Sunday, October 31, 2010

Preparing for my 5 month adventure abroad!

It's funny how a person can actually be more busy when not having a job.  Time seems to fly by in preparation for my trip in less than 18 days. Usually people plan a trip like this at least a year in advance. I had about 2 months to get my house in order, pack, research, book travel arrangements, sublet my place and have all of my business affairs taken care of prior to leaving the country for 5 months.


During the past few weeks, I have booked my itinerary flights to 14 cities:

Itinerary

1. Seoul, Korea
2. Mumbai/Bombay, India
3. Phuket, Thailand
4. Bangkok, Thailand
5. Manila, Philippines
6. Singapore, Singapore
7. Sydney, Australia
8.Melbourne, Australia
9.. Brisbane, Australia
10. Auckland, New Zealand
11. Nadi, Fiji
12. Santiago, Chile
13. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
14. Miami, Florida

(This does not include the side trips to other cities in between.)

Visas


I have also applied and received my visa for India, Brazil and Australia.
* My travel agent arranged for my Australian visa while I applied in person to get the other two visas so I could get back my passport in a few days.
*As a rule of thumb, most visas seem to require a valid passport that doesn't expire for at least 6 months, 1-2 passport size photos and two blank pages in the back of the passport.

The other countries did not require a visa to enter their country.