Numbers and Money

My favorite saying is "a statistician drowned in a river with the average depth of 2 cm." Many people don't get it, but I use this in different situations, asking somebody to look at things from a different angle, or just not to take numbers or statistics too seriously. Anyhow, for reference, here are some numbers.

We visited 33 countries. One might argue rightly that I artificially inflated the number by including Tibet, Hong Kong and Macau, who some might consider part of China; Lesotho, which we visited on a day trip; France, where we spent a night in a motel across the Swiss border; Vatican, a tiny republic inside Rome; Saudi Arabia, where we only stayed 10 hours in the airport and it even includes Romania and United States (our home bases). I added all these places because they have different histories, cultures, currencies and/or borders and passport stamps. Even briefly, each experience was a special lesson for us. I think that the country model is way overrated, but unfortunately this is what we have in today's world.

North Camp of Mount Everest. China or Tibet?

Even by the most conservative count we went to Japan, China, Nepal, India, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Madagascar, United Arab Emirates, Great Britain, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, Egypt, Turkey. We touched down on three continents for the first time in this life. We even went to the eighth continent and to what (some say) is left of Atlantis...

Airports - does anybody love them more?

We flew a lot. Many times because it was the only available option, sometimes for convenience, like in Madagascar, sometimes because it was the cheapest option, like in Greece, Italy or some places in Asia. We forfeited five flights with AirAsia, lost $630, but we didn't see it like that. We adjusted our schedule prolonging the vacations at Bottle Beach and in Bali. Overall we flew 48 times (50 for the girls), covering 123,549 km/76,770 mi (136,278 km/84,679mi for the girls, since they went for 10 days to the States in August). We payed $35,316 for plane tickets. I came a little over my initial budget, but a couple hundreds less than what Airtrecks, a round-the-world ticket consolidator, asked from us for one third of the flights mentioned above! This was the make or brake part of our budget. Interesting, if someone is flexible about her destinations, she can tour the world for much much less. For the distance that we covered and the number of flights we took nobody can do better than we did. I did the math, we payed 5.5 cents/km/per person (8.8 cents per mile). Double this figure if you plan your own trip, triple the figures if you buy tickets from some travel agency.

Renting a car can be cost effective for a traveling family

We used other means of transportation of course. I kept track of the meaningful day trips or travel between different areas by train, boat, bus, van or car. What we learned is that one meter, the international measure of distance, feels different on a road in Nepal or Madagascar compared to a highway in South Africa or Australia. And traveling by high speed train with 300 km/hour in China or in Italy is way different than going in zig-zag by boat on the Tsiribihina river. It is not fair to lump it all together, but anyhow the total number is 81 road trips. Some were two hours long, some were weeks in a row, like the car we rented for South Africa. Excluding the distance travelled by bus, taxi or subway within particular cities we still reached 40,000 km (25,000 miles) on the ground matching the circumference of the Earth at the Equator! I did the math, we payed 11 cents/km/per person (18 cents per mile).

We slept in 130 different beds. Most in hotels, a lot in rented apartments and at the end in Europe and especially in Romania we stayed for free with friends and family. Except for a handful of occasions we had 5 beds, and especially that 5th one added a lot to the total cost. Overall we payed $15.5 per night per person. That is not bad at all, is it? I did a little accounting trick though. Whenever we payed for something, a boat, a train or a plane, I counted that for transportation with the cost of the night at zero. We payed a lot for the cruise on the Nile or a boat on Tsiribihina river but I didn't include any of that for accommodation. In one way or another I marked 78 nights at zero and that changes the cost of a bed for us at $18.65 per person per night. We spent 7 nights in tents and 12 in chairs. That was not funny, believe me.

We rented apartments by the day in South Africa and so the food cost was negligible

The cost of food was partially affected by our accommodations. We payed very little or nothing in Romania where our families fed us. In many hotels we had free breakfast, where we had apartments we bought our food and cooked for ourselves. A more expensive apartment decreased the cost of food and a very cheap hotel meant eating at restaurants and spending more. The total came to $5.80 per person per day. How much do you spend at home? So many of my friends in the States who could "never" afford such a trip spend more than that for a latte and a panini, everyday! There is no bottle of wine that you could buy for this amount. Can you get a Big Mac meal in your country for less than $6? (In Switzerland it costs $14!)

