While the fun part of planning for a trip is coming up with an itinerary, there are many other no less important RTW preparation tasks that must be done before you can set off on a grand adventure. This post is by no means a comprehensive how-to. I’ll share some of the issues we faced and how we dealt with them. Different circumstances may require a different approach on any or all of these issues. Just like itinerary planning, there are no one size fits all solutions here.

For context, we are a middle-aged couple with a middle school kid. The decisions we make about how to organize our affairs ahead of a RTW trip are very different from the approach a single twenty-something would take. We also have a specific timeframe for our trip as we are planning to be back in Houston in time for Lachlan to start high school. This may lead us to make different decisions from a family who is heading off to travel indefinitely.

This blog is coming from the final stop before we leave the country. We’re staying overnight at Heide’s parents’ house. Heide’s mom will drive us to the airport tomorrow afternoon and we’ll be off on our adventure.

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House

If you own a house, what to do with it will probably be your biggest RTW preparation issue. The big decision is whether to sell it or rent it out. There are definitely pros and cons to either approach, so your individual circumstances will dictate which way is best. Then you have to consider the market. We went back and forth about selling vs. renting. We finally decided to sell the house, mainly because we plan to move to a different part of Houston when we return.

After listing the house and getting a number of showings but no real interest except a lowball offer, we listed the house for rent. Straight away we had some good tenants offer us more than our asking rent, so we changed direction and signed a lease with them. Although things didn’t end up the way we planned, it seems like things worked out well. When we return from our trip we’ll decide then whether we want to sell the house, continue to rent it or move back into it.

Cars

The next biggest issue for most people’s RTW preparation is what to do with your car or cars. Most often it’s going to make sense to sell them. We ended up deciding to keep my car, as it’s very low miles and I won’t be able to find another one like it when we return. It will stay at Heide’s parents’ place while we’re away.

We did sell Heide’s car as she wants something different when we come back from our trip. Also, keeping two cars would be ridiculous, one is bad enough. As Heide’s car was a lot bigger than mine, we needed it right through all of our RTW preparations. We were hauling stuff all over the place, so we needed the space. This made it difficult to try and sell the car privately, so we dropped it off at Carmax on the way to Heide’s parents’ place. They give us a decent price, it was no-fuss and didn’t take too long.

Pets

This is another big RTW preparation issue for pet owners who want to travel. The ideal solution is for a friend or family member to look after your pet while you’re away. We found this solution for one of our dogs, Peach will be spending a year with a family who adores her (particularly the little girl of the house). This family has a farm that they spend some time at, so that will be an exciting new experience for Peach.

Our other dog, Axel, is a different story. He’s a rescue and has anxiety issues so he doesn’t do well with anyone other than our immediate family, and the kennel that he has boarded at while we’ve taken vacations. So he’s going to stay at the kennel while we’re away. They know him there and kinda like him, even when he growls at them.

The Rest of Our Stuff

This is not one of those “we sold all our stuff to travel the world” posts. Much as I admire people who can do that, because we have firm plans to return to Houston and are at a stage of life where we have accumulated some things that we really want to keep, we couldn’t take this approach. We did try to get rid of as much as possible. First, we held a garage sale and got rid of many things that we had forgotten we had. We made more than a thousand dollars, so it was definitely a success, although hard work.

After the garage sale we donated a bunch of stuff to Goodwill, gave some things away to other people and threw lots of things in the trash. We filled up our wheelie bin every week for a couple of months, then mad a trash pile in the driveway which was picked up after the movers had cleared the house out.

We rented a storage unit before we put our house on the market, and filled about a third of it with things we took out of the house to declutter so it would show better. When we finally moved out of the house, we filled the rest of the unit … and had to get another small unit for things that wouldn’t fit in the main unit. So, don’t look to us for advice on how to downsize your stuff, we are apparently not very good at it.

