekapu, Kaikoura, Blenheim, Picton (side of the road)

Day 7 – Picton, Wellington, Shannon, Palmerston North, Turangi (This is where I crashed—full story in the Entertainment section below— I camped in a parking lot with the blessing of the officer on night duty who also helped me call the tow truck, however, I was looking for the Kaimanawa Road campsite)

Day 8 – Turangi, Taupo, Wai-O-Tapu (camped at the Waikite Valley Thermal Pools)

Day 9 – Wai-O-Tapu, Rotorua, Kerosine creek, Matamata (Camped in the Firth Tower parking lot – An employee at another campground told me they allow overnight camping but don’t advertise it)

Day 10 – Matamata, Otorohanga, Waitomo, Te Anga (Camped on side of the road by Marokopa falls)

Day 11 – Te Anga, Kawhia, Raglan, Hamilton (Camped in a Hamilton McDonald’s parking lot)

Day 12 – Hamilton, Auckland (Camped in an Auckland McDonald’s parking lot)

Day 13 – Auckland (Camped in an Auckland McDonald’s parking lot)

Day 14 – Auckland (Camped in an Auckland McDonald’s parking lot)

Day 15 – Auckland, Melbourne

Expenses

Transportation (no gas) – Flights, ferries, vehicle rental, towing, etc.

I rented a small camper van from Escape Rentals, I was able to get a relocation special since it was the off season and they needed to get vans from Christchurch up to Auckland to prep for the summer. The relocation special was key because I wanted to see the north and south islands and if I started in Auckland and ended in Auckland I would have had to pay for two ferry tickets, however, the relocation special allowed me to fly from Auckland to Christchurch for $64 NZD and only pay for one ferry journey ($160.60 NZD) from the south to the north island.

Gas – Fuel, petrol, whatever you want to call it

This was where the majority (46%) of my expenses came from. I drove a total of 3,630.9 km, used 432.93 liters and spent a total of $937.21 NZD on gas. This averages out to 8.37 km/L or 19.69 mpg.

Accommodation – Lodging and lodging accessories (laundry, towel rental, camp ground, etc.)

Accommodation was a very small expense because I slept in my van for 11 of the 15 days. The first night I slept in the Airport; the third night I paid for a homestay with a kitchen so I could cook a majority of my food, shower and wash clothes; the seventh night I camped in a camp ground because they gave you free access to their hot springs with the campground purchase; and the last day I traveled to Melbourne and slept there for the night.

The second night when I stayed at the homestay with a full kitchen allowed me to cook a majority of my food easily and efficiently, which I then stored in Ziploc bags and ate when I was hungry.

Food – All food and beverages excluding alcohol

The goal was to not eat out, however, the occasional sweet tooth and laziness hit and the goal didn’t get completely met.

Criteria for meals:

• Cheap
• Tasty
• Easy to cook/clean/eat

Cheap and tasty are obvious, but I will explain ease of cooking/cleaning/eating. The cooking facilities in the van were very minimal. I had one stove, one small pan, one small pot and a small pump sink connected to a 3 gallon refillable jug (plus utensils, plates and cups for three people).

Therefore, I wanted meals requiring only one pot or one pan to cook, without a lot of food preparation. I wanted no-plate-required food, like burritos. I wanted meals with clean up, 80/20 ground beef is high in fat and when you try and wash a dirty pan with cold water, the fat solidifies, gunks up your brush and is hard to clean (protip: newspaper absorbs fats and oils and are helpful in this situation). To make it easier on myself I stayed at a homestay with a large kitchen on day 3 where I cooked a lot of rice and potatoes so I could just reheat them later when needed.

After the dust settled I wouldn’t say I did the best job picking out a menu; there was food left over at the end and there wasn’t enough variety, which resulted in spending money in restaurants for a few meals.

Entertainment – Alcohol, tours, admission fees, and everything else

There were only a few things I paid for, entertainment wise: the Waitomo cave tours, zorbing, and the Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal wonderland. The rest of my time was spent seeing landscapes for free.

The only thing I would have paid for would have been Milford Sound. Unfortunately, I had booked a cheap early morning ticket using bookme for $45 NZD, however, it started to snow the night before and as I made my way to the sound in the morning I was stopped by a fallen tree in the road, once the road was cleared I still had time to make my tour, unfortunately the road had been closed due to the snow and I decided to head back and continue my journey without seeing the sound.

Sadly, this would not be the last time pour weather spoiled my plans. I was unable to hike Mount Turangi due to snow and poor visibility and as I made my way to Taupo I was looking for a free campground to camp for the night, it had started to rain and was low visibility. When I saw the road I needed to turn on I was already passing it, so when I pulled over to make a U-turn, the van lost traction in the wet grass and I slid out of control towards a ditch. Luckily, I stopped before any damage could be done to me or the vehicle, however, the van was stuck.

