The LONG Way Around the World: July 2018

Occasionally some folks will sheepishly inquire how much we spent to wander the world for a year. I suspect others have wondered as well but feel uncomfortable asking. For the sake of this public blog, we will highlight the means and methods of accounting for this adventure. If anyone is interested in the nitty gritty detail and total cost, please do not hesitate to reach out to me via email: azbdad@gmail.com. We would be glad to share more directly.

Before I get in to the nuts and bolts, I wanted to touch on a critical factor that made this trip a success - Nicole and I are complete opposites in a perfectly synchronized way. She hates cold and wet, I hate hot and sticky. She can't eat seafood, I'll take it raw or cooked. I hate cooking, yet it's her happy place. Cleaning dishes is therapy for me, and a necessary evil for her. I'll push the envelope, and she will pump the brakes. She can keep the trains running on time, and I'll just go with the flow. I love numbers, and she can dance. When she's at her wits end, I will step up, and vice versa. On this trip, she was the COO, I was the CFO, and we both took turns being the CEO. It was perfect teamwork.

As my role as the CFO (Chief Financial Officer), I established a detailed budget prior to the trip, then meticulously accounted for every penny we spent. I created a spreadsheet that would make an accountant swoon, complete with concatenated formulas and sumif statements. I wanted to ensure that our fixed bucket of funds would take us all the way to the end. I'm proud to say that we were on time, and under budget!

How did I gather this data?
Wherever possible we used our credit card to buy EVERYTHING (note, we used Chase Sapphire, which was awesome and had no international transaction fees. At 3%, that can add up quickly). We avoided cash wherever we could (although Southeast Asia and Japan made that tough). Every other week I would download our credit card transactions and put them in a Google Sheet. I would then tag each transaction with a location and a cost type.

I developed a humorous code system (so that I wouldn't forget it): L.M.F.A.O.
L = Lodging
M = Mobilization (any cost to get around within a destination - rental car w/petrol, subway, bus, Uber, etc)
F = Food
A = Activities (ie tours, attraction fees, etc)
O = Other (ie souvenirs, sundries, petty cash)

Additional Categories
G = General (expenses that crossed over all destinations - ie. travel insurance, online school, luggage, phone bills, cloud storage, computers, etc)
FL = Flights (any cost to get from one destination to the next - which sometimes meant a train)

You like pie charts? I do. Here you go...

How did we stick to our budget?
Coming in under budget was actually a bit of work to achieve. Unlike short term vacations where we can be fast and loose with our expenses knowing our revenue stream is still intact, we kept a close eye on our budget. We didn't live like paupers, but we also didn't stay anywhere luxurious. We cooked at home a lot, and made many picnic lunches (budgeting $100/day for food). We stayed outside of most cities where lodging was cheaper, and almost exclusively stayed in an Airbnb (or Booking.com) apartment or house. (Our target was to keep lodging to less than $150/nt, which for five people, wasn't easy). We were judicious in the activities we did, yet at the same time, I don't feel like we left anything on the table. For instance, the $500 expense to take a 20 minute trip to the top of the Burj Khalifa to look at a large swath of desert was nixed in favor of an all day trip to the Atlantis Waterpark for half the cost. We got so good at it as a family, that our kids would often say, "That's the equivalent of 10 ice cream treats per person. Let's pass...." If nothing else comes of this trip, at least they have a solid sense of value.

How did we fund this trip?
Patience, restraint, sweat equity, and a bit of luck. In 1998 (at the sprite age of 23), Nicole and I took a personal loan from her late grandfather to purchase a dumpy little condo in Alameda. We set about renovating it as best as we could. Little did we know that we were about to ride a wave of real estate escalation the world had never seen. Three years later we sold the condo and moved to a dumpy 4 bed home in Pleasanton. We fixed that up, and three years later, sold it, and bought a dumpy 5 bed home in the Oakland Hills. We fixed that up, and three years later (2008), with the housing market in shambles, we kept it, moved out, and started renting it. Five years later, after the market turned, and we grew tired of being landlords, we sold it. The proceeds went in to a fund titled: "World Trip (don't touch)."

Fun with Numbers:
My diligence in coding all expenses opens up an interesting study on the relative cost difference of spending time in different parts of the world. There are several indexes out there that help to bring light to the relative costs of different countries, with the most curious and surprisingly accurate one being the Big Mac index (https://www.economist.com/news/2018/07/11/the-big-mac-index). It ranks the cost of purchasing a Big Mac in every country. But what it boils down to, (in my research), the most telling indicator is the median income / minimum wage of a country or region. Labor costs drive the cost of everything, which is why it's so cheap in South Africa and most of the Southeast Asian countries, and so darn expensive in places like Iceland and Norway.

