Two months into a journey around the world and I figured it was time to do a status update (some habits are hard to break).

Part 1 detailed my favorite destinations so far, along with a couple I didn’t enjoy quite as much.

For Part 2, here are some updates on the logistics and financials of the trip.

With all of the nuts and bolts of the trip, the critical thing is to find a balance that makes you comfortable. Here’s how things are playing out for me, so far.

Accommodations

After a stay with friends in England, I experienced my first hostel stay in Lille, France. It was not a pleasant way to start off a long journey – the hostel I booked had no real community rooms, dark & dingy bathrooms and no lockers to store belongings.

Fortunately, the hostels I’ve stayed at since then have all been significant improvements over that first one – with kitchens, bars, lounges and even low cost laundry facilities.

Along the way, I’ve been in many small towns that don’t have hostels, but the cost of the B&Bs have been even lower than some of the hostels I’ve stayed at. Throughout Bretagne, there are wonderful cozy, country hideaways for less than the cost of a nice dinner. Some of them ARE in the middle of nowhere, so having a bike helped tremendously.

I’ve balanced the hostel stays with hotels once in a while. If you search well, you can often find hotel rooms for the same cost as a hostel and even if it’s a couple of dollars more, having a private room to stretch out is worth it once in a while.

My favorite is the homestay. Through AirBnB.com, I found a wonderful flat in Paris and was able to live like a local for a couple of weeks. Far less than a hotel, and a bit more than a hostel but having a full apartment including laundry, internet and kitchen saved me a lot of money on the living expenses so it evened out.

Money

Overall, my expenses are tracking close to what I had planned. It’s a bit higher than it will be over the bulk of the trip, but I had prepared for that. Europe isn’t cheap – especially London and Paris. A few months in Asia and staying with friends for a while will more than balance it out.

My accommodations have been a bit below my budget, fortunately, because I’m running very high on food and beverage.

One of the adjustments I’ve had to make is to make more of my own meals along the way, because every time you step into a restaurant in Europe, it’s nearly $20 to get out. Even fast food runs about $10 a pop. The only exception to this rule is breakfast. A coffee and pastry in the morning costs less than a cup of Starbucks in the U.S. (unless, of course, your coffee and pastry are AT Starbucks). The early morning café stops have been one of the great pleasures so far.

Health

Illness & Injury:

Overall, things have been great. I had a cold for a couple of days in Paris, but got over it quickly. I think the moldy cheese killed it.

I have had some trouble with numb toes after days of walking. To some extent, I needed to break in my shoes a bit more than I did but I also over-do it with walking. These towns have rail systems for a reason, but I was regularly walking up to 10 miles a day. I hate to miss the “in-betweens” along the way.

Fitness:

Between cycling and walking, I’ve lost a great deal of weight and my legs are dead sexy (especially once I learned to stop gashing them open with the sharp hybrid pedals on my bike). Unfortunately, I do need to start some sort of upper body work before my chest rivals the Grand Canyon in concavity.

Vitiligo:

Most of you probably don’t know about this, but I’m melanin-challenged. It’s not a big deal most of the time but some parts of my skin tan, some stay lily-white (or burn in about 3 minutes). Being in the sun hours and hours a day – either riding or walking – enhanced my blotchiness by tanning my “good” parts, even with 60 SPF on. It’s more cosmetic than a health issue, but still annoys the fuck out of me. I’ve had to vainly start applying self-tanner to even things out a bit and eliminate the “Guernsey effect.”

I promise I’m not orange.

Telecommunications

After months of waiting, I was finally able to jailbreak my iPhone and pop in a local SIM card to use  without paying AT&T roaming charges. It was a beautiful thing while it lasted. Sadly, it went missing while I was in Madrid – and I’m still not sure if I left it somewhere or if it was nicked while I wasn’t paying attention.

I now have an unlocked cell phone that I use for local calls (replacing the SIM in countries I’m staying around for a while) and I picked up an iPod Touch for all the other iPhone functions I would rather not live without. Skype, Accio Language dictionaries, Evernote, OffMaps, HootSuite and Kindle top the list of my most used apps.