I had no phone, it was getting dark and raining; things were looking pretty grim. Now, this is where I want to give a shout out to the kindness of the New Zealanders—I encountered it throughout my entire journey, but this was best example—within 5 minutes of my accident, there was at least 10 people (including an 18-wheeler) who pulled over to make sure I was ok and offer assistance.

They offered me their cell phones, their car to sit in and their company as I waited for the cops and tow truck to come and tow the van out. Officer Brendon then insisted I drive into town (once the tow truck driver determined the van was safe to drive) and park in a parking lot for the night, there was a sign declaring no camping, but since he was the only officer on duty, he assured me I wouldn’t get a ticket.

The towing ended up costing me $258.75 NZD, which I planned on using for gas to see New Zealand north of Auckland, but instead got to hang out with Auckland for 2 days more than I wanted…bummer. But, you never know when disaster may strike and I’m just happy the van I were both ok.

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I know, I know, it has been forever (over a month) since my last post, so is the cost of trying to travel and write at the same time. Since my last post I’ve been from Bali, back to Singapore, Thailand and now I’m in Hong Kong for a week before heading to South Africa.

My favorite pictures from Bali will be up soon and I’ve been having requests to share more personal stories about my adventures, so I’ll try to get some posts up featuring highlights from the trip so far.

The next post will be more of a logistics/how-to post for this trip which will include the route I took, where I stopped, what I ate, lessons learned, total costs, etc.

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Currently, I’m in a hostel in Singapore after finishing my first legitimate Couch Surfing experience with an awesome host, Vanessa. I’ve already tried some amazing food, most of which, I’ve never tried before in my life: century eggs, sambal stingray and sugar cane juice, to name a few. In 4 days I’ll be headed to Bali for 13 days to try and adventure as much as I can! Then, I’ll be back in Singapore for a few more days before heading to Bangkok for Christmas and New Years to travel with a good friend from California, Howard. Cruuuuuuuuuuush.

This was a breathtaking experience (hence the O₂ tank). The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world. It consists of more than 2,900 coral reefs, some 1500 species of marine fish, 360 species of hard corals and multitudes of other species, making it one of the world’s most complex and diverse ecosystems, a premier dive site for Scuba Divers and a choice item on my bucket list. The numbers and facts about The Great Barrier Reef are great but it just doesn’t compare to experiencing this ecosystem firsthand.

I’ll mention a few highlights before letting the pictures do most of the talking. The coral was worth the trip alone, the colors, the variety, the shear amount of it; I was engrossed and lost in amazement. If the coral alone was worth it, then the sea life was a bonus. In the photos below you will see schools of parrot fish rocking in the current in the early morning waiting to be cleaned of algae from the night before, giant clams the size of bean-bags, startled rays making their escape from their sandy hiding spots, turtles chowing down at their all-you-can-eat lunch buffets and me finding Nemo.

The trip also allowed me to experience my first night dive. Night is when the predators of the ocean do their hunting, so it’s not uncommon to see sharks on the dives. Watching from the top deck of the boat on the second night dive, you could at least 5 sharks hunting. It really makes your heart race knowing you’re about to jump in the same water. They are smaller reef sharks that keep their distance when 30 aliens, making a ridiculous amount of noise and bubbles, jump into their water. But, when I was diving I’d sometimes turn my light off, and at the very edge of where I could see, I’d notice the faint outline of the oceans number one predator, confidently swimming by.

When my you’re-in-shark-infested-water-turn-on-your-light-idiot response finally kicked in I’d shine the light, half out of fear and half out of curiosity, and the green eye glow of the shark reflected right back at me. Be still my beating heart and return to my chest, you don’t belong in my throat. My senses were so heightened from all of the adrenaline that, at one point, I caught movement out of my peripheral and felt the slightest touch on the side of my head—you know that feeling when you’re almost asleep and you feel something crawl on your lower leg and you catch your breath for an instant before turning into the most frantic, flailing, kung-fu master? That was me, underwater, ready to take on this shark with every defense skill I’ve seen on Shark Week whimper in the fetal position. Oh, did I mention it was just my snorkel?

The whole night dive experience was eerie and yet so surreal. To be in this animals domain while they are hunting in their element, focused, doing what they are made to do, was a treat. Although I was apprehensive to get in the water after watching 3 sharks work together to kill a fish from the deck of the boat, I’m so glad I decided to leave my comfort zone (other apprehensive divers felt similar once the dive had concluded). If you do go on this live-aboard trip I strongly urge you to not sit out for the night dives.

The logistics of the trip (what company I dived with, how I got to Cairns from Sydney, costs, etc.) can be found at the end of the post for those who are interested.
However, this opening section offers a taste of the life on the Great Barrier Reef from the 11 dive, 3 day excursion:

Note: All underwater photos were taken by my dive partner, Karim.

