10 Things We Learned Before Traveling
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Little did I know that I would already be living life as a backpacker before leaving Canada.
Staying at my parents house that has the internet and television disconnected for the winter while they are in Florida has been a warm up to the situation that we will be facing abroad.
We have been spending our evenings at the local coffee shop catching up on emails and blog posts, negotiating with advertisers and finalizing the last of our banking.
Well, even in a developed country like Canada problems can arise. The Internet has gone down and at times it has been slow.
Oh how we miss our home office.
Plus with all of our Iphone woes, we have had to make 2 seperate trips to Toronto 2-hours away to visit the Apple Store before leaving.
While we are traveling, we expect these little mishaps along the way, but to have them start before we even began is a little bit frustrating. My fear is that people are going to think that we are not going to post regularly while we are traipsing around the globe, but believe me, we will be.
I didn’t start our scheduled posts yet because I thought that I wouldn’t have to, but I have learned a valuable lesson. Have a back up plan.
However, it has already been an excellent learning experience.
10 Things We Learned Before Travel
Here are some of the things that we have learned while not having an Internet connection at our beck and call.
- Schedule posts ahead of time.
- Su.pr those posts so that they will get noticed on Twitter and hopefully StumbleUpon.
- Use HootSuite to tweet your favorite blogs. This is an incredible piece of Information that we received from Anthony of the Travel Tart. We can only program 10 people but at least we can be sure to support our fellow Bloggers when we can’t make it to the Internet. We would love to be able to add more but as of now, 10 is the maximum. No worries, when we do make it to a computer, we will always be sure to support the other bloggers that are not pre programmed and we will probably rotate our HootSuite Tweets.
- The Iphone is not reliable at all and we have to make sure to find out where all Apple Stores are located in each country that we visit. We have gone through 4 Iphones so far. None are able to be unlocked yet. With the new version, there seems to be a bug that causes us to lose our wifi connection on the phone. However, all we have to do is restore the phone and take it back to Apple and they will replace it.
- Which leads us to…extend our Apple Care for another year. Definitely a must because Apple seems to not care what goes wrong with the phone, they will just hand you a new one as long as it is under warranty and restored.
- We must accept that we are not going to be organized for the next few months. We may only be living out of a backpack, but we already cannot find anything. We waste more hours of the day (and I am not exaggerating when I say hours) looking for stuff. Today we couldn’t find my deodorant. After ripping both our bags apart and rifling through our carry-ons, we finally found it right where it was supposed to be. In my daypack only it was tucked into a pocket that I didn’t even know that I had. Right after that we were packing up to head to the Internet. We needed to bring our card reader for some photographs and once again, could not find it. We have two. We found one, but spent the next hour looking for the other because we didn’t want to leave the country short a card reader. We ended up finding it in a bag that was packed away to go to storage.
- This makes us believe that everyone should live out of their packs for a month before leaving. We have found many things that we thought that we had packed, but once we needed them, we found that they would have been left behind had we not moved out of our place early enough.
- Even with a list, things get left behind. We had the card reader checked off of our list as being packed. Obviously we unpacked it at some point when we needed it.
- Check your packing one more time before leaving. After tearing my back apart looking for my deodorant, I noticed that I didn’t have any shorts. I had all of my shirts packed, but other than my trekking pants and a pair of Capri’s, I didn’t have anything for my bottom.
- Have patience. We are so wrapped up in running a successful blog, that we are having a difficult time relaxing during our final days in Canada. We have lists of things to do and have put added pressure on ourselves over things that we cannot control.
So there you have it. We haven’t even left yet and we have 10 things that we have learned already. Just imagine how many things we are going to learn in 12 months!
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What helps us with the organization of things is Eagle Creek packing cubes of different sizes (1/2 & full). I know my clothes are in one, undies/socks in another, chargers/cords in another, pharmacy in another, random in another, etc. My backpack is a series of these cubes – makes it super easy to pack when I have 5 minutes until the bus leaves and keeps things from “floating” around and creeping into corners so that they can’t be found.
Interesting that the iPhone has been so problematic – we’re in the market for a new phone since our other one got stolen recently in Bolivia. Wondering whether maybe we should look for an alternative to the iPhone.
Once you get on the road, you’ll find that a guesthouse or cafe with wifi and comfortable work situation is golden. You’ll be so excited to be able to work when it’s not such a challenge
Enjoy your last days!!
.-= Audrey´s last blog ..From Ecuador to Turkmenistan: 10 Border Crossings We Have Known =-.
The problem with the Iphone has been unlocking it. It can only be unlocked with the newest version of the software and so far 3 different phones have lost their wifi when we unlocked them. We have seen on the net that it is a software issue with Apple. So for now, we are not going to unlock the phone and just use it’s wifi until the problem is solved. The great thing about Apple is how easily the replace it. But that isn’t going to do us much good when we are in Sri Lanka or Nepal:) We will keep you posted on how it goes.
