Our First Major Publication

A year ago today we were wandering around Arequipa, Peru preparing for my dad’s upcoming arrival. A year ago tomorrow would be the first time seeing either of our families in nearly eight months, a record we hope we never have to approach again. We reminisce every day about our travels, which now feel like they occurred decades ago. Sometimes there’s simply an unspoken acknowledgment of the hundreds of pictures on our walls, on our coffee table, in my office cubicle. Other times it’s a bit more obvious: a couple weeks ago we shared stories with one of our newfound friends who was visiting nearby Washington DC from her home in Italy.

This week though, we have a new, more public way to reminisce. We’ve been published in a free photo ebook featured here on Lonely Planet’s website! (Please beware that the book pdf may take a minute to download.) This book was  a collaboration between us and 39 other travel bloggers, almost all of whom put us to shame because they are currently traveling and blogging. I’ve been amazed by the different places and perspectives covered in the ebook, and even more amazed that some of the authors travel and write about it full time.

Speaking of writing, holy cow this is difficult! I have no idea how Zhou and I churned out award-worthy material day in and day out for 299 consecutive days. I’m only just beginning my third paragraph of this weekend and I am out of breath. To put this in perspective, we have been looking into converting our blog into a set of books, but found out that it would take about 8-12 volumes and cost over $1,000. Jimmy Encyclopedia himself probably didn’t have that much material when he printed his first edition. (For those of you wondering, yes, Jimmy Encyclopedia was good friends with little Billy Bolivia.) Now I’m stretching myself just to write 200 words…

I do though, have one more piece of news to share. Zhou and I have accepted my parents’ invitation to join them in celebrating their 30th anniversary, and in doing so, we’ll be heading to Europe in one month! My parents are taking my brother and us on a cruise in the Mediterranean, followed by a couple days in Rome and in Venice. Zhou and I plan to follow this up with a trip to Cinque Terre and then Paris on our own. In total, our real next, longer around-the-world trip will actually be much shorter (27 days) and will not come anywhere near circling the world.  The question is, should nohurrycurry return? It would be an entirely new chapter – gorging on buffets, dressing up in fancy clothes, gambling, and showering nearly every day – and one that I’m not entirely comfortable with. Oh, who am I kidding? I can’t wait to ditch the smelly clothes and dirty hostels when we hit the road again! This will, unfortunately, be our last around-the-world trip until retirement, so we’ll be sure to make the most of it. If we choose to start blogging again, see you all from across the pond.

Oh, and happy anniversary, Mom and Dad, and happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

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A Budget for 296 Days on the Road

Since we’ve been home, we’ve both been procrastinating on our wrap-up blog posts. Part of this is because “real life” matters have intruded into our lives. Who knew that finding an apartment was so complicated and time-consuming? Not I! So here we are, over three weeks later and I’m just now writing this. Sorry about that.

Now let’s get down to the numbers. In just shy of 10 months on the road, we spent $45,918.24. Here’s a list of our total costs by category, from most money spent to least money spent. All totals are for the both of us, and everything is in US dollars. (For exchange rates, we used the rates that we received from our ATM withdrawals.)

Transportation costs:
– RTW tickets (14 flights, two surface sectors): 5,982.40
– All other flights (13 legs each): 2,639.06
– Bus rides: 2,194.07
– Subway/monorail/tram/metro: 494.77
– Trains: 314.21
– Taxis: 302.40
– Car/scooter rentals and gas: 232.34
– Airport taxes: 85.40
– Bike rentals: 23.11
– Ferry/boat: 10.22
TOTAL TRANSPORT COSTS: 12,277.98

AFRICA TOUR: 8,154.93

Excursions:
– Whitewater rafting: 280.00
– Devil’s Pool: 120.00
– Annapurna trekking permits: 54.79
– Paragliding: 206.44
– Chitwan National Park: 120.00
– Day trip to Ko Phi Phi: 78.55
– Flight of the Gibbons: 125.68
– Easy Riders Dalat: 420.00
– Ha Long Bay Marguerite Junk: 102.40
– Kool Katz Surf Camp: 213.52
– Skydive video*: 129.71
– Milford Sound cruise: 149.03
– Routeburn permits: 122.78
– Penguins: 129.87
– Torres del Paine: 57.37
– Big Ice trek: 337.66
– Los Glaciares National Park: 38.96
– Salt flats tour: 338.00
– Floating islands day trip: 28.27
– Inca trail: 1,057.74
– Dune buggy and sandboarding: 31.80
– Muyuna Lodge: 1,217.78
TOTAL EXCURSIONS COST: 5,516.06
*Skydiving itself is not included because it was a gift.