This amount is not entirely true. If I subtract the days when we stayed with friends or family and assume that they also fed us for free, and also account for some of the free hotel breakfasts then we probably spent $7 per person per day for food. Is it a deal breaker?

This trip included a lot of additional expenses, and some of them were mandatory. We had to pay visas, several other fees and I included the immunizations that we had in Nepal and Thailand. The total of $4,235, could have been easily erased by going only to countries with no fees or visas like Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand or all of Europe. Yes, it was an optional expense...

One year ago, on my birthday, at the end of Africa. Visas were expensive but it didn't matter in the end.

We spend just a little more than that for all the miscellaneous occasional things that one could imagine. All the shopping, mail, Internet, replacement of broken iPods or stollen shoes, donations to beggars or charities or hair cuts came all to a little over $4,000 - that is not bad for five people on the road for 15 months, is it?

Included expense - trip preparation - a few books

And that brings me to the big chunk of "optional" expense that a trip like this entails. Amusements including all the museum or temple tickets, the fun rides, the guides, the cruises and so on. We spent a lot here, a little more than what we spent for food for our stomachs, this was the food for our souls. Examples include the Vienna or Sydney Operas, the helicopter ride in Hawaii, the scuba diving school, a trip to Lesotho, whale watching, and at least a hundred more things. We saved sometimes by skipping something outrageously expensive, like most activities in New Zealand, a National Park in Madagascar and the mummy rooms in Cairo. Generally speaking, we don't regret what we missed and don't regret most of what we did. Going over every blogpost from our trip you'd find where the money went.

Spending her 17th birthday at Taj Mahal, cheaper than the typical birthday party, still memorable.

You now have all the information you need to find out the cost of our trip. It was cheaper than I expected and we did it in the more expensive way. If you want to travel for a year with your partner and circle the world you should be able to do it for $40,000. Some young people do it for much less. If you have two little children you should add another $10,000. If you live in the first world and have a little more than primary education you probably can afford this. So why are you still home?

The Golden Pagoda in Kyoto, the first week of our trip.  Let's start over...

We Missed Everything

For several reasons, we missed everything that was to see in New Zealand. At times it was bad luck, at times our parsimony, occasionally bad planning or just not enough time. Of course, we first missed the North Island, the bigger, more crowded part of the country. This happened some time ago, when we shortened our stay here by two weeks. Everything here is very expensive, so by missing things we "saved" a lot of money. The New Zealand Dollar (NZD) is between 0.82 and 0.84 American dollars.

The main attraction in Christchurch is the Anglican Cathedral. It was destroyed by the earthquake last year, it will remain a ruin, and we couldn't see it, hidden by other ruins in the closed city center. The Christchurch Art Gallery is closed because of the earthquake.

We missed the swimming with the dolphins in Akaroa, supposedly a unique experience with wild Hector dolphins, the smallest in the world. But it was to be in the open ocean, there was a big swell and we got our money back (665NZD). The girls missed the whale watching experience, Ileana was under the weather, Maria felt that 80% success rate is too low for her to bother (290NZD).

Was this Lewis Pass?

The next day we ended up in Hanmer Springs. It's a significant attraction for the locals because of its hot springs. It was raining, the pools were all outside, the pricing was confusing. We skipped, just rested for the night preparing for a very long trip the next day. It probably saved us at least 100 NZD.

There are several passes to cross the Southern Alps of New Zealand, with spectacular views. The most famous is the Arthur's pass. Deciding to go through Hanmer Springs, we chose Lewis Pass. Not only did we miss Arthur, but we also missed Lewis, it was poorly marked and we only realized half an hour later that that sign on the side of the road might have been it. Still we got enough views of the gorgeous scenery and moved on to a famous landmark in New Zealand, Reefton, the first city to have electricity in the Southern Hemisphere, in 1888. It is just a small modern village now, some history of the gold rush and just that, no time to stop, we just took some pictures of the main street and an interesting house. We continued our road toward the West Coast, passing just a few miles south of Westport. Countless attractions are in this area, but we skipped them all rushing to get to Punakaiki. This place is famous for its pancakes rocks and blowholes. The weather got perfect, the sun was up, the sea has calmed down. The blowholes are best seen at high tide, with high waves of course, but we had no way of knowing the timings. We arrived 3-4 hours after the high tide, we loved the pancakes, but the blowholes were quiet.