One thing to note about the relative cost difference between locations: When we found ourselves in an "expensive" place like London, Paris, New York City, we took it as a personal challenge to see how frugal we could be without sacrificing our journey. Hence, these locations are artificially low. It's actually a testament to how there is always a way to travel anywhere, as long as you're flexible. (Conversely, in "cheap" places, we actually spent a little more to live the good life).

If anyone wants the cost ranking, please reach out. We're happy to help.

All for now... Next Post: Thinking about... "How to Use Airbnb (for Hosts, and Guests alike)"

It's been a week now that we have been home and I thought it best to chronicle our first impressions of getting back to "Normal" life. It has been both harder and easier than we had expected. There has been a significant amount of mundane tasks like going to Safeway, Home Depot, Target, and Costco (the four pillars of what Makes America Great Again), along with the joys of reconnecting with family and friends.

This episode may get in to the weeds of our return, with a follow up philosophical look in a month or so.

I'll pick up where we left off, Sunset on Tybee Island with the Petersons....

June 21:
After being accosted by those invisible flying devils (the sand gnats), we headed back to our cottage to get cleaned up and settle down for one final slumber. Once the kids were in bed, Nicole and I took a stroll to the end of the pier for one last dance. This moment will forever be ingrained in our memories as our second "first dance" - under a gazebo, blanketed in warm air, surrounded by marshland, and swaying to a little known song, The Harvest, by Zach Heckendorf*.

For your listening pleasure (it's a really great tune), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZa10UTT8y0

It was at this point that the gravity of the trip ending hit Nicole and many tears were shed. I was holding out for one more sunrise, doing my best to prolong this journey as long as possible.

June 22, still journeying...
Squeezing every bit of adventure out of this trip, Autumn, Bryce, Nicole, and I, woke at dark o'clock to catch one last sunrise. (Zane elected for sleep). Again, more great shots (the sunrises and sunsets in this area are really quite spectacular).

Back at the cottage it was my turn to break down. As I sat silently nursing my coffee, I began reading "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" by Dr Suess (not sure why that popped in my mind at the time). It hit me like a herd of elephants. What started as a faint idea six years ago - five years in the planning, one glorious year in the making - is now over. This trip created focus and a singular purpose. Probably a little overblown, but it is similar to raising a child - It was fun, yet exhausting. It was work, but totally worthwhile. It had its ups and downs. There were arguments, and compromises. We learned how we tick. We learned how the world ticks. We learned. We struggled to eat sometimes, yet discovered new favorites. We made new friends, and connected with old. I imagine this must be the feeling parents have when they watch a child leave the nest and venture on their own. Where did the time go?

We had most of the day to fill before our afternoon flight back to Cali. We had one last lunch with cousin Stephen (all decked out in his military garb), and then squeezed in one last site seeing adventure. The quintessential shot of the moss covered tree lined lane you see in all the movies is Wormsloe, about 45 minutes in the wrong direction from the airport. Oh well, when in Rome.

Taking the Long Way Home

June 22, back to Cali...
Our final flight back to SFO was our 40th of the year, and it was always a joy to gaze out the window as we approached a new destination. But I must admit, flying over California and in to the Bay Area, with it's pitch black bay ringed by dazzling pockets of lights and criss crossed by the bridges, is really special. As we stepped off the plane, we were met by that genuinely crisp San Francisco air, and we sucked it in like we spent the last month underwater. We landed at 10:30pm, and in true form, took public transportation (aka BART) over to Lafayette, not arriving until 1:30am! (Sorry BART, but having become worldwide subway system connoisseurs, we can safely say that you're at the bottom of the list. Hopefully one day you'll get Back2Good.)

Bleary eyed and totally exhausted, we were greeted at our house fully decked out in welcome home regalia. Feels great to have such wonderful friends and family.

As much as we wanted that comforting feeling of coming home to something familiar, we actually felt like strangers in our own home. After a year of someone else living in our home it was understandable that things would have sprouted legs and wandered to another part of the house. As it was now 2am, we resigned our anxiety to tomorrow and finally settled down for some rest.

Day 1 - June 23
After an incredibly sleepless night, it was time to piece our lives back together, day by day, hour by hour. But before we set to work on our home, we set off for a much anticipated trip to our favorite donut shop, Johnny's Donuts - still the best donuts in the entire world (which we can actually say now).

We continued to live out of our suitcases on this first day as we scratched our heads over where we stashed our underwear, shirts, and pants for the year. In the process of uncovering our long lost things, we would ask... "why do I still have this thing?" Yet at the same time, it was like Christmas for the kids as they found toys and things we simply couldn't lug around for a year (an arsenal of Nerf weapons, life sized stuffed animals, legos and more). We also cracked open our packages we sent home from Japan and New Zealand with all our collected trinkets and souvenirs - both brought back wonderful memories.

