✦Travel · 12 recordsPlan a long trip

A long trip has a third problem a holiday does not: what happens to your life while you are away. Bills, post, storage, insurance and work all need decisions, and they are the ones that get made in a panic in the final week.

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Goal

Gone, with life at home properly dealt with Month 4

The route and the money, and the half nobody plans for.

Route and money Month 3

Ends fixed, middle loose, contingency held separately.

  • Decide the start, the end and the rough shapeDo firstWeek 2
  • Work out a daily rate and multiply it honestlyDo firstWeek 4
  • Book the outbound flightMonth 2

Deal with things at home Month 4

Housing, post, bills and anything on a subscription.

  • Decide what happens to the housingDo firstWeek 6
  • Cancel or pause every subscription and contractMonth 3
  • Sort post, bills and anything that renews while I am awayDo firstMonth 4

Routines

  • An hour on the tripweekly
  • Put money asideweekly
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The half nobody plans

A long trip has a problem a holiday does not: what happens to your life while you are away. Housing, post, bills, storage and subscriptions all need decisions, and they get made in a panic in the final week.\n\nHold the contingency in a separate account. A shared pot is spent by month two.

✦ Questions

Plan a long trip, answered.

Decide it explicitly rather than leaving it — housing, post, bills, storage, phone contract and anything on a subscription. That is a whole project here because it is the half of a long trip that nobody enjoys planning.
A daily rate for the regions you are visiting, times the days, plus a genuine contingency held separately. The plan asks for the contingency as a specific number, because a shared pot is spent by month two.
Fixed at the ends and loose in the middle. Knowing where you start and when you must be home is usually enough structure, and over-booking a long trip removes the main thing that makes it different from a holiday.
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