We stopped here looking for the Lewis Pass only to realize that we already missed it

A pretty quiet blowhole

One famous bridge for train and cars. Thankfully no train was coming when we got through it.

We passed through Greymouth, got to the supermarket, but it was too late to visit the local attractions. We continued our way south, passed nearby the famous Shantytown, but that closed at 5.30 pm. We arrived in Hokitika, found a holiday park 50 meters from the beach. We missed the full moon rising because we were watching the sunset and then missed the end of the sunset because we were watching the moon. We gave up on trying to see the glow worms, it was too much light with the full moon. A small village of maybe 1000 people, Hokitika becomes the center of New Zealand once a year, 10000 people come for its wild foods festival. This year was on March 9, but we couldn't wait another day. So we missed it.

Videocamera surrounded by waters, filming the sunset. 

Careful, it's hot!

Tasting the moon...

We went to the Franz Josef Glacier. The sun was setting, we barely arrived to see it lighted. It took time to convince my family to disregard the warning signs, pass the barrier, and climb a little hill. By the time four of us arrived there, the light was mixed, hard to take pictures with half the glacier in the shadow. We could have gone a little further, but because our daughter Ileana chose to wait by the barrier, we had to return in a hurry and missed the chance to touch the ice. Preparing for the trip, we entertained the thought of skydiving on the glacier, maybe taking a helicopter ride, or just a flight over. We missed all of these chances, we had no time or money for this and we were happy with what we saw. We passed on the guided tour. The cost of the visit was in the end zero, it could have been between 500 and 1250 NZD for any one of the above mentioned experiences. Same thing applies for the Fox Glacier, we saw it the next day just for free, again we were happy with the ground experience.
Before Fox, we stopped at Lake Matheson, for the picture perfect image of New Zealand, two famous mountains, Cook and Tasman, reflected in the waters of the lake. The sky was clear, the mountains were magnificent, we started the 90 minutes tour of the lake. We arrived close to the point of "view of views" and the mountains were now covered by a thick layer of clouds. No reflection, no great picture, we missed that.

Approaching the lake, a chance at the perfect shot...

... a few minutes later, the view is now closed! Exactly the same mountains in consecutive shots.

We continued our drive South, toward Haast, the last village on the highway on the West Coast. We passed by it, missing again a great view of the Tasman Sea. There wouldn't have been anything to see, it was raining hard and the visibility was close to zero. A few hours later the sky was clear again, we saw the lakes Wanaka and Hawea on our way to the town of Wanaka. We decided to stay two nights here, there are a couple of great views, it is a fun touristic center. From Johann, a Swedish diving instructor in Ko Tao, I learned about the Puzzle World, a local attraction. Next day was raining too hard to see anything, no question about trekking. We just stayed all day in the holiday park, when we finally arrived at the Puzzle World, I saw the sign "last tour at 5.30pm." We suspected that it was a little late, but we couldn't believe that it was 6.40!

The next day we went to Queenstown, the adventure capital of the world. There are so many experiences to be had here, a ride in a 100 years old steam boat, bunjy jumping, jetboat rides, mountain bikes, and on and on it goes. We would have done the paragliding. As we watched some people landing, it looked awesome and the guidebook said that the price can be 85-95$ per person. When we arrived at the top of the gondola, we saw the place for paragliding. The lady explained that they had to put that on hold because of the weather. It was nice and sunny, but some winds over the lake made the ride dangerous. The price was 199$, not reduced for children. The winds made us miss this, not my stinginess, and we saved another 995NZD!

