Pre-Departure Checklist

We try to collect here what to sort out before you go. Let’s see the checklist.

Travel Vaccinations
Depending on your age and vaccinations you got while you were a child you should contact a Vaccination centre and find out what travel vaccinations you need. Most Vaccination Centres will know what you need if you tell them what parts of Southeast Asia you would like to visit. I am 35 years old I needed to get 3 combined vaccinations two at the time of first visit to the vaccination centre the last about a month later. My gf is considerably younger She only had to get 2 vaccinations not 3 like me. So do not waste time when you decide to go travelling start getting the vaccinations immediately otherwise you might run out of time.

Visas

As our first destination will be Thailand we got a Tourist visa for Thailand. We were lucky getting the visa for 6 months, 3 entries and 60 days per entry. The only thing We needed to show is 2 reservations in neighbouring countries. I have booked accommodation in Cambodia and Malaysia using hostelworld.com randomly. Very likely we will never make it there on time but We had paperwork to show at the Thai Embassy and it did cost us about 8$ 🙂
The Thai visa is free of charge it is a good idea to get it sorted 1-2 weeks before departure as the visa is valid from the day they stamp it in your passport. So your 3-6 months validity starts counting once you have the visa in your passport.

Travel Insurance
This is crucial, anything can happen during your travels so make sure you have a very good insurance. We paid about €674 for two of us for a 4 months coverage. There are many companies dealing with insurance for backpackers as We are Hungarians We picked an insurance from a Hungarian company. I did a bit of research over the internet and if you are from the UK or Ireland you should be able to get the same coverage for half the price 🙂

Plane Tickets
We will fly Egyptiar from Budapest with a connecting flight in Cairo. The plane ticket costed us €730 one way for the two of us.
You can use www.skyscanner.net to find the best deals 🙂

Backpacks
I will be using an Easy pack Cargo Travel backpack lots of space in it and you can detach a little backpack from the top. It is very useful when you check your bags in. You do not need to carry many bags with you just detach the small part if you check your bag in and zip it back up when you get your backs on the destination airport.
My girlfriend will be using a smaller backpack an Osprey Talon 44

Copy of your documents
It is a good idea to scan your documents ( passports, visas, insurance, etc ) and upload them to google docs this way you will be able to access it from anywhere in the world and in case of any problems just print them.

If you own an apartment…

Check if all your bills are paid by direct debit, not very good to get home after months and there is no electricity.
Empty your fridge throw out anything that can go bad.
Clean the apartment before you go.
Take out the trash.
Give a key to a friend to be able to check on the apartment periodically.
Try to stop unnecessary services like Cable TV or Internet.
Power down your electric devices.
Do not leave the heating off for winter. Turn it down to 15-16C degrees this will supply enough heat for the apartment. Try avoiding frost damage to your stuff this way.
Get a good insurance for the apartment, make sure that everything is covered.