The Halftime Report

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.

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!

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! 

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!

I have 2 weeks left to work. I already resigned a few weeks ago - I wanted to be sure they had plenty of notice. Most of my co-workers knew this was going to happen at some point, so nobody has been very surprised. I’m still in a strange state of disbelief that it’s really happening, and soon too! My emotions have been alternating between panic (at how much we still have left to do) to excitement to a little apprehension. I’ve been looking forward to this for such a long time that I’m surprised by that last one. I guess that giving up your normal life and packing all your belongings into a tiny bag for one whole year requires a little more courage than I expected. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still completely psyched about it and starting to get impatient for it to start!

I had a weird moment yesterday when I realized that I have two more weeks of work left. That’s it. Two more weeks of email, conference calls, and TPS reports (with the cover sheet, of course). And then I have a year off! It’s the exact opposite of every other vacation I’ve taken - off somewhere fun for two weeks and then facing a whole year back to work. I’m still trying to get my head around the weirdness of it. I’ve been working full time (and was going to business school at the same time for while) since the day after my college graduation. Whew! I’m tired and ready for some time with no ties to anything, schedules, or commitments. My first inclination was that this is too irresponsible, but now I’ve begun calling it “unresponsible” meaning we’ll have no responsibilities for a while, and that includes more than just work. No house to clean, no lawn to mow, no neighbors to keep up with, and very few bills to pay. The feeling is hard to put into words - a little sad to say goodbye to our stuff, but mostly happy to be free of it all for a while.

Besides my roller coaster emotions, we’ve been keeping ourselves busy and started packing up stuff for storage. It’s really amazing how much you accumulate. For each thing, I have to ask “Will I still want this a year from now?” and then “Will I want it bad enough to pay storage for it for that year?” As you probably guessed, as lot of stuff has been going to Goodwill or in the trash. The experience has been really good for me, getting down to the essentials and things that you really value vs. stuff you just felt like buying at the time. I suppose that’s enough philosophy for one blog post.  The packing continues…

The trip planning is still progressing, but the things we’re doing right now aren’t really interesting enough to blog about.  I’ve renewed my driver’s license so it won’t expire while I’m gone. We got our International Driver’s licenses too. Eric has been doing a lot of “fixing” and painting to get the house ready to rent. We started to pack up things we don’t think we’ll use in the next two months, and the garage is filling up with boxes.  Slowly the mundane things on the To Do list are being checked off.

All of this is exciting for us because it feels like we’re actively getting closer to the trip, but probably not for most of you reading this. Instead of boring you further with the minute details, I thought I’d take some time to mention a few interesting books that have helped in our RTW planning. I read these a few years ago when the “year off” first started to take shape, but just found them again while I was sorting through some boxes. I’ve re-read them both it’s amazing how much of the advice we’ve unconsciously followed in the interim. These two books are very different from each other, but they have one thing in common - oddly both have different photos of a lone backpacker trudging across desert sand dunes. Some editors must think that image conjures up exotic travel. I personally hope I don’t ever find myself in that situation.

First Time Around the World (Rough Guides) by Doug Lansky - “A trip planner for the Ultimate Journey” - This book is a great practical “how to” and includes everything from planning an itinerary to packing lists to advice on “foreign” toilets. I found a lot of the insights on public transportation/taxis, food, and health to be great for any type of traveling, including a simple week long vacation.

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts - “An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel” - While this book also has a lot of good travel information and references, it focuses more on the psychological, spiritual, and cultural aspects of travel. It covers a variety topics including why people want to travel, earning your travel, and even ethical issues. This one made me examine my own reasons for and fears against making this trip. There are quotations about travel in each chapter from Thoreau, Whitman, Muir and numerous other writers and texts that worth the price of the book alone.

Aside from the “advice” type books, I also want to give an honorable mention to another great inspiration, Bill Bryson. While some may put his books into a “humorous travel essay” category, I think they also offer a great insight into why people travel and certainly added a few destinations to our itinerary. A few of my favorites are A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned County, and Neither Here Nor There. I’ll leave you with a quote from that last one that sums up a huge part of the fun and lure of travel for me. It also explains the grand sense of euphoria and accomplishment I felt after simply purchasing a bus ticket in Chile (to the correct destination and back, I might add).

“Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary understanding of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.” Bill Bryson - Neither Here Nor There.