We drove on toward Milford Sound. The main objective on our trip to New Zealand, it has an underwater observatory, you can walk on a platform under 15 meters of water and see the marine life of the sound. It is an optional addition at the end of some cruises, but it was not for the one that we booked. The observatory closes at 3.30 pm, our cruise was at 3 pm. We missed that, and we were forced to save another 200NZD.

The underwater observatory; it's there, but we cannot get to it.

No rain, nor clouds over Milford Sound

Just never enough pictures of this waterfall

Few people know that there is a third island in New Zealand, Stewart, at the bottom of the South Island. We would have had time to get to Invercargill, the southernmost city, then to Bluff, the last settlement and then we would have had to take a ferry for another hour. Stewart Island is one of the last places in New Zealand where one can see the Kiwi birds in their natural habitat, but there is a very small chance of that, they are nocturnal and very shy. It was a long shot and a long way out of our way. I was on the internet, reserving tickets for the ferry and, just before clicking on the pay button, I realized that it is hard to justify spending NZD552 for two trips on a ferry. So we missed that. Later, we would decide that even a trip to Invercargill is hard to explain and we bypassed that, shortening our driving by 140km.

When we arrived in Dunedin, we learned from our guidebook that the main attractions are outside of the city. The most important, is the Otago peninsula. It is an hour drive, and at the end of the road you arrive at the Royal Albatross Reserve. It is the only place in the world to see albatrosses and their chicks on the mainland. We learned a lot about albatrosses in the free exhibit, but we chose not to pay for a guided tour to see the only chick available. We saw the birds flying freely above our heads and we saved another NZD100. The other attraction on the Otago peninsula is the penguin. There are two species, the yellow eyed ones, the rarest in the world and the blue ones. You can see the yellow eyed ones on a private property, they charge a lot, NZD 240 for our family. The blue ones come only at sunset and some volunteers guide tourists in the dark. For free. But as we learned at the albatross center, these are very shy creatures and seeing people is highly disturbing. The risk is that with all the tourists coming, the penguins might be afraid to return to their natural habitat and their fate would be sealed. They blocked the access to the public beach where the blue ones come, to protect them, and I just couldn't morally justify paying a private person to see the free wild, penguins that just happen to land on his property. Ioan would have been the only one interested in that, but he agreed not to go, joking "I think you vote NO just to say that we missed another thing in New Zealand." "Of course", I said, "that's the reason we are not going".
You can see penguins at another place, further north from Dunedin, in Oamaru. We were there in the morning, the penguins come out at sunset, but again, after learning about their shyness and the danger that people might put them in, it just doesn't justify my curiosity and getting a couple of nice pictures. Similarly, on our Doubtful Sound cruise, I learned about a pod of dolphins. The cruise companies decided not to advertise the possibility of seeing them and set some rules to avoid a possible encounter, because if they initiate contact and search them out, it will put them in danger. I liked that, and it was OK for all of us that we missed the dolphins too.

We arrived in Christchurch earlier than we expected, partly because we wanted to see more of the city. I considered going up the local mountain in a gondola, it was closed for refurbishment until the summer of 2012 (NZD55). I also wanted to see a traditional Maori show as a cultural experience, the best seems to be at Ko Tane, but they didn't have a show on Sunday, the only day that would have worked for us (NZD 280). The alternative would have been Nga Hau a Wua, but they also were closed on the weekend.

So long is the list of things we missed in our three weeks in New Zealand, that it might feel like we missed everything. A good excuse to come back at some point in the future. Or maybe not.

We managed to see a lot of places, we managed to stay in our budget and we are all ready to move on to the next country. I have mixed feelings about our trip here, I would like to make sense and learn from what I did right and wrong about planning this part of our trip.

At least, we made it to the 45 parallel South

I wrote all the above more than a month ago. Somehow I kept accumulating negative feelings about New Zealand and they bubbled out some time ago. Check it out.

After that, everything got much better and I am slowly joining the rest of my family in having some very nice memories of this section of our trip. Including the above mentioned "missed experiences." It was a very expensive leg, more so, by adding the $6000 for our plane tickets to Hawaii. If money and time would not have been an issue, we might have done some things differently, of course. What started as a blogpost joke, became a running log of what we had to give up along the way. But we were lucky to have made it here in the first place and to see all the phenomenal places.

