You know when you start planning a great trip it always seems so far away. But you plan it anyway and day by day it gets closer and closer. Finally there are clear signs that the big day is almost here. Here are our top 10 signs that our trip is getting close.

1. Stopping by the Credit Union to pick up some Chinese Yuan. (Usually use ATM’s but we are arriving about midnight. Playing it safe.)
2. Making a run by Triple A to get an international drivers license. (Hopefully renting a scooter in Bali and Hoi An.)
3. Having stuff lying all over the house in an attempt to not forget anything. (Who am I kidding…..pretty much how I roll at all times.)
4. Getting Jasper 41 days of supplies for his vacation in Raleigh. (Thank you Rheagan and Adam!)
5. Actually trying on the compression socks we got for the long flights. (Lets just say….not getting into any airport lounges wearing these things!)
6. Canceling the mail. (This has never worked by the way. Luckily we have a great neighbor who helps us out.)
7. Put Internet account on hold for the month of July. (No reason to pay $40 when we are not here.)
8. Eating everything in the fridge until nothing is left. (We have this down to a science. Nom nom nom!)
9. Downloading apps to use in the countries we are visiting. (Grab, WeChat, GOJEK)
10. Finally taking our final Live Virus Typhoid pill out of our Typhoid pill series. (Can you say bring on the Street Food?!?!?! We can!!!!)

So its that time of year again. Vacation time that is! We are headed back to Southeast Asia again this year. We will hit a few of the places we went last year but will be headed mostly to new cities and countries throughout Southeast Asia as well as a couple of weeks in China where we get to see most of our International students in their hometowns. (So exciting!) Lyn and I are set to leave this Sunday for Ubud, Bali and will be back home August 3rd. Counting the travel days it is going to be 41 days in all. After 4 nights in Bali we will be meeting my sister Julie  in Singapore for a few days before we head off to Thailand, she will be with us for over two weeks of our trip. (BTW any day you get to say the sentence “we will stop in Singapore for a few days before heading off to Thailand.” You are having a good day. 🙂 Most people would look at our itinerary and think its crazy but we love this type of travel. We will be in full adventure mode the entire trip. On average we will spend about 3 nights at every place we visit. We will travel on no less than 22 flights, 3 trains, countless, tuk tuk’s, cabs, buses, vans, scooters, bikes and anything else that might come our way.

We are traveling light again this year and will all only be traveling with 1 carry on bag and one personal item. Both of them together can not weigh more than 15 lbs. That’s right 15 lbs for 41 days of travel!!!! Some of the airlines in SE Asia have super strict rues about carry on luggage and their weight. We did this last year and it actually worked out great. It was so nice getting off the plane and never worrying if our suitcase was going to make it. You can read more about how we packed last year here if you are interested.

So Sunday is the big day. We are spending the night in Raleigh Saturday night and heading for the Raleigh airport at 4:00 AM. (Thank you Rowan, Chelsea and Justin.) We do not arrive in Bali until Tuesday around noon! Wait what?!?!?!? Yep you heard that right. We are actually flying from Raleigh to Philadelphia at 5:15 AM and then on to Houston where we have a long layover before heading out on our main flight with Singapore Airlines Sunday night around 7. It will be a total of 5 flights to get to Ubud and will be our longest travel day ever. Oh yeah and when we land we have a 45 minute cab ride from the Bali airport to our hotel in Ubud. Needless to say nobody wants me to be there travel agent ha ha! Thank God Lyn & Julie put up with my crazy ideas and actually pretend to be on board.

There are so many hotel options in Bali and you can spend from $10 to $1500 a night. We found a simple hotel that had great ratings and fit our budget right in the heart of Ubud. You can see our free hotel by clicking here. Actually the room is about $38 dollars a night and is about a 10 to 15 minute walk from several of the main attractions in Ubud. We did Travel Hacking again this year and were able to get this room free with credit card bonus points. These trips are not near as expensive as you think. By just doing a little bit of work through out the year we were able to get most of our hotels and flights for free. Here is the post I did last year on how to save a lot of money on trips like this from last year. You can read it by clicking here.

Anyway I am sure this trip will be full of surprises, twists and turns. Feel free to come along if you want to. We would love to have you with us. You can probably learn about what not to do on your next international trip by learning from our mistakes ha ha! I will be posting every few days once we get going. I always post the latest blog on Facebook but you can also sign up on the site to get an email whenever the latest post is posted. See our itinerary below. 

Ubud, Bali

 

Singapore

 

Chiang Rai, Thailand

 

Chiang Mai, Thailand

 

Ho Chi Minh (Saigon), Vietnam 

 

Hoi An, Vietnam

 

Da Nang, Vietnam

 

Hanoi, Vietnam

 

Chengdu, China

 

Xi’an, China

 

Shanghai, China

 

Nanjing, China

 

Beijing, China