Luggage

This is a big obsession with people in the midst of RTW preparation as evidenced by the number of blog posts and youtube videos on the subject. The first big decision is carry-on only vs. checked bags. We have managed to do carry-on only for all of our vacations over the last few years. It is great to walk off the plane and not have to join the crowds waiting for baggage to appear. However, for our RTW trip we have to pack for a range of weather conditions, and take some supplies that we don’t need to take when we’re traveling short-term. After a couple of trial packs we realized there was no way we could do carry-on only for this trip.

The next decision was backpack vs. roller bag. Heide and I decided that our middle-aged backs would be better off with roller bags. We found a good deal on a previous year’s model of the Osprey Ozone 75 lightweight rolling duffel which is (just) big enough to carry all of our stuff without being ridiculously heavy. We have managed to stay under the 23kg limit that applies to most of the flights we have booked so far.

Lachlan decided he preferred a backpack. Having seen the havoc he can wreak walking through an airport dragging a roller bag, we agreed with this decision. We initially bought him an Osprey Farpoint 55, which is a very popular travel backpack with a zip-off day pack. After doing the final pack a couple of days ago, we realized that this wasn’t quite big enough, especially the day pack. We picked up an Osprey Porter 65 which has more room than the Farpoint’s main pack, and a separate day pack which has much more space than the Farpoint’s zip-off version.

Travel Clothes

Another RTW preparation obsession in the blogosphere is travel clothes. It is amazing what’s available out there these days compared to previous year’s when “travel” clothes were all very synthetic and not very stylish. These days you can get merino wool clothing and even the synthetic options feel much more like natural materials while being quick-drying and lighter.

Here are some of the clothes we bought for our trip that we think will work well. We’ll have to come back and update this post after we’ve been traveling for a while to report on how well they worked out for us.

• Royal Robbins Merinolux Tee Shirts
• Prana Stretch Zion Pants and Shorts
• WoolX Hoodie, Tee Shirt and Tank Tops
• Smartwool Socks
• Ex-Officio Underwear
• Eddie Bauer Puffy Jackets
• Eddie Bauer Destination Tee Shirts
• Chaco Sandals (Traditional for Andrew and Heide, the new Odyssey for Lachlan)
• Astral Water Shoes

Technology

Another difference between travel these days and say twenty years ago is the amount of technology we carry these days. It’s great that we can stay connected while traveling, and use apps and maps to help while traveling, but it all adds to the weight that needs to be hauled around. Also, we’ll be maintaining the blog as we go and Lachlan will have online schoolwork.

Between us we will be carrying:

• Two MacBook Airs
• Two iPads
• Assorted cell phones
• Lachlan’s Nintendo Switch

Camera Gear

These days you can take pretty decent pictures and video with your cell phone, but as a photography enthusiast they still don’t replace real camera gear for me. As will as pics for the blog, I want to capture video along the way. An action cam will be a must, especially for snorkeling in the Galapagos Islands and adventure sports in New Zealand.

I’ve tried to rationalize and buy small or lightweight equipment, but by the time you include lenses, accessories and batteries and charges, a pretty significant part of my load will be camera gear:

• Nikon D5600 DSLR – about as lightweight as you can get for a DSLR.
• Panasonic Lumix GX85 mirrorless camera – for video and situations where it will be better not to carry around a more conspicuous DSLR
• GoPro Hero 7 Black – for underwater and above ground adventures
• Manfrotto Befree Carbon Fiber Travel Tripod – this is probably the biggest indulgence, but really helps with landscape and night photography
• Joby GorillaPod 5K flexible tripod – mainly for the GX85 and GoPro, but also will work for my DSLR

Hopefully I’ll be able to capture some photos and footage good enough to make it worth lugging all this stuff all around the world.

So that’s all the boring RTW preparation stuff out of the way. Let us know in the comments if you’re curious about any further details. From now on, the posts will be about the fun stuff – the destinations we’ll see as we travel around the world.