Five Months Closer

Another five months passed. I am working three jobs and trying my best to keep the pace. Several significant developments happened:

1. We decided when to go.
2. We determined an eastern route.
3. We found the money to do it.

Where should we go?

Sometime in January, at dinner we asked the children when do they think we should go. They answered one after another, in a surprising show of unity: 2012. They gave their reasons, Ileana saying she would be old enough to remember most of it, Maria that it will be after she's done with the high school and before she goes to college, and Ioan explained that he still needs some time to play his computer games and he's not ready yet, but he will be by 2012! Then we played a game at the big map on the wall everyone showing how they would like to go around the world and through which countries. We will need to repeat this at various times. 

Spending most of my free time learning about this world - I had a hard time figuring out how we could go east instead of west. I finally got it, but this is just a part of hundreds of possible itineraries and will be left for later. We have no particular reason to go east, it would be an extra night to pay for, it's just good to have options.

Even more important, we have been saving as much money as possible and we are starting to see a serious improvement in our finances. A significant decrease in our debt will be soon followed by learning how to keep and manage our savings. Also just realizing that I can afford to pay interest for one year on a hundred thousands, that I can get a home equity loan and a loan against my 401 and cash another retirement plan - we can have the money and leave in two months if we want to...

Thank you Christine, your book really helped, just that tip alone made a huge difference for us
 30-ways-in-30-days-to-redesign-your-life-and-travel-the-world/

I Think It's Funny

Last night I took a couple of things outside to the recycle bin and while getting back in the house it hit me: "We have to do it. It is our duty!" Such a strange feeling, I almost felt it physically as a hit on the top of my head. What sort of parents would we be if we let the kids grow up and leave our house without taking them around the world? I hope you see a funny side to this, Ileana did, it is definitely the opposite of what most parents might say. We didn't talk with people yet, and this is still more than a year away, but I would expect some comments concerning the safety of the kids and how such a trip could put some risk on their future. So, let me say it again, now that we actually thought of this, how could it be possible not to do it? We owe it to them and to ourselves!
As this blog is recording the evolution of our thoughts and the whole decision process, we continue to talk almost nightly about it. We both feel much more comfortable with the idea of a full year of travel compared to the initial thought of a six month vacation. As we learn more, we also feel much more comfortable with the idea of independence and open ended plans, where we would have much less of a set schedule and the freedom to stay more in places that we like. Comments about having a round the world trip come up much more often in casual conversations at dinner. I cannot possibly recall all the comments, for example last night somebody said something about Indonesia, I asked, "Do we want to go to Indonesia?", Ileana replied immediately, "No, I want to go to Tibet!" Her younger brother agreed with her saying something about Himalaya. A couple of days ago I was looking with Maria at the map and showed her the TransSiberian route and how we could end up in Europe from China.
As far as places to go, we leave this open as we continue to collect information, but now definitely in are New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, China, India, Cambodia, Romania. On the questionable list are Japan, Russia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Iceland, Finland, Mongolia. Probably not includes South America, Easter Island, Africa. Europe is a big open hole, were we could do everything for 3-4 month or it could be just a short stop somewhere. We might leave open any plan after Beijing, getting to Europe by train through Russia, and we could leave open any return from Europe to US and decide on the spot if we want to take a cruise or a flight. I need to remember the part about a cruise, I might forget that.

On a more practical side, I continue to make adjustments to our budget and finances, it is time to start saving some money. We have more than $130,000 in debt and maybe some $5,000 in savings so something needs to be done. We cancelled our DirecTV and changed to lifeline cable. From $95 to $10 it will be a saving of $2000 over 2 years. Similarly choosing a Tracfone over the Apple iPhone is another $2300 saving. We changed the Internet provider and that should be another $550 saving. But more importantly getting comfortable with the idea of loosing the income for a full year, that is not easy. The good news is that there is money to be made in low taxes on a year with no income. Transferring money from regular IRA to Roth IRA, potentially transferring the 401k, potentially cashing the retirement savings... The plan remains to work in 2 years for 3 and we should be OK...