Note: All of above photos were taken by my dive partner, Karim.

Logistics

Scuba Diving the Reef

I dived through the company ProDive, in Cairns, and I could not have had a better experience. They offer an 11 dive, 3 day live-aboard trip; 55 Km (34 miles) from Cairns in the outermost reefs. We went to the Milln and Flynn reefs for this particular excursion, and did 4 dives for the first and second day and 3 dives on the last day before heading back into Cairns. Our dive sites included Pataj for dives 1 and 2; The Whale for dives 3, 4 (night dive) and 5; Tennis Courts for dive 6; Gordon’s for dives 7 and 8 (night dive); Little Tracy for dive 9; and Tracy for dives 10 and 11. Every one of the dives was different, but the ProDive staff made sure we were adequately briefed with helpful diagrams that included distance, depth and navigational headings (see below).

If you book well in advance, the package that I purchased costs $710 AUD (this includes the $60 boat levy). However, since I went in September (which isn’t in the popular summer) I was able to walk in last minute and book a trip leaving in 2 days. This qualified me for their stand-by pricing, lowering my price to $610 AUD ($631.90 USD). This price includes: all of your scuba gear for 11 dives (including air); transportation to and from the reef; 8 full meals (see pictures), tea and coffee at any time, 2 light snacks and 2 desserts; accommodation for 2 nights (hot showers); an optional guided first dive for divers who might need a refresher; and free WI-FI on the boat.

How to get to Cairns

If I could do it all over again I would fly from Sydney to Cairns and then take a bus from Cairns back to Sydney. The trick to getting a good deal on a flight from Sydney to Cairns is to book well in advance. I would book a flight from Sydney to Cairns and then purchase Greyhound’s Mini-traveler pass from Cairns to Sydney for $389 AUD (402.46 USD). Since I didn’t book a flight well in advance I had to go with the next best option: a 10 day flexi pass through Greyhound. This gave me 10 days of travel (with no distance restrictions) to use whenever I wanted, within 60 days. The total cost was $517 AUD (523.68 USD) and allowed for round trip travel between Sydney and Cairns, while also allowing me to hop-off at coastal cities like Airlie beach, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise and Newcastle along the way. Note: to Greyhound, a travel day means any day in which you are on a bus. For example, if I were to hop on a bus at 10am and get off at my destination at 9pm that would be 1 travel day. However, if I were to get on a bus at 10pm and get off at my destination at 1am that would be 2 travel days.

Other Options

Fly round trip – A quick kayak search shows round-trip flights between $300-$500 AUD ($310.38-$517.30 USD), however, you will miss the option to see the east coast of Australia, and if you have the time and the budget I definitely recommend the experience.

Rent a camper van/car – Hunt for good relocation deals (especially in the off seasons), but keep fuel costs in mind. Cairns is about 2600 km (1615 miles) north of Sydney, when traveling along the coast. To help with your estimations, the camper van I rented in New Zealand had a 60 L (15.85 gal) tank and roughly averaged 500 km (310.69 miles) per tank. Using a gas price of $1.48 AUD per liter ($5.80 USD per gal), you’re looking at $461.76 AUD ($477.74 USD) for a one-way trip (not including the daily rental fee of the vehicle). Find a good rental fee and get 2 or 3 people to travel with to help with the fuel prices, work out the numbers, and if it fits your budget, only then would I go with this option.

Train – I only briefly researched this but the prices seem to be on the same level as Greyhound.

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I’ve had a few questions about my gear and if I’ve added or gotten rid of anything yet. Everything has been working out great so far. The only item I’ve added is a reusable grocery bag similar to this for carrying/storing extra food while I’m moving between accommodations. Ideally, I’d just donate or toss extra food, but Australia isn’t cheap. I managed to run through my Australian and New Zealand budget pretty quick and am now trying to live as frugally as possible (I’ll try to put together a recipe/grocery list for how I’m managing under $10 AUD per day for food), for my last month here.

Currently, I’m in Perth after a brisk, 15-day, 3630 km (2256 miles) road trip through New Zealand and a week in Melbourne. So stay tuned for the itinerary and logistics of the New Zealand trip, maybe even a video.

You’re leaving the country for a year. What do you pack?

It took me 6 months to finish answering this question. Not only did people say I was crazy when I told them I’d be trying to do it with a 32 liter bag, they said it wasn’t possible. I ended up leaving the country with a 26 liter backpack.

Traveling as light as possible was the driving factor because of the freedom it allows (and partially just to see if I could do it). When a 26 L backpack is all I have:

• There’s no need to check baggage
  
• I look less like a tourist
  
• I have higher mobility
  
• I have lower dependency on having to find a spot to store/lockup my bag

I believe in quality over quantity. Why should traveling be any different? After acquiring stuff I didn’t really need all my life, it was a huge step to sell it all and leave with only a 26L backpack. But even after my cutbacks, there are still items I could probably get rid of.

