Airline Ticket
For me this was a little different since I wasn't going on a trip with a set date or even a decided upon time frame so I needed something flexible. I had heard GREAT reviews for airtech.com with their standby tickets, you get prices that are unbelievable in comparison to buying a round trip from the airlines or even the cheap flight websites. Unfortunately they didn't have what I needed for dates and departure cities.
Instead I ended up getting a one way ticket through europebyair.com directly to Venice for only $578 which is unbelievable since my travel agent could only find a one way as cheap as $2000. The problem is most countries don't want you to show up at incoming customs with a one way ticket and no visa. So to avoid getting a visa and sticking with the 90 no visa required holiday visitation I also bought a $99 FlightPass which allowed me to specify a date and arrival and departure city now and still have the ability to change any of those requirements at anytime during my 120 day window with no charge for doing so. So now I arrive in Venice with an onward ticket to Brussels that leaves in 10 days of my arrival. I then change the ticket to another date and destination and take a trip later on down the road when I need a weekend in Paris or Amsterdam.
Travelers Insurance
Well how do you think I ended up with a World Nomads travel blog?? The price was incomparable for the plan offered, the contract was in simple language I could understand, and is underwritten by BSC so I felt comfortable I would be taken care of if something should happen. When I quit my job I even had our current work insurance representative look over the plan and World Nomads in general and he gave his thumbs up. Ill keep you up to date on if I have to use it -- here's hoping I don't.
Packing
Well if you've looked at the gallery for pacing you'll see it was an adventure on its own. Now don't get me wrong, I have gone on the 10 Ecotour to Guyana, South America and taken next to nothing with me; However I'm going where I will have a home base to keep all of my stuff in and I will be there for a substantial amount of time so this was actually harder for me. I can very easily narrow down what I need to be alive anywhere, but you give me leeway to bring cute clothes and shoes and personal effects and books and geek toys. Now we have an issue, how much is TOO much. Once again I refer to my packing gallery. I ended up with about 1/2 of what the pictures show, I did some serious self negation.