Cycling

As I mentioned in part 1, riding has been one of the best parts of the trip. The bike comes with a couple downsides, though.

With a load on it, the bike limits you to around 80 miles a day, preferably not more than 60, fewer if there are hills along the way. That means it takes a while to get to a destination that’s 300 miles away. Physically, that kind of riding doesn’t phase me, but it does cause some other issues.

You’re constantly on the move. If you want to get from Paris to Bordeaux, you’re going to be on the road every day or it’s going to take you weeks to make the trek.

With daily packing & unpacking and 6 or 7 hours of ride time, it’s challenging to get to know people and places along the way. There are a lot of days when you do little more than eat breakfast, ride, shower, have dinner and sleep. For me, that’s actually a wonderful day – but at the same time, I felt like I wasn’t really getting to know the towns I sped past.

Spain, in particular, has not been a bike-friendly country when you get past the cities of Barcelona and Valencia. Bikes aren’t allowed on the high-speed rail (which is the case in several countries) and drivers in much of Spain aren’t using to seeing bikes on their roads.

So, what’s next on that front?

I’ve temporarily left the bike behind in Madrid, so I can hit up some destinations that would have been a serious logistical hassle. While I’m in England for the next few weeks, I’ll be looking at picking up a folding bike so that I can more easily transport it and still have wheels with me for rides around the area. I won’t be using it for point to point transportation, but since I’m planning extended stays in the cities I visit going forward, that becomes less of a focus anyway.

Cycling is an important facet for me, but I’m not one of those travelers who wants to be on the bike and riding to a new location every day.

—————

Whew. Long post. There’s more, but those are the big things. Next week – Part 3: Next destinations and goal updates.

A lot of folks have shared information on great ways to use mobile apps on the road (including some great posts at TravelsofAdam.com). I just wanted to share a couple recent discoveries. Helpful to anyone with an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad (which is getting close to being everyone with one of the three).

Mobile Check Deposits with Chase!

Well, I’m not making any money while I’m traveling (not yet, anyway) but I still have a few checks coming in from closing out some past accounts.

My checks all went to a good friend, who’s acting as my mail drop while I’m traveling. The challenge became “how do I deposit those checks from halfway around the world?”

I certainly could have had him make a trip to the bank for me (and forge my signature, etc), but I didn’t want to inconvenience him every time I got a $12 refund check from a canceled magazine subscription. And without a permanent address overseas, I didn’t want him to mail the check to me (not to mention the challenge of exactly where I would be able to deposit it).

Enter Chase’s new mobile app. Sorry, at the moment you need to have an account with Chase AND an iPhone for this.

And no, I’m not being paid for this post!! But my hand is open, Chase…

This fantastic little bit of software allows you to take a photo of a check with your iPhone, upload it to the Chase website and it deposits into your account on the spot – wherever you are in the world.

For this, I didn’t want my friend to have to mail the check to me, so here are the two simple steps:

1. He scanned the check in hi-res and e-mailed the image to me.
2. Using the Chase application, I was able to take a photo directly off my computer screen into the app and voila! Check was deposited.

I don’t know how often I’ll need to use it, but it was incredibly handy. (Free app)

OffMaps ($1.99)

I was searching for an application that loaded up city maps so I didn’t have to carry the paper versions with me (or FIND a paper version in every single city I visited).

Enter OffMaps. You can download one of the free city maps they offer or just buy the application. Download the city you’re visiting and you’ll have full time access to a street map, that also integrates with the iPhone GPS. The full version allows downloads of pretty much anywhere, from the looks of it, but I’ll be testing it more as I head through France.

In addition to street maps, it includes sites, restaurants, hotels and has optional city guide downloads for more information.

Caveat: as you would expect, the maps are HUGE, so prepare for long download times. Best to do when you have a full-time internet connection – NOT while downing a McFlurry.