When deciding on gear, I looked at weight, compressibility and functionality, mostly. Here is the final list (with my comments):

Miscellaneous

20oz Klean Kanteen Insulated Water Bottle

I filled this up a quarter of the way with ice and the rest water, 24 hours later there were still ice cubes jingle-janglin’. Hot liquid will still be hot 6 hours later and still warm 12 hours later. How does it work? SCIENCE, SON!

Rick Steves Travel Gear Clothesline

The clothesline is made out of braided surgical tubing so you can stretch it to accommodate all kinds of living situations. Because it’s braided, you can separate the braid and stick your clothes in to hang without clothes pins.

Dream Essentials Sweet Dreams Contoured Sleep Mask with Earplugs

Blocks out a great amount of light and because it’s contoured you can blink your eyes without interference.

Sea to summit 100% Premium Silk Travel Liner (traveler size)

This will only keep you about 10 degrees warmer, but I plan to use it for protection from shady hostels or couches rather than warmth. It’s extremely light and stuffs into a bag that fits in the palm of my hand

Joby GorillaPod

Since I’m traveling alone it’s nice to have a versatile tri-pod like this (it can be wrapped around poles, trees, pets, etc.) for photos.

RayBan 54mm Foldable Wayfarers

The folding wayfarers eliminate the bulky and awkward-to-pack issues that I always have with sunglasses.

Inka Pen

This thing is sweet. It attaches to my keychain so I have quick access to a mini-pen (or PDA stylus!). It easily converts to a full size pen when I’m getting my journal on, and the ink is pressurized, so I can write upside down, underwater, in space, it doesn’t matter WHERE inspiration strikes me, I get it DOWN on paper with my Inka pen, yo.

Packtowl UltraLite XL (3.1 oz.)

This is a full size towel that compacts down to a little bigger than a notecard and it’s ultra-absorbent and quick drying. I went on a live aboard scuba trip, we did 11 dives in 3 days, I showered and dried off after every dive and this thing was never wet and always got me completely dry.

Moleskine Classic Large Plain Notebook

This is for jotting down notes, plans, expenses, learning experiences, meals, ideas, etc. It’s so suave looking it almost makes up for my shoes.

Fake Wallet

This is where I keep my daily spending money as well as 20 US 1 dollar bills, which gives the illusion there is lots of money in it. It is also packed with expired credit cards, old hotel room key cards and any other cards I could find that I wouldn’t mind losing. The idea is that if I were to get mugged, I could hand them this throw this in the air and run away screaming while the thieves are preoccupied with the money flying everywhere. I also wouldn’t be too upset if it got pick-pocketed.

Deck of cards

Great way to meet people

Handwritten Letters

The fates of the universe definitely have a sense of humor. 7 weeks before I left, they decided to introduce me to a wonderfully splendid individual. Our first official day of being together was the day I left on this yearlong trip. She wrote me a letter for every flight destination I have, as well as letters for when it rains, when I miss her, etc., so there are about 20 of those in my bag as well.

Electronics

Sony Vaio Z-Series

Intel Core i7 (2.7GHz with turbo boost up to 3.4GHz)

8GB RAM

13.1″ LED Full HD display (1920 x 1080)

128GB Solid state drive

.66 inches thick and weighs 2.5 pounds.

What’s up MacBook Air?

Sony NEX 5

More powerful than a point and shoot, has interchangeable lenses and is small and compact and takes great photos.

Kodak Play Sport

A more rugged, 5 megapixel camera/video camera that is waterproof down to 3 meters. I bought it before the go-pro came out and after playing with one of those, I think I’d rather have a go-pro. However, the Kodak takes decent photos/videos and for less than $100 you really can’t beat it.

Amazon Kindle

I bought the free 3G version so I could buy books without being reliant on finding a Wi-Fi connection, which is great for getting just about any book, anywhere. It’s a must have for any reader, especially if you’re traveling.

Fenix LD15 Flashlight

The flashlight is very small (a little larger than the single AA battery that powers it), but very bright. It also has a candle setting which I have used to read at night when others are sleeping.

Kikkerland uL03-A Universal Travel Adapter

An amazingly well designed travel adapter that is small, compact and can transform to convert to any outlet for any country.

Griffen USB Mini-Cable Kit

The package comes with an Apple charger, and micro and mini USB cables. Perfect for connecting to a laptop or right to the wall to charge instead of having to lug around the bulky cables that came with the device.

AC Bel VGP-AC19V32 Laptop AC Adapter

Smaller and lighter than the adapter that came with my laptop

Seagate 1.5TB HDD

The 128 GB in the Vaio isn’t enough room for all the photos/videos I plan on taking during the trip so this is a nice supplement.