This is what two months on a cargo ship from Tokyo looks like.

We found Worgee!

Today was also our day to re-unite with our furry friend, Hilo. His expression was one of confusion at first, then elation. His crew had returned and all was well.

Fortunately Nicole's Dad had the forethought to make sure our pool was in shape for our return, and, given our glorious California weather, the boys took their first dip of the summer.

Not quite clean yet, but certainly swimmable. It'll get there.

First dinner back... Mangia! The kids love the crust. Today was also the day that we bid a fond farewell to our house sitter, Aunt Trish. She is off on her own little adventure as she road trips back to Texas. Thank you so much for tending to our home (and your big brother!).

We had been running on adrenaline all day and this time we finally crashed the moment our heads hit the pillow.

Day 2 - June 24
Oh man, we have a great bed. After having spent a year on every make shift hand-me-down bed you could imagine, we grew keenly aware of each spring, noise, and transference of movement. Thank goodness for memory foam.

Yesterday was about starting to get our house in order. Today was about starting to get re-acquainted with friends. Autumn went off to visit with Molly, Zane to Julian's, and Bryce with Finley. Nicole ventured to Safeway and Target, leaving me with an empty home. After having spent the past 365 days together, being home alone was frankly a bit sad. I really love being with everyone.

Nicole continued to pick away at getting our kitchen back in order. Where did our coffee mugs go? Have you seen our Tupperware?

We spent dinner at our friends, The Burrows, and really enjoyed retelling stories of our adventures. We love the questions as it makes us think about all the crazy places we've been and seen.

Did I mention how awesome the weather is here? The heat is dry and only has a shelf life of a couple days before nature's air conditioning flows over the Oakland hills. We love that regardless if it hits 100 degrees during the day, we always need a light jacket in the morning.

Day 3 - June 25
There is nothing like a dose of reality than a trip to the DMV. My license expired during our trip and my renewal required a physical visit. Thankfully I booked an appointment while still in France, so I was in and out before my chauffeur, Nicole, had a chance to settle back in at home.

That line stretches around the corner, down one side, then down another. I walked right in!

Another dose of reality... registering Autumn for high school. We have a HIGH SCHOOLER! How did that happen so fast. Fortunately Autumn's efforts over the past year, diligently sticking to her online schooling, paid off, and she will be well prepared to be a freshman.

Go Dons!

After another long day of getting our house in order (throwing away and collecting things for donation the entire time), we sat down for our family dinner. I'm quite thankful that we are continuing our evening ritual of going around the table to talk about thankful and happy moments from the day. The conversations they spur are always a treat. This is something I hope will never end.

Day 4 - June 26
After an early morning airport run to drop off my parents, I took the opportunity to run the Oakland Hills, and it remains as beautiful as ever.

Joaquin Miller Park in the Oakland Hills (near Chabot Space and Science) is a hidden gem. The old growth redwoods are otherworldly and so very accessible. Running through them is as good as any place we have been around the world.

Today was the first day where we feel like we're getting the upper hand on unpacking. This has taken much longer than expected and we still have some major things to get done: Get a car; File our Insurance Claim (for the France robbery); Buy a new couch and chairs; Build a carport; and renovate Autumn's bedroom. And for posterity sake, our list of projects inspired during our trip includes: Install a living roof; Enhance our fountain with Zen garden; Turn our bonus room in to a Multi Bang (a Korean game room). Let's see if those get done.

Another mundane milestone... Nicole and Autumn got their first haircut in over a year! And they were ecstatic.

The Rest of the Week - June 27 to 29:
As the week wore on, and the novelty of the return began to wane, things became decidedly more domestic. Nicole got a pedicure, we went couch shopping, Autumn went to a Funkmode class again, and we began to tackle the front and back yard. We spent several glorious hours at the bastion of American commerce, Costco. Nicole met with her entrepreneurial boss to talk about her next phase of Nurse Practitioner life.

Testing to see how this rug would feel if we laid down on it.

Nope, too slouchy

Costco is selling a shade sail that just might work... They are also selling attractive sun hats too.

The kids are still spending a lot of time getting re-acquainted with their friends. Zane has been particularly happy that he is just as tall as most of his friends, and that his fifth grade buddy said it wasn't all that hard.

Pool party at the Hodges

Kids in the pool, parents talking about nothing in particular. It was wonderful.

On our last day of the first week, we hauled off a carload of clothes, toys, and household goods to Goodwill, and it feels like we're officially kicking off a new Long Family era.

The Last Week:
With one more week left before I head back to work, we headed for the hills for a little 4th of July R&R. I start back to work on July 9 (tomorrow!). Same time, same place. Admittedly, I am quite nervous. The moment I step through the doors of Dome, this fantastic journey will have officially ended.