Accio Language Guides ($1.99)

I’m loving the Accio language guides so far. Type in a word you want to translate and it takes you right to it. Hit a button and it instantly switches from French-English to English-French. Or whatever language you’re using.

Sitting on the train, every time I see a sign I don’t understand, I pull up the words in an instant. It’s teaching me the language far more quickly than if I had to pull out a dictionary each time.

At $1.99 each, they’re a great value and space saver.

——-

And finally, another shout out to Evernote. I know I’ve extolled its virtues before (here), but I use it CONSTANTLY to record my random thoughts and memories so I can store my impressions the way a photographer stores images.

Since I started telling more people about my trip this week, I’ve been getting quite a bit of advice about how to make money on the road.

“What are you going to do while you travel?”

Is there something wrong with being lazy? Most of us never truly get the opportunity to do absolutely nothing. Sure, we may take a day off to eat chimichangas and watch football, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Image credit: The Wandering Angel via Flickr under Creative Commons

The concept of a career break is foreign to most people in the corporate world, so in an effort to process what I’m doing, many well-meaning friends are trying to turn the trip into a job for me.

• “You should go find some sponsors.”
• “You could wear a big Coca-Cola logo on your bike while you’re riding.”
• “Write a book and sell it.”
• “You need to put some Google ads up on your blog.”
• “Add a Paypal button and let people donate money for every time you eat some animal’s testicles.”

Wonderful thoughts and someday I might follow-up on a few of those. But here’s the thing – jumping from one tourism-based career to a new tourism-based career doesn’t make sense to me.

I’d rather go to the bookstore and browse for something new.

Dan Brown’s book “The Lost Symbol” bored me to tears from the first chapter. The last thing I would do is skip to a different chapter in the hopes that it might be better – it’s still the same shitty* book. I’d rather go to the bookstore and browse for something new.

The need to do nothing

There’s an exchange from Office Space that comes to mind. The main character, Peter, was asked what he would do if he had a million dollars and didn’t need to work?

Peter Gibbons: I would relax… I would sit on my ass all day… I would do nothing.
Lawrence: Well, you don’t need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he’s broke, don’t do shit.

I definitely don’t have a million dollars, but that doesn’t mean I can’t simply enjoy the moment for a while. Trapped somewhere in my head, there’s a rant about the travesty of vacation time in America, but I’ll save it for another time.

Along with my travel goals, I hope to clear my mind in ways that aren’t possible when you’re immersed in a river of career molasses. How can you really clearly assess your life direction if your brain is obsessed with the ad copy you have to get approved on Monday?

My favorite travel experiences are the serendipitous moments you didn’t see coming.

I have set a course to enjoy a serendipitous life.

I have set a course to enjoy a serendipitous life. During that journey, I will keep my eyes open for a new path, one that I can’t possibly predict or imagine. Throwing myself full time toward some new financial pursuit this early in my trip would only obscure those little alleyways of fun.

Doing something in the midst of doing nothing

Yes, I have a blog. Yes, I’ll be writing. Taking photos. Making videos and podcasts. I am doing those things for two reasons – one, to record my memories of the journey. Second, to entertain – myself, and hopefully others. Eventually if people want to throw money at me for that, my pockets will be open.

But that’s secondary. As you look at my blog, you’ll see that little of my marketing background shows up, nor have I tapped into friends and their expertise. I don’t have a strategic marketing plan or revenue forecasts or any kind of business development scheme.

For the first time since I entered the working world, I’m just living and I won’t try to monetize my life.

Sure, but what do you DO?

While I’m traveling and people ask me what I do, I’m not entirely sure what I’ll say. “Freelance writer” certainly sounds cool, but I’m afraid I’d be doing a big disservice to people who actually ARE freelance writers.

For now, I just ride my bike, meet new people, see the world and goof around as much as I can.

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Sure, you can’t plan for everything. But you should at least be able to learn the basics before you jump off toward parts unknown. While planning my round the world trip, here are things I learned about far later in the process than I would have expected.