Other electronics include a San Disk Cruzer 8 GB Flash Drive, my Apple iPhone 4 with headphones, my Sony NEX 5 Battery Charger and a USB power outlet adapter.

Clothing

A majority of the clothing listed below is made with merino wool (denoted with *). Merino wool is quick drying (laundry days are efficient), odor resistant (laundry days come less often) and has great flow and insulation, allowing it to keep me cool when it’s hot outside and warm when it’s cold outside. It’s the perfect material for the traveler trying to pack light.

Patagonia Super Shell Jacket

It hasn’t rained yet so I haven’t had the chance to truly test this out but it’s light and compact (built with GORE-TEX® Paclite® shell technology and weighs 13.5 oz.).

Mont-Bell Ex-Light Down Jacket

This jacket is amazingly warm, ultra-compact and light. It fits into an included stuff sack that is about the size of a Fosters beer can.

Icebreaker Apollo V-Neck*

Light every day wear shirt

Icebreaker Tech Polo*

Light every day wear shirt, but with a collar, for those days when I’m feeling fancy.

Icebreaker LS Outback*

A thick, long-sleeved full button down shirt with collar, for those days when I’m feeling fancy AND it’s nippy out.

Icebreaker Men’s Distance Short*

I use these as pajamas, workout shorts and as a swimsuit (they have internet) which is great on laundry day so I can wash all my undies. Unfortunately, they don’t have pockets.

Icebreaker Multisport Lite Mini Sock*

Smartwool PhD Running Light Micro Sock*

These two socks are the first legitimate nice socks I’ve ever owned. They are like bras for your feet—nothing gets bunched, everything is tight and supported where it needs to be and they are so soft and cushiony.

Prana Zion Pant

There’s nothing really special about these travel pants. I chose them because they look like normal pants that aren’t covered in cargo pockets or convertible to shorts. They are light and breathable and can be rolled up and buttoned when I’m wearing sandals. Yes, these are the only pants I brought. Jeans are too bulky and heavy and who really notices when you’re wearing the same pants all the time? That was my reasoning at least.

Icebreaker Beast 150 Anatomica Boxer (x2)

Exofficio Give-N-Go Boxer Briefs

The Exofficio boxer briefs come with the tag line: “17 countries. 6 weeks. One pair of award-winning underwear. (Ok, maybe two.)” They aren’t made out of merino wool like their Icebreaker counterparts so I decided to try them both. They each work great in the sense of being odor resistant and quick to dry. However, I like Exofficio better because the legs are longer so they don’t bunch up and they have a pee hole (don’t know what the actual term for this is). The Icebreaker briefs have no opening and are quite see thru, which is a bummer as I’m a big fan of prancing around in just my undies. The Exofficio briefs also make a great swimsuit and I fit right in with the Europeans.

Arc’Teryx Spiro Cap

Even though I look terrible in hats due to my enormous “cabeza de marro” (the cooks in the restaurant I worked at called me this, I was told it means: head like a sledge hammer), I knew I needed one. This cap can be folded into a tiny shape without hurting the brim, dries quickly and the back can be unrolled for ear and neck coverage.

Invisible shoes connect 4mm barefoot sandal

I knew I wanted the option to have both close-toed shoes and sandals, but I knew they needed to be compactable. I settled on invisible shoes. They are pretty much the most minimalistic shoe you can get. They are just a 4mm piece of rubber with string to hold them on your foot, which makes it possible to roll them up and stuffed into my bag, taking up minimal room. They boast the closest thing to going barefoot that you can get, and when I wear them I can feel just about everything I walk on (which I love), but with some protection. They also have a heal strap so I can wear them like water shoes and not have to worry about them coming off like traditional thong sandals.

Montrail Streak Trail Shoe

Nothing special about these shoes, I wish I could have found something a little more stylish as well as functional. “Nice shoes” is the only comment I have received—the you-look-like-a-dork undertones were almost palpable.

I/O Bio Merino ¾ tight*

In case it gets extremely cold, these will be my extra leg protection. I also packed Foursquare mittens with glove liners, a beanie, a facemask and a neck tube scarf.

Bags/Organization

Tom Bihn 26 L Smart Alec Backpack

I chose this backpack because of the great organization and heavy duty material that it’s made out of. It also looks like a daypack so it doesn’t scream tourist. The bag is equipped with aquaguard zippers to keep the contents dry when it’s raining.