Starting It All

Twelve days ago I got my annual retirement report. Ever since I started my current job, they took 3% of my salary and put it in a New York State Retirement system. It was not an option, but there were dates to remember and understand, and even to look forward to. For example after 5 years I would be vested, meaning that even if I change my job I would be able to maintain my retirement account and eventually get a pension. Another important time to look forward to was the 10 year anniversary, after that they will not draw the 3% from my salary, but my retirement account will continue to grow. On page 6 there were as usual the nice numbers of the pension I will get after working for them for 25 or 30 years. Numbers keep piling up and this is good but reading the same information again this year, I picked up a different side of it. Up to 10 years of employment I can get all my contributions back with the accumulated interest. After I work for more then 10 years the money will be "lost" forever. I will have to wait to be at least 55 to start getting some of it back. I now have more then $30,000 there and by my tenth anniversary I will have about $45,000. It is a lot of money to "lose". This got us thinking and it turns out that there is some catch to it - if I want to get the money, I would have to pay federal tax on it, they will send 20% of it to the IRS and I only get 80%. After that when I do my taxes that year I might have to pay a 10% penalty on it! Anyhow doing the math, this could be a $33,000 check to get if I leave my job before January 27, 2012!

A couple of months ago I was listening to Rick Steves audio podcast and he was interviewing a couple of parents who took their three children and traveled around the world for 8 months. They survived to write a book about it, A Brilliant Teacher: Lessons Learned from One Family's Journey Around the World. Listeners called in, including a doctor from Arizona who took his 3 children around the world. I wanted to read the book but our local library only had One Year Off: Leaving It All Behind for a Round-the-World Journey with Our Children. I bought the first book from Amazon, but we all read the second book first, even Ioan started to read it. It is a good and funny book, much better than "A Brilliant Teacher." But this got us thinking and we talked on and off about it. For several years we have been considering the possibility of a sabbatical, but mostly the doctor offers for a 6 months or 1 year job in Australia and New Zealand. That would be an interesting experience, but what's the fun if I get to work all the time and Ileana and the kids stay in some rented apartment waiting for me.

Several months ago we were talking-joking at lunch about our future vacations. Ileana wants to go all over the world, but her older sister only wants to have her vacation in Romania with her grandparents. So we talked that maybe grandparents can come to China and we have a vacation together there in 2011. This would be acceptable for Maria, but not for Ileana. She started to cry: "Dad, you don't realize, this means we won't be able to go to Australia until 2012, I will be 15 years old then, I can't wait that long!" She was so serious, so broken hearted and powerful in her cry, I had to hold her tight and assure her that she will be OK. We spent some time on the internet looking at available flights to New Zealand and Australia and her tears dried up. She moved on to a different subject, but I was left with the doubt. What sort of horrible father lets his children wait to see Australia and New Zealand until their 15th birthday ?

And again a couple of weeks ago, I got this statement from the retirement program that I could get $33000 if I just leave my job in 2012. This would be the year when Maria would have to go to college, then she'll be gone for good and all these wonderful places in the world would have to be seen without her...

What if I leave my job in January 2012, say goodbye to everybody and we take off for 6 months? We'll be back in time for college start. Ileana and the children would have to hurry up the homeschool a bit and free up several months of vacation. Maria would apply for colleges before December 2011 anyhow, so we'll know where she'd go in August 2012. The London Olympics would be in August, we won't miss it. And I have to make the jump at some point from public employment to my own private practice, this could be as good a time as any other. Thoughts keep coming. Maybe we can postpone the unplanned undiscussed 2011 China trip and meet with the grandparents in China in March or April 2012. That would be awesome! Easter is on April 15, I don't want to spend Easter in China, what would be a more appropriate place for that? Jerusalem? Sounds good. April 15 in Israel. We'd have Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Cambodia, India and China before Easter. Then Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Italy and Romania and I could be back for the annual picnic at my job before June 25th.

We need a theme. But we have a theme. There are some places in this world that Ileana and I know that would be hard to enjoy without the children. There are other places that we'd be happy to see without them. We can see Japan or London by ourselves, but we want to have the children with us when we get to The Great Wall or Taj Mahal. As simple as that.