Image: Creative Commons - futuristmovies.com

The Schengen Agreement

First off, exactly WHO agreed? Certainly not me. I planned for years to take a 12 month bike tour through Europe. Finding out that you can only stay in Europe for 90 days out of 180 before you have to leave was as disappointing as the first time I heard words come out of Michelle Malkin’s mouth.

Intended to eliminate border checks between countries, the treaty makes it easier to move from place to place but limits the amount of time you can spend in the region as a whole. It’s not enough to hop across a border, get a stamp and come back, you have to spend 90 days outside of a Schengen nation. Fortunately, the UK, Ireland, Croatia and a few others aren’t included. More about Schengen restrictions.

Bike fees

Transporting a bike on an airplane is subject to fees that would make TicketMaster wet their money-grubbing panties. Most airlines have special “bike” fees, not tied directly to the weight or size, but merely for the fact that it’s a bike (up to $300 each way). My personal theory is that some airline exec had a traumatic childhood experience involving lycra shorts and an overweight uncle.

Originally, I had planned to ship my bike to London. Sadly, shipping it is nearly as expensive as carrying it on the plane AND you have more complicated dealings with customs. If I didn’t already have a bike built for my tour, I would have considered buying one overseas. The downside of that is that you can’t spend much time getting used to it.

International phone options

This one is less about something I didn’t know, but more about the timing of when I decided to dive into a round the world trip. Rather than selling two more years of my soul to AT&T, I would have done more research into phones with  easily changed SIM cards. Don’t get me wrong, the iPhone and travel apps are great. But when I leave the US, it transforms into an over-sized iPod Touch. If you allow the roaming charges free reign, it soaks up more dollars than a stripper on free beer night.

SMART chip credit cards

This is one I just learned and I’m glad I did. For many transactions, including buying train tickets in unmanned stations and renting city bikes in places like Paris, you need a credit card with an embedded chip and PIN. Since US cards don’t have compatible chips, the alternative is buying a debit card and placing a cash balance on it once you arrive.

Couchsurfing Events

I had heard of couchsurfing.com, but what I didn’t know is that there are some very active local communities. Many hold social events for like-minded travelers (including hosts and visitors). I also wish I had joined earlier and had more opportunity to host a few times. With only a couple of months until I start my trip, it’s been a challenge to find times when I’m available.

Along with meeting new people and helping out fellow travelers, you can get some nice recommendations to help you on your own journey.

So, that’s my list of things I was surprised I hadn’t heard more about but every world traveler should know. Have any others to share?

Now I know what a gang bang feels like.

The plan

In preparing for my departure, I knew I would have two sales. The first to clear my place of all the miscellaneous crap, the second to shed much of my furniture to limit my storage needs.

Some wonderful friends of mine (we’ll call them Shmoy, Shmill and Shmance) helped me put together the yard sale. I had an ungodly number of books, DVDs, comics and various electronics & camping stuff. They added clothes, cycling equipment and baby gear that’s been outgrown.

photo credit: fpm from Wikimedia Creative Commons

Shmoy is the most ridiculously obsessive organizer I’ve ever known (and an amazing artist). She put together dozens of craigslist ads, sale signs, attention getting balloons and hundreds of price stickers.

Shmance didn’t sell anything, but provided a lawn in the yard sale capital of the world: Van Nuys, California.

I was a little worried that we’d put a ton of time into this and not get a return to justify blowing a beautiful day of cycling. I hoped I’d make $500 at most and probably closer to $300.

It’s good to know that even in a recession, there’s a bullish market for crap.

How it went

6:30am: We had all dumped stuff off in advance, but I had a second carload that I threw on the lawn before the sun rose. Shmance then shared a disturbing bit of info: he wasn’t sure what time the lawn sprinklers turned on, so I may want to move my books to the sidewalk. Nice.

What we thought: spend the time from 7 – 8 setting stuff up, wiping everything off and applying price stickers to the items. Then, sell stuff from 8 until 1:00.

What happened: Like a newborn boy’s testicles, they descended before we had even left the womb. At 7:10, a plague of swap meet re-sellers swarmed the yard.  Shmill, our third participant, hadn’t even arrived to set up yet.

