To begin the journey, it is important to tie up loose ends, pack and actually leave home. Sounds simple enough! Wrong!
The stuff we didn't sell was either put into storage, packed in the back of the car, packed in suitcases, or left for the new owner. Thankfully the new owner was happy with that arrangement - it was her idea! The house sale settled, the bed was collected (last piece of furniture to go, and we were officially homeless.
The afore mentioned car was put on a train and sent to Brisbane. I spoke about this before...it was to be gifted to a friend who was in need of some transport. Our pay-off? We snagged a little storage space for my additional stuff that I couldn't bear to part with.
With the house sold, bills settled, stuff sorted and bags packed we headed (via an overnight stay in a Motel) to Brisbane. That story is covered in another blog, as was the stop in Caloundra. Once friends were caught up with and the last of my husbands work commitments were sorted, we took off for London.
We thought we were done and dusted, but I ended getting another bill for the Internet. I had called before I left and cancelled, but I hadn't checked my dates. I cancelled two days into the new cycle, not two days before as I thought. It cost me and extra $65. I really need to double check dates (read my upcoming blog about AirBnb). There were other similar issues and fortunately they were sorted because I had a reorganised direct debit. However without it, it gets tricky. Some things cannot be done from overseas as you need a One Time Pin code sent to your phone.
If you're going overseas for a short stint, you can probably justify paying between $5 and $10 a day to get roaming, but when you're going overseas for a year, it's cost prohibitive. When you have an overseas number, you cannot have a code sent to you. The solution is to set up your bank accounts and other services to contact you by either email or an app that generates a new code every few seconds. Not all banks have that, so you need to reduce the overall limit of your card. What does that mean? You cannot add a payee or transfer more than (for example) $1500 per day.
As we are going into retirement, we have funds that need to be transferred to a management account. Some of those funds came in after we left. This wasn't a huge problem, as we could just print off some paperwork, fill in the details and have the funds transferred on our behalf. Sound easy? Yup, if in Australia where most people have a printer or know where a printing store is. We tried to do it in Newcastle.
Now you could knock me down with a feather when I realised that people don't have those things at home. Nor do they know where you can go! After a bit of looking around, we found a place to go: the local library. It was hilarious. It would have taken 10 minutes at home, but here we had to firstly join the library, then go upstairs to one computer to print, then to a library worker to release the document to the printer. Once we had signed it all, we had to go to another computer to scan and send the document. It's not like we were in a hurry, but it was hilarious.
Our next issue was getting my husbands' UK passport updated. At home, you just go to the post office, have your photo taken and drop in the paperwork. In the UK, you struggle to find a place to get photos. Eventually a photo booth and £9 worth of coins did the trick. Well, sort of. My husband found his Aussie photos on an email (because they also send you those) and he used them. The booth ones were not the right style...
Sounds like a big list of complaints. Kind of. Fortunately my husband and I maintained our sense of humour and got through it. My travel tips? Sort out how you will do your banking remotely, set up a WhatsApp account (you can change that number easily) and if your bank has an authentication app, learn how to use that. Also, document signing apps can save a lot of drama.
Signing documents can prove more difficult than you think!
Secret tip; When travelling, you also need to sort travel insurance. We all know that's best, but did you know you can put your private health insurance on hold for up to two years while you travel? It can save you thousands of dollars.
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