Food:
– Africa (this is the food we had to pay for outside of our tour): 440.05
– Asia: 1,754.46 or 17.90/day
– Australia/New Zealand: 715.31 or 21.04/day (we mostly cooked)
– South America: 1,415.91 or 17.27/day
– Europe (includes Egypt): 944.42 or 28.62/day
TOTAL FOOD COSTS: 5,270.15

Lodging:
– Africa (outside of the tour): 321.50
– Asia: 753.89 or 7.70/night
– Australia/New Zealand: 1,033.45 or 30.40/night
– South America: 1,274.70 or 15.55/night
– Europe (includes Egypt): 1,230.54 or 37.29/night
TOTAL LODGING COSTS: 4,614.08

Gear:
– Camera and accessories: 762.60
– Netbook: 378.00
– Clothing, packs, sleeping bags, etc.: 1,720.60
TOTAL GEAR COSTS: 2,861.20

Medical:
– Travel/health insurance: 1,010.00
– Immunizations and meds (pre-trip): 894.08
TOTAL MEDICAL COSTS: 1,904.08

VISAS: 1,759.36

Sightseeing:
– Africa: 8.04
– Asia: 386.01
– Australia/New Zealand: 426.59
– South America: 93.47
– Europe (includes Egypt): 334.90
TOTAL SIGHTSEEING COSTS: 1,249.01

Entertainment:
– Tickets to musicals: 190.64
– Movie tickets: 14.17
– Wimbledon: 59.26
– Mini golf: 14.29
– Poker tournament (Kevin): 7.14
– Fish massage: 5.00
– Cooking class: 24.00
– Bowling: 9.73
– Philharmonic (KL) tickets: 8.85
– Other: 12.18
TOTAL ENTERTAINMENT COSTS: 345.26

TIPS: 347.14

Miscellaneous:
– Money stolen on Chobe River cruise: 110.00
– Qantas ticket change fee: 90.00
– Hard drive (bought in HK): 63.83
– Five-Euro note found in Singapore airport: -7.54
– Leftover Taiwanese bills (gave to Tina): 9.32
– Change for buses given to us by Wang family: -6.09
– Phone call in Thailand: .36
– Bribe to Cambodia border patrol: 3.02
– Printing/postage fee for Asia miles forms: 3.02
– Lost key fee: 4.45
– Money won at Sky City Casino: -10.71
– Supplies for Routeburn: 14.29
– Printing Andesmar tickets: .76
– Bag check at Machu Picchu: 1.06
– Money accidentally thrown out at Lima airport: 14.13
– Daily Mail and keychain at Wimbleon: .74
TOTAL MISCELLANEOUS COSTS: 290.64

SOUVENIRS: 268.60

GIFTS: 214.58

POSTCARDS AND POSTAGE: 204.57

CLOTHING: 126.83

PERSONAL CARE: 113.56

INTERNET: 89.68

LAUNDRY: 83.41

SHIPPING BOXES: 73.86

ATM FEES: 70.31

TOILETRIES: 54.48

BOOKS: 16.25

TOILET: 7.35

(FORCED) DONATION: 4.88

GRAND TOTAL: $45,918.24

A few things haven’t been included in that total. They are: any gifts (cooking class in Chiang Mai, hotel in Chiang Mai, gorge swing, skydiving, train tickets to Xian, etc.), bills and change that we kept as souvenirs (one each from each country) and bills that we have left over that we haven’t changed back to US Dollars. We ended up with substantial amounts (over $10 worth, that is) of Yen, Euros and British Pounds that we still need to get exchanged. I should technically include our bill and coin collection under souvenirs, but I’m too lazy to count it up and add it in. Just as a guess, it probably cost us about $50.

There were a few things that jumped out at me when I put this together.
1) Our transportation costs were over 25% of our total costs. Doesn’t that seem a bit high?
2) We spent more money on excursions than food. Doesn’t that also seem a bit high?
3) Total food and lodging for two people over 10 months cost us less than 10,000. That’s practically how much I paid in a year’s worth of just rent in Charlotte.
4) Compared to our cost of living for 10 months in Charlotte, we spent about the same amount of money traveling the world. Huh.