Oh, I forgot to thank you for the info on the Eagle Creek packing cubes. Will have to check those out for the next adventure!
Those Eagle Creek packing cubes are certainly neat — thanks Audrey for the suggestion. Kathryn and I will have to give living out of our packs for a month before living a shot. In fact, I think that I’d permanently like to live out of a pack. That would bring decluttering to a whole new level!
.-= Daniel´s last blog ..Filling in the Gap: Travel Intern Winners Announced! =-.
I agree Daniel. It certainly would take decluttering to a new level. And yet, somehow we still feel cluttered in our packs. I remember during the tour d’afrique, it took us 2 months before we could find stuff in our red box. We finally had our organization down to a science just in time for the tour to end 2 months later. I think that is how it is going to be during this travel as well. Probably 2 months in, we will finally know where we put every little electronic and sock:)
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Great idea to live out of the bag a month before leaving… as I also like to travel spontaneous, does that mean, that I just have to live out of the bag?
.-= Melvin´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.
Yes Melvin, I think that you should just always live out of a bag. You can join us in our homelessness:-)
we just bought a phone unlocked separate from any carrier, meaning we researched on our own and bought an HTC phone. This way we were not tied to any carrier or have a contract. It’s worked out find for our Asia trip especially Thailand. When I was in India, I just got a sim-card on the phone but with no internet access. That was two years ago so I’m sure being the technology mecca that it is, there is good internet access and plenty of options. Once we were there somethings were easier than originally imagined.
We tried to keep all electronic related stuff with my husband’s backpack (we each still carry our own camera, laptop, so we know that all those items are with him (Chargers, wires, card readers, etc). I keep track of our daughter’s stuff as well as toiletries.
I get excited for trips way too early and usually pack at least a month in advance. This has allowed me to learn to pack less and less.
These are good lessons you have shared with us and I’m learning from you as well. LOve the countdown clock below.. I’m going to install one too!! hee hee now figuring out how is the challenge……
totally looking forward to YOUR trip.
)
Hi Aye. the countdown clock is just a widget for wordpress, I think that it is actually called countdown widget. We have to find one now to count up our days on the road. Ahh, so many things to do:) We should have gotten a HTC phone it would have been far less of a hassle.
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I have wanted to get an Iphone for a while now but wasnt sure about spending the money, I had no idea they were so unreliable.
Hey Travelmaniac. We must clarify that they aren’t unreliable if you don’t unlock them. We are just having difficulties with the unlocking process which we feel is a must for travel. We don’t want to have enormous roaming fees on the road. With older phones it had been easy to unlock them and use them as a phone by inserting a SIM card. And then using the wifi. Now, it is just a little more difficult, but I am sure that they will come out with a fix soon. For now we are going to travel with it locked and just use the wifi. I am loving the Iphone, we just would love it more if it was unlocked. Good luck and believe me once we figure it out, we will share how it goes.
Really great tips! I agree with Melvin that the tip about living out of your backpack for a month before you go is priceless – you’ll really learn what you can and can’t live without by doing that!
.-= Trisha´s last blog ..Suzy: Week 14 Goals – Monetizing Her Travel Blog =-.
Thanks Trisha. Yep, living out of the backpack has been crazy. Because we are kind of living between our travel packs and more stuff that we won’t be bringing with us it has been hard to find anything. That’s what happens when you give up your place almost a month before leaving. But it has certainly been good for us to figure out where everything is:)
Great idea to live out of your backpack before you leave. Even if you’re not a backpacker, it’s still wise to test drive your packed suitcase before you go and check what you really need as opposed to what you think you need. (read: I packed the kitchen sink on my last trip!)
.-= Gourmantic´s last blog ..Taking a Dip in the Arabian Gulf =-.
Thanks @Gourmantic That is so true about living out of your suitcase. I can’t tell you how many times on other travels we have brought too much stuff and ended up leaving it behind at a hotel room or sending it home. Hopefully we have learned our lesson.
Good tip about Hootsuite. I will have to look into this. Even I don’t travel around the world sometimes life gets in a way of twitter.
I couldn’t believe that you are leaving in 3 days!!! Good luck and enjoy your adventure. Can’t wait to hear all about it.
.-= Amy @ The Q Family´s last blog ..Best Family Favorite Moments at Georgia Aquarium =-.
Hi Amy, yes. I do love Hootsuite. I like being more hands on on twitter, but sometimes we just can’t keep up. So at least I know that I can support others when I can’t get to the Internet.
Scheduling posts is a key. Have some shorter ones like a poll from time to time or a picture. I also tend to not post on US major holidays since there is usually a big drop off in traffic then. Asking for guest posts can really lighten the load a bit too. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help!
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