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Left the Snake Bite Kit at Home

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

I was looking for my next topic to blog about when I came across an article about travel & medications.  It’s a topic that gets a lot of attention on travel forums.  It’s one that I thought about a lot before we left, and not much while we were actually travelling.  I don’t think I can cover everything in one post, so I’ll probably break this up into a few blogs.

 

I’ve read a lot of posts and articles with lists of what should be in your first aid kit.  The kit, just like everything else you pack is a series of tradeoffs.  What will fit?  What do I think I’ll need? What will I be able to buy while traveling?  Based on my experiences, here’s a list of what I took along, and my recommendations.  I’ll start out by saying that I think I was a little paranoid about my health before we left, so I tended to over-pack in this area.

 

Melatonin tablets – This is a chemical that your body produces naturally to help you sleep.  It’s not addictive and I found it helped with jetlag to take one at bedtime for a few days in a new timezone.  It doesn’t keep me from waking up in the middle of the night, but it seems to make it easier to fall back to sleep.  You can’t find this in many countries, but it’s OTC in the US, so I brought some with me.  There seem to be many people who get and Rx for Ambien, but that’s more than I need.

 

Aspirin and Ibuprofen – We used them quite a bit for all sorts of headaches and muscle aches.  You can replenish them just about anywhere, so don’t take too much to start.

 

Immodium – Thankfully we never had to use it.  That’s not to say that we didn’t get sick, but we stayed in one place long enough to get through it with out this.  I will only use it if I have to get on a plane/train/bus while I have, uh, symptoms.

 

Cipro – I had to use it once for Delhi Belly and Eric needed the Big C in Turkey.  Don’t leave home without it.  If you really need it, you probably won’t be in a condition to go out searching for a Dr. or pharmacy to get it.

 

Bandaids/Plasters – Blisters, scrapes, etc. are unavoidable if you are an active traveler. I always carry a few in my purse or daypack too.  It’s weird, but I’ve met a few nice people on hiking trails because I had one to share when they needed it.

 

Benadryl (antihistimine) and Sudafed (decongestant) – I have terrible allergies so I went through my initial supply quickly.  In most places, the pharmacist could recommend a good replacement if they didn’t have these specific ones.  If you are in a place where little English is spoken, bring the empty pack to the pharmacy so that they can see the ingredients.  It’s much easier than trying to “mime” a stuffy nose and sneezing. Benadryl is also good for some skin rashes.

 

Mefloquine (for malaria) – We started taking it, but gave up and just went with the next item…

 

50% DEET bug spray  (the Boots brand in the gray bottle is the best we found)- I covered myself in this stuff while I was in malaria zones.  It’s horrible,  (it actually dissolved the printing ink on one of my bags – what does it do to your skin?) but I didn’t get a single bite, which means no malaria, no dengue fever, or any other nasty disease. 

 

Meclazine (Dramamine) – I have occasional bouts of vertigo, so I brought this along, but maybe used it once.

 

Antiboitic cream – I think I only used it once for some scrapes I got hiking that didn’t heal.  I would probably still bring this along since it doesn’t take up too much room.

 

Hand Sanitizer – We carried it with us most of the time.  Since the “swine flu” was getting a lot of press last year, you could find this everywhere.  I also used it as an antiseptic to clean out some cuts while hiking (If you haven’t noticed, I’m a little klutzy on the trails).

 

Contact lens solution – I found this in most places, but it can be really expensive.  A year’s worth of disposable contacts takes up a lot of room too.  I ended up wearing glasses most of the time anyway.

 

Anthisan – I don’t think this cream is available in the US, but you get it in many other countries.  It’s for bug bites, bee stings, and rashes. The sand flies in NZ are unavoidable, so this was my only relief.  I also got stung by bees twice during our travels and it worked great.

 

That’s it for the first aid kit. Next up is that hot topic of health insurance.

Pod People

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

We’re still fixing up the house and unpacking (slowly), but have had some time to get together with a few friends.  It’s weird, in a good way, to see everyone again after so much time, but there are a few questions that everyone has.  One of them is “what did you do with all your stuff while you were gone?”

The explanation leads me to some travel advice as well, so I think it’s a good topic.  First off, we rented out our house, unfurnished, while we traveled. It was a big decision, but definitely the right thing to do.  We hired a management company to handle the rental  logistics and that was also a good decision.  They did everything from advertising the property, finding a renter and doing background checks, to collecting the rent.  They would also have handled evictions, but thankfully we didn’t have to put that to the test.  We never even met the person and basically just received a direct deposit every month from the company. Of course, they take a % of the rent, but they are also available to help the renter get a plumber or handyman if something goes wrong.  There’s no way I wanted to be worrying about whether the renter could reach us when we were 15 times zones away and the sprinkler system broke (which I’m told actually did happen and flooded the neighbors’ yard – better to find out after it’s all fixed).

In the end, the house survived pretty well with just a few nicks and our mortgage payments were covered while roamed around the world.  It was a huge weight off our minds and wallets.  If you plan to do this, consider the market conditions in your area though, and do some research on rent rates for similar properties.  You might be able to get enough to cover other home expenses you might have like taxes or insurance.  You’ll also need to think about whether you want to do a month-to-month agreement or a fixed time period.  Our renter signed for a year, so there literally was no place to come back to after we left.  A few months before the year was up, we decided to extend our travels for 3 more months.  The management company also worked it out with the renter to stay longer too.  Overall, the experience was good and one of the easier things we had to deal with before and after we traveled.