We also have a table of our average expenditure per day by country. The expenditures include food, lodging, transportation within the country, visa fees (if any), sightseeing, excursions, etc. The only things it doesn’t include are the cost of actually getting TO that country and any pre-trip expenditures (gear, immunizations, health insurance, etc.).

Average spent per day by country:
China*: 45.33
Singapore*: 46.57
Nepal: 47.82
Malaysia: 56.06
Taiwan: 68.25
Thailand*: 68.29
Cambodia: 79.00
Bolivia: 83.80
Japan: 85.08
Hong Kong: 86.96
Spain: 88.71
Vietnam: 92.28
Egypt: 92.87
Chile: 99.79
Portugal: 112.86
Argentina: 118.17
New Zealand: 119.79
England: 127.01
Peru: 131.36
Australia: 134.03
*We had free housing for some or all of the time in this country.

Here are some thoughts about these numbers:
1. The first half, with the exception of Bolivia, is made up of all Asian countries. This is not only because food and lodging are cheap in Southeast Asia, but also because sightseeing is relatively inexpensive. It is much cheaper to get a ticket to the Angkor complex for three days than to see Machu Picchu in one day.
2. Bolivia comes out to a surprisingly low average, considering the cost factors in our visas ($135 each) and our four-day salt flats tour.
3. Japan and Spain are two countries I would have expected to come out with higher averages. Tokyo and Madrid aren’t cheap, but Japan and Spain came out under $90/day because we stayed in one city and in that one city, we didn’t do anything but eat and walk around. So that means all we had to pay for was food, lodging and some transportation.
4. Vietnam, Egypt and Peru are three countries that come in much higher than I expected, since all three are relatively cheap countries. But in this case, the cost of our excursions really brought the average up. In Vietnam it was the Easy Riders tour and Ha Long Bay. In Egypt, our sightseeing expenses added up to over $160 and our cruise came out to about $110/night. In Peru the Inca Trail and Muyuna Lodge were the biggest costs.

Where we saved money:
The number one way we saved money compared to other travelers was on alcohol. I had a few glasses of wine here and there, and Kevin didn’t drink at all. We also saved money on food. We had three meals that cost more than $40. We had eight meals that cost between $30 and $40. Over 90% of our meals cost less than $17. In countries where street food was delicious and cheap, we ate street food – that was a no-brainer for us (it helped that neither of us ever had food poisoning). Where eating out was expensive and not that different compared to home (Australia, New Zealand), we mostly bought groceries. In Argentina and Chile we did a little bit of both. It was too expensive to eat out all the time, but it would have been a shame not to eat out some of the time. We also saved money on lodging. We didn’t necessarily stay at THE cheapest place available, but we did stay at the cheapest place available at the lowest quality I could stand. In the more expensive countries, this meant staying in dorms. In the cheapest countries, we’d get our own room with attached bath – pure luxury!

Where we splurged:
If either one of us really wanted to do something, we did it. Sometime it was something small – like having Papa John’s for dinner (Kevin) or having two ice cream cones in one day (me). Other times it was something much bigger, like shelling out over $150 each to climb on a glacier (totally worth it) or spending $500 each to spend an hour with mountain gorillas (also totally worth it).

The bottom line is – your budget is your own. We talked to some people who thought we were traveling very cheaply and we also talked to some people who assumed we were living like kings when we told them how much we had spent. In the end, I think that both of us were satisfied with what we splurged on and what we saved on. Looking back on it, I can’t think of anything that I wish we had done that we didn’t do because of money, and I don’t regret spending money on the things we did do. I would call that a success.

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Goodbye For Now

7/2/10

Today was our official last day of the trip. Boy, that is a heavy sentence, isn’t it? Official. Last. Day.

As far as “lasts” go, the last day of a 10-month around-the-world honeymoon isn’t one of the best lasts that happen in your life. It’s not like “last day of sixth grade” or “last day with braces” or “last day of work” or “last compulsory blog post writing.” (Kidding, kidding! Sort of.)