Shmoy gently informed the early birds that the sale wouldn’t be ready to go until 8:00. Then she said the same thing more firmly. Well, screw that, I had people shoving money in my face, so I took it. She quickly followed suit. Why not? After all, this was stuff that was just filling up space, including clothes that I had obviously purchased at Chess King.

I cleared $400 before we hit our start time of 8:00.

Shmill sold his boxes of books before they were even out of his car. That provided the quote of the day (I swear I am not making this up), “I want to buy them from you before all the vultures get to them.”

What sold

All my books and comics went in one transaction from a used book seller.

Two guys argued about buying all my DVDs at once. I got tired of them bickering so I just quoted a price I knew neither of them would pay. That calmed them down enough to sort through the ones they actually wanted. At $3 each, DVDs were probably the biggest single driver of the money I made throughout the day.

The yard sale was good for all of us, but a bit less successful for Shmoy and Shmill. We had advertised a wide array of items, including some high end designer clothing, shoes and expensive bike parts. While those were the best deals in the place, it just wasn’t the right crowd. Other than the early birds, customers weren’t responding to the ads, they were just driving the neighborhood looking for sales.

The most unusual items sold – my Halloween costumes:

photo credit: Bridget Coila - wikimedia creative commons

• An unused gorilla costume that I bought for Halloween but never wore. $10
• A pleather gladiator costume that borders on bondage gear. An older woman bought it for her son… wait, whut? $10
• For $20, a guy said hello to a new suit, I said goodbye to a Doctor Who costume.

The item I was most surprised didn’t sell:

• A doggie door insert for sliding glass doors. All week, people were e-mailing me asking about it and if they could come get it before the yard sale. Because I was out of town, I couldn’t do that. No one came to buy it and it didn’t sell to the crowd that was there.

Two items that didn’t sell, but should have:

• A waffle iron and creme brulee kit. My friends mocked me for owning both of those. Advice to any single guys out there – if you’re dating someone and offer to cook for her, both of those items are confirmed panty-droppers. That’s probably how I should advertise them on craigslist.

April Flowers Bring Snot Showers

I brought a box of Kleenex for my own use. After a third person offered to buy it, I had to move it out of sight. My allergies aren’t usually bad, but with the winds this week I brought the box as a precaution.

As it turned out, Shmance’s yard is surrounded by flowers in full bloom. I was a sneezing, dripping, teary-eyed mess. The entire box of tissues was used up by noon. 24 hours and a benadryl capsule later, I’m finally recovering.

The finale:

After 9:00, the flow of people was slow but steady.

I ended up taking home only a few items, most of which are the higher ticket items I know I can sell on ebay or craigslist. And a Santa Claus costume.

Final tally: an astonishing $1016. With all the $1 bills, I think I either have to visit a strip club or buy 837 Snickers bars from a vending machine.

Afterward, we had a very decadent rib dinner with friends, the moderators of www.socalbikeforums.com. This is a group that I chat with via e-mail all day long. I can go to a meeting and come back an hour later to 37 e-mails about everything from cycling to politics to Battlestar Galactica. We’ve all known each other for several years and done many bike rides together, but never once been together all at the same time, so it was a wonderful capper to a very successful day.

The clock is ticking away the weeks before I take off for parts both known and unknown. Well, it’s not actually ticking but it’s humming a pretty sweet tune. While preparing, I wrote out how I would measure successes and failures on my trip. After all, I may be leaving to travel but that doesn’t mean I can just slack off and drink mai tais all day.

I must have been sucked through some weird dimensional time warp at some point because when I looked at that list yesterday, I realized that my trip was already a success.

Isn't it nicer when the road to success is downhill?

Here are some of the ways my travel plans are awesome RIGHT NOW:

1. Simplification – When you get out of school, life is a cute little goldfish and it’s easy to care for, but then you shove it into bigger and bigger tanks, it eats everything in sight until it eventually turns into a