Tom Bihn small organizer pouches – 1 clear, 1 padded

Clear pouch – travel adapter, NEX Battery charger, Griffen USB cables, USB drive and usb to wall outlet converter

Padded pouch – 1.5 TB HDD

These clip into the Smart Alec’s side pocket

Tom Bihn medium clear organizer pouch

Holds any documents I’d like to keep (e.g. receipts, passport/driver’s license copies and letters). It clips into the water bottle side pocket

Tom Bihn Laptop Air13 Vertical Cache

Extra protection for the laptop

DLC Neoprene Lens Pouch – Medium

Fits my whole camera with the lens attached and clips into the main backpack pocket

Eagle Creek Pack-it 2-sided half cube

Holds my mittens with glove liners, beanie, face mask, neck tube scarf, long underwear and icebreaker long sleeve button down shirt

Eagle Creek Undercover Neck Wallet

Strapped around my waist under my pants (can also be wore around the neck) and carries my passport, immunization documentation, the big-pappi cash, ID, credit cards, etc.

Tom Bihn kit

Holds the non-liquid toiletries listed below

Tom Bihn 3D clear organizer cube

Holds all the liquids listed below for easy passage through airport security

Toiletries

Toothbrush

Razor

Deodorant

Gold bond

Glide floss

Mini 1^st aid/sewing kit

Nail clippers

Medicine – Nyquil, Imodium AD, Motrin, Claritin, Excedrin for migraines

Campsuds – Used for shampoo, body wash and detergent

SPF 50 sunscreen

Toothpaste

Anthony logistics for men algae facial cleanser

Facial lotion

Cologne

Thera-tears eye drops

I have been traveling for over 3 weeks now and as I’ve told the people I’ve encountered, “I have everything I need, just not very much of it.” The freedom to just pick up and leave is remarkable. Everyone I have met wishes they didn’t pack so much. I saw a traveler walking to the train station with a 70+ L backpack, another backpack the size of mine strapped to their front and another bag in their hand. They looked miserable. Pack less, and if you can’t live without something, buy it on the road. The lack of restriction is very liberating and I wouldn’t recommend traveling any other way.

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It has been quite an adventure so far. I’m in Newcastle, Australia, on my way back down to Sydney after a 3 week journey that took me up to Cairns and back along the stunning landscape of the Australian east coast. A special thanks to Becky for letting me stay at her place here in Newcastle to do some hardcore R&R, to Shannon for editing this post and to Tynan for the inspiration for a majority of this gear.

On October 2, I leave for New Zealand, where I will embark on a 14 day road trip across the north and south islands that hits around 50 different destinations (an aggressive plan that will probably change when reality smacks me in the face and says nope).

I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t have some type of travel on their bucket list. I am no different. When I stumbled on the topic of “travel hacking” I saw a way to accomplish my world-wide travel goals. Travel hacking allows an individual to travel the world for cheap, if you know how to work the system a little bit. After getting around buying books in college, getting around paying full price for airline tickets seemed right up my alley. I immediately started reading everything I could on traveling smart. Through the research I stumbled upon what is called a RTW (round the world) ticket. The itinerary builders took hold of my imagination, letting me plan trip after trip that would take me to the different corners of the world. After weeks of playing with the itinerary builder I decided I’d start playing for keeps and added 6 months of world travel to my bucket list. This 6 month trip quickly doubled in length (both time and distance) and I realized it would take some devising if I wanted to accomplish my goal on a budget I could afford. On August 1, 2012 I finalized my 44,987 mile (the circumference of the earth is 24,901 miles), 15 flight itinerary. Diane, the American Airlines booking agent, paused after booking the last leg of my adventure to let my final fee load, “Your total will be, $1,091.71.” All my planning had come to fruition and I was in shock, I had just I booked what should have been a $9,556.45 trip of a lifetime for almost 90% off.

My goal for this post is to show you how I did this (if you have questions at the end, please ask them in the comments and I will answer them as soon as I can). My final flight path can be seen below and my itinerary is as follows:

Los Angeles         à Sydney               September 3

Sydney                   à Auckland           October 2

Auckland               à Melbourne        October 16

Melbourne            à Perth                    October 23

Perth                       à Singapore           November 21

Singapore              à Bangkok              December 16

Bangkok                 à Hong Kong         January 9

Hong Kong            à Johannesburg  January 15

Johannesburg     à London                February 13

London                  à Amman                February 20

Amman                  à Madrid                 March 13

Madrid                   à Buenos Aires     June 12

Buenos Aires       à Santiago              July 3

Santiago                à Easter Island     July 24

Easter Island       à Lima                     July 31

Disclaimer: I am about to geek out super hard on this post as I show you just how deep the rabbit hole of frugal travel goes. You can use the resources I provide to take it as deep as you want but what follows will be a guide that focuses on how to plan and book a RTW ticket through the oneworld alliance using American Airlines frequent flyer miles accumulated without flying.

