So time is flying by extremely quickly…definitely time to start really planning rather than just thinking about it. It’s getting real!
Savings
Nothing much to report here – saving is still going well. Boosted by the fact we no longer have car parking charges to pay, and also that I got a slight payrise! What I do need to start looking into is travel credit cards, as my FairFX card has now expired and it doesn’t seem to save me any money compared to when I first got it.
Kit Purchasing
We are seriously starting to look at what we need to buy now. We both have new backpacks, so that is taken care of, but we both want to buy some hiking/walking shoes because they are going to last a long time and hopefully be really versatile travelling shoes. Oh and we might actually do some hiking too! We also need to buy some warm coats for Russia, Mongolia and China. We’ll probably have to ditch them when we get to Vietnam sadly as it isn’t practical to carry them around in a hot climate, so we’re not looking to spend a fortune, as long as they’re warm!
Smaller things like towels, packing cubes and other travel accessories are not so essential to buy right now, but I would still like to so it spreads the cost out a bit – we don’t want to have to blow a load of our savings buying kit at the last minute!
I am also finally going to buy my new camera this month! I’m thoroughly fed up of the rubbish point and shoot I’ve been using for the past 6 months, so much so it’s been preferable to use my iPhone for photos!
De-Cluttering
We’re both constantly getting rid of things – took a large amount of old clothes and books to charity last week and we’ve got more things to sell on Ebay. We don’t really have much furniture luckily, so it’s mainly clothes and junk we want to get rid of.
Travel Planning
We have been looking a lot more seriously at what route we want to take, both through Europe, and through Russia and Mongolia. I don’t think we’re going to have a huge number of stops on the Trans Siberian, mostly because it is going to be FREEZING, it will probably end up being 3 or 4.
We still haven’t actually decided on a departure date yet but we will need to fairly soon to start looking for the best deals on trains through Europe, then we can work out when we will be arriving in Moscow and thus when we need the tickets to start from there. We can’t book those until 45 days before we leave but it would be good to know well in advance.
I’m always updating our travel plans page so check there to see our most up to date plans.