As I mentioned above, we rented the house unfurnished, which meant we had to find a place for our “stuff.”  While we tried to sell/donate/throw away a lot of things before we left, we knew we’d be back and would need some of the big items, like furniture and the big screen TV again.  The obvious choice is a storage garage, but we went with a “pod” instead.  It’s a huge container that they deliver it to your house, you load it up, and they take it away.  It’s stored in a climate controlled warehouse somewhere until you call and have it delivered again to unload.  The best part about it was that we didn’t have to move things very far… just out the front door into the pod, and then back in again a year later.  With a storage garage, you have an extra step of renting a truck and unloading/loading at the site.  The only downside is that once the pod is gone, you really can’t get access to your things. You need to be sure that you won’t need whatever is in there until after you are back. For us, it worked out really well and was probably a slightly cheaper option, too. 

We finished up moving boxes out of the pod and it was picked up today.  It’s seems trivial, but that action made our return feel very real and final.  Until then, I had the sense that maybe we could just send it back and hit the road again. 

Here’s the Pack Rat pod in front of our very full garage. 

blog-pod.JPG

Visas – Priceless

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

We finally got up the energy to take a leave Santorini, but we only made it as far as Naxos, another beautiful island in the sun. During our down time here we started to work out our plans for the next few months. This part of the trip has always been a vague “we’ll just go around Europe until October,” but now we actually have to start mapping out a real route.

Remember all those stories about kids just out of college who backpack around France and Spain for 6 months? Well, it turns out to be a lot more complicated than that. We learned more about something called a Schengen visa than I cared to know. I had heard of it before, but didn’t really think it applied to us. I’ve been to Europe – you just show up, they stamp your passport, and you go have a nice holiday, right? That’s partially true…if you are only planning to be in “Schengen countries” for less than 90 days out of 180.

No problem, we thought. There are still a few places in Europe that are not part of the Schengen agreement, so we can go to there to help gain a little extra time by leaving the region. Switzerland was one of these countries and we had planned to spend about 3 weeks there. In the 6 months since we’ve been gone, things changed. The Swiss joined the Schengen counties in January, so now any time we spend there will count toward our 90 days. Turkey is another country which is not part of the agreement, but we’ve already been there. Croatia and the UK are just about the only places that are not part of the Schengen region that we wanted to visit. And Liechtenstein, which might be good a few extra days too.

Before I get a bunch a comments saying that there are ways around this, we’ve checked out all the options already. One option that seems to come up on internet message boards and is popular with students is to just overstay. The risk is that you might be fined, if they even notice that you are still here, or you might get your future rights to a visa revoked. There’s also the possibility of jail time, but the “experts” on the internet seem to think this has a low probability. It still doesn’t sound like a very good plan to me. I might want to come back and visit these places again, aside from the fact that fines and jail don’t sound like much fun.

The other option is to get an extension to your visa. The information on the web is confusing and often contradictory on how to do this. Since we are US citizens, we are part of a Schengen visa waiver program. It means that we didn’t have to get an actual visa because it’s waived, but we are still subject to the same 90 day requirements as if we had a Schengen visa. That’s all fine until you attempt to get an extension to a visa that you don’t actually have. Did I lose you yet?

If you understood all that, the next step would be to go to the local police station or high commission in whatever country where you want stay past the 90 days. They all have different procedures, but generally you have to fill out a lot of forms, show proof that you have insurance, lots of money, and won’t be a burden to their society. At that point, most people get rejected and sent back home.

We’ve decided to go with option three, which is just to count our days carefully, spend some extra time in non-Schengen countries, and to make the most of the what we have. 12 days and counting…

We put a few of those days to good use here in Naxos.  This view is near the entrance to the harbor called the Portara, the doorway to a temple of Apollo that is 2500 years old.

 blog-portara.JPG

Homelessness

Friday, October 31st, 2008

Today was the last day in our house before the renter moves in.  We’re very excited that someone will be living there (and paying the bills) while we’re gone, but it was still a little bittersweet to see it completely empty. 

It was also a little scary to see our bags with the only things we’ll have for the next year.  They looked so small sitting in the big empty house!

blog-luggage.JPG

We’ve been spending the last week packing, making trips to storage, and saying goodbye to family and friends.  We’ve also been doing those last time visits to our favorite food places – I’m really going to miss In-N-Out and Wahoo’s fish tacos! 

It’s been exhausting, but it’s finally time.  I still can’t believe we’re leaving tomorrow.  Happy Halloween to everyone! 

A few more (unrelated) things

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

I forgot to mention in my last post that the Itinerary page has been update – thanks, Eric!

Also, I wanted to mention a great resource he found called UsedCardboardBoxes.Com.  See their website here:

 http://www.usedcardboardboxes.com/

They take used boxes from businesses and resell them to consumers for moving.  The moving kits are delivered with packaging tape, marking pens, and packing paper.  The boxes are clean and in good condition, and it was cheaper than buying new boxes from your favorite home improvement store.  So next time you move, save money and help the environment by reusing boxes!