How to plan a RTW trip

The first step is to plan a RTW trip you’d like to take—this will give you your goal. One of the mistakes I made during this step is not fully understanding the rules that need to be followed on a oneworld RTW ticket itinerary. It’s fun to play with the itinerary builder but if you’re at all serious, I recommend reading over the rules at least once, since the oneworld RTW planner isn’t the best at alerting you when your itinerary is invalid. Next, I utilized Who Flies Where to get a general idea of where I could fly with the oneworld alliance and started putting together a flight path. Two things to keep in mind when planning cities you want to visit are visas and immunizations. Some places require applying for visas in advance, proof of specific immunizations or both. You should be aware of these in your planning.

I then used Airport Codes to find the 3 letter airport codes for every city on my itinerary to plug into Mileage Monkey to determine if I had created a valid itinerary that abided by all the rules. Once I had a valid itinerary, Mileage Monkey displayed the total trip miles of all the flights, and I used this number to determine how many American Airlines frequent flyer miles I would need to make this trip free (excluding taxes, fees and surcharges). Note of clarification: An alliance is a group of airlines. For example, British Airways and American Airlines are both part of the oneworld alliance, whereas, United Airlines and Air Canada are part of Star Aliance. It is through the alliance that you choose your RTW ticket flights, e.g. I chose oneworld so my RTW itinerary must be made up of airlines that are part of that alliance and the cities that I fly to are determined by what cities the oneworld alliance services. Another important distinction is airline points: you do not accumulate oneworld alliance points, but rather, airline points like American Airlines or British Airways points. For example, I focused on obtaining 160,000 American Airlines frequent flier miles, I then called an AA booking agent and booked my RTW ticket using oneworld alliance airlines with my AA miles. It would not be possible to accrue 100,000 AA and 60,000 BA and use them together to purchase a RTW ticket.

How to reach your frequent flyer mile goal

Once you have decided on an airline to save points with, your goal is to obtain enough of their miles to take the trip that you planned. The quickest way for obtaining frequent flier miles is through credit card sign up offers. My trip required 160,000 AA miles and I was able to get 110,000 of those AA miles through 2 credit card offers. The reward chart shows that just through these 2 credit card sign up offers I could already book a very decent 20,000 mile RTW trip.

So how do you know what credit card has the best sign up bonuses? This is where I will point you to The Frugal Travel Guy. Anything you need to know about credit cards and maintaining good credit can be answered with this website. Rick has perfected the art of credit card “churning” to make sure he never has to pay for travel again, while keeping his credit score high. Churning and credit tracking are outside the scope of this post but Rick is the master at it and the go to guy to figure out what credit cards have the best sign up bonuses at any given time. Note: credit card companies WANT you to sign up for their cards, they make lots of money when you use their cards to purchase things, they make lots of money when people don’t pay of their balance in full every month. In order to get new customers they will offer you ridiculous things. Do not feel guilty about taking advantage of these offers. They wouldn’t continue to put out these offers if the offers didn’t make them money so use them wisely and to your advantage

Once you have found a credit card with a bonus that you want, you will probably (hopefully) notice that you don’t get the full bonus just for signing up, but will need to reach a spend limit to get the rest of the reward. For example, one of my credit cards was the Citi bank AAdvantage American Express that offered 75,000 AA miles with signup (and 1 AA mile for every $1 spent on the card). However, I received 50,000 miles with my first purchase and the remaining 25,000 miles if I could spend $4,000 in 6 months. The last thing I wanted to do was spend $4000 on stuff I wouldn’t normally buy just to get 25,000 extra bonus miles.

Here is a non-inclusive list of ideas to meet spending limits:

1. Figure out if you can pay your rent/mortgage with a credit card.
   
2. Plan to make large purchases like computers/furniture/home improvements during this time
   
3. Prepay insurance payments
   
4. Prepay other purchases that you know you always make like groceries or gas. You can do this by using your credit card to buy yourself $1000 worth of Trader Joe’s gift cards to use at your leisure.
   
5. Buy EVERYTHING with your credit card and pay it off in full EVERY month. If you read enough Frugal Travel Guy you will see that your credit is your greatest asset, do not ruin it.
   
6. Think outside the box. The best example of this is the discovery that you could buy dollar coins from the US mint with a credit card in 2008, unfortunately, the practice was ended on July 22, 2011.
   

There are plenty of opportunities to gather miles so pay attention to the forums/blogs that I list below or come up with your own creative idea. After credit card sign up bonuses there are still many other ways to build up frequent flyer miles. Most airlines have both a dining network and a shopping network. For example, American Airlines’ reward networks are their Dining network and shopping network. These networks give you extra miles for spending money at specific restaurants or stores, so sign your card up for them! I have a dog, and spend around $50 every month buying him food. I went to the rewards network and found an online pet store that gave me a bonus 5 AA miles per dollar (plus the 1 mile I already get for using a AAdvantage Amex). They had the same dog food I bought at the pet store (which would only give me 50 AA miles) for the same price (including shipping). So I turned 50 AA miles into 300 AA miles by purchasing through the rewards network. For my RTW trip, I wanted to have more than a point and shoot camera, so I timed my purchase during the months where I needed to meet my SPG Amex spending limit. The camera was $700 and made by Sony. Before making the purchase, I decided to check the rewards network and found that Sony was an approved vendor that offered 3 miles per dollar. I made the purchase through the awards network website and instead of just getting 700 SPG points, I got 700 SPG points, 2100 AA miles, and made $700 worth of progress towards my SPG spending limit. Keep your wits about you and you will be able to rack up miles quicker using these two resources.