I think Kevin and I both expected some extreme culture shock arriving in the United States, which would only have served to make our “last day” even more markedly last, but we didn’t really. Kevin tried to salvage our shattered expectations by pointing out things that were different. “Can you believe we have to pay FIVE dollars to leave the airport?” he asked, outraged, as we left JFK. “We never have to wait for more than five minutes in other cities’ subways,” he grumbled as we sat for ten minutes waiting for the A train. “Hey, look, it’s Wendy’s! We haven’t seen Wendy’s since we left the States!” when he saw another rider bring a Wendy’s bag onto the train.

But despite all of Kevin’s attempts to make me feel otherwise, I still felt like we were on the road. After all, we might have been in New York City, but we still weren’t home. We were still wandering around the streets of a city in our same clothes, carrying our same backpacks. We were still getting shouted at by people trying to sell us stuff. We were still traveling.

And that feeling didn’t leave me all day, as we hung out our friend Rachel’s apartment during our long layover, as we found our way out of the city and to LaGuardia, as we sat patiently and waited for our delayed flight to Columbus to take off – and even after we touched down in Columbus. Hey, we’re still Kevin and Zhou, world travelers! We’re on an adventure!

But when we saw Mom and Dad Curry drive up in their loaner car with a giant “‘08 CERTIFIED PREOWNED” splashed across the front windshield, it gave me a jolt. We weren’t going to be “Kevin and Zhou, world travelers” anymore. We’re just going to be Kevin and Zhou.

We aren’t quite home yet, and we won’t be for another few months, but we’re on our way. It’s sort of a limbo time for us, and there are definitely a lot of mixed feelings. On the one hand, what is sweeter than coming back and being able to spend time with all of the people you love and who love you? What’s better than being greeted by your own small Christmas tree with tons of Christmas presents underneath it in the middle of the summer? (Not much, I’ll tell you that.) But on the other hand, now we’re just “Kevin and Zhou, normal people.” We’re not going to wake up in a different country every few weeks. We’re not going to pinch ourselves every other day and say, “Can you believe we’re doing this?” We won’t have to navigate through other countries without understanding a word of the language. We won’t have constant stomachaches anymore. Instead, we’re going to find a place to live. We’re going to hang out with our friends. We’re going to eat too much popcorn (me) and watch too much sports (Kevin). We’re going to get a puppy.

A puppy! You know, when it comes down to it, I think “Kevin and Zhou, normal people,” are going to be pretty darn happy.

…

Hi everyone. I’m sorry to say that NHC, international edition, has come to an end. We’ve both enjoyed writing this blog (well, we enjoyed it 90% of the time), and we hope you’ve enjoyed reading it. Though this will be our last daily blog post, we do have several wrap-up entries that we’ll be writing and posting sporadically over the next few weeks (budget overview, stat contest, etc.). We’re not entirely sure yet what the fate of NHC will be after that, but please stay tuned for updates.

Thanks for your comments and emails, and most of all, thanks to all of you for reading.

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Real Time Update 12

Believe it or not, Kevin and Zhou are at home. After 296 days, we’ve returned safe and sound to Columbus, Ohio and are now getting ready for a Fourth of July with the extended Curry family. However, the blog trip will live on! We’ll read each morning alongside you, checking up on the shenanigans the crazy NHC couple gets themselves into during their last week on the road.

Thanks everyone for the support over the past ten months, and we hope you continue reading with us as we adjust back into life as we once knew it.

And of course, there’s always our next round-the-world trip…

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Real Time Update 11

Kevin has handed the laptop over to me.

A minute ago, I was reading over his shoulder and criticizing the phrasing of the following sentence: “May was easily one of our favorite nine months on the trip so far.” I didn’t understand this sentence at all and told him so. “How can May be nine months? It makes no sense!” I said. “May isn’t nine months. It’s one of the top nine months. How does that not make sense?” This went on for a few more minutes until Kevin gave up – “Fine! YOU write the real time update! I always write it!”

Well. Let’s see. May was pretty darn good. We had to spend a week by ourselves, but after that we got to see Dad Curry, Steve AND (SPOILER ALERT!) Amy, the three coolest people to ever visit us on our trip! More importantly, we forced these three people to write for our blog so that we could have some time off. To do nothing. Hey, traveling is hard work, sometimes I get tired and need to sleep in.

Anyway, let’s get to the point of this post and the only reason you’re reading it – to announce the contest winners. They are… drum roll please… Cameron and Kari! Look for your postcards in the mail.

As always, thanks to everyone for reading!

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