Another way is to transfer points between different companies. For example, the second credit card I signed up for was the SPG American Express credit card that offered me 20,000 SPG points on my first purchase and another 10,000 when I met the spending limit. The beautiful thing about SPG points is their versatility for transfer. If you transfer 20,000 SPG points to AA, they give you a 5,000 point bonus. So, I met the spend limit and then used the card until I had 40,000 total SPG points, which I then transferred to 50,000 AA frequent flier miles.

Airline promotions and contests are another great way to rack up free miles. Great resources to keep track of these are forums and blogs like flyer talk, milepoint, the points guy, view from the wing, and one mile at a time. If you don’t want to take the time to monitor these resources you can use the travel hacking cartel. They do all the work for you and you just read the emails and do what they say to get points. There is a monthly fee but they offer a 14 day $1 trial, which is fun to use and it will start you off with some good offers to pad your frequent flyer accounts. When your trial is up you can cancel or keep it if you think it will be useful for you.

How to book your trip

When you’ve reached your miles goal and you’re ready to book your flight there are a few things to keep in mind. The first is that a RTW ticket is only good for 12 months from the date that you book the flights. This is really only an issue if you’re planning a longer trip. I booked my ticket August 1, 2012, which means I have to be at my final destination by August 1, 2013, even though my first flight isn’t until September 3, 2012.

I also discovered that airlines only publish flights 330 days in advance, so if you plan to do any traveling in that last month (like I do), you’re going to have to game the system a little bit. One of the rules of RTW tickets is that after you book the flights you’re not allowed to change who you’re flying with or where you’re going but you can change dates and times without penalty. So, my last three flights fell in that 330-365 day dead zone. To get around this, I booked these flights within a week of each other around the 315 day mark where I was still able to find flights. Then as the dates when I want to fly become available I will call and change the dates and times to fit the 12 month itinerary that I want.

The third item to remember is that you must book flights that have award availability. The way airlines work is that they reserve a certain number of seats that can be booked by people using frequent flier miles. Once those seats are filled, you can no longer use frequent flier miles to get on that flight, even if there are still open seats available on the plane. So, you need to search for flights that still have award seat availability. The easiest way to do this is through the airline websites. Oneworld alliance consists of around 14 airlines plus their subsidiaries, however, I was able to use the Qantas website (once I signed up for their frequent flier program) to search for flights with award availability to the destinations I wanted to go.

Next, make sure you write it all down. Once you find a flight that works for you, write down the date, flight number and the departure and arrival time. It’s smart to have a few back-up flights written down in case something happens when you’re on the phone and your original flight is no longer available.

Once you have it all planned and written down you can proceed to the final step: calling the booking agent. I saved up my frequent flier miles through American Airlines so that is who I booked through. They have an office that deals with RTW bookings using awards miles so make sure you’ve been transferred to the right place before you start spilling flight numbers to someone who is just going to transfer you. It’s important to be patient, some employees are more experienced with booking these types of trips than others and if you encounter an employee that is on the inexperienced side you can either be patient and ask them to check with someone if they encounter a problem or politely excuse yourself from the conversation and call back in hopes of getting someone on the line that has more experience. Once they have put all your flights in the computer they will check that your itinerary conforms to all the rules. Pending success, they will calculate how many miles your trip is to determine how many frequent flier miles you will need to spend, determine the total taxes and fees that you will have to pay (this is why I actually had to pay money instead of getting all the flights for free) and ask you if you would like to book the itinerary or put it on hold for a maximum of 5 days. If you put it on hold, make sure you get the record locator so that when you call back, whoever is helping you can go right to your saved itinerary.

BOOM! Enjoy your adventure of a lifetime! Hit me with questions if you gots ‘em!

####

As part humble brag and part seriouslyyoucandothisforcheap: I didn’t want to put any of my stuff into storage for a year so I sold as much as I could, donated the rest and ended up making $1614. I also had been saving my change for the past 6 years, which amounted to $636.68. These two things paid for my plane tickets and a good chunk of my gear.

If you or anyone you know is living in or near the places I will be going, let me know. I’m always down to meet up with someone who knows more about a place than I do.

I know many people are interested in what I’m traveling with for a year. I managed to get everything I needed into a 26L backpack. Stay tuned for a gear post as well as other posts detailing tips for getting other aspects in order before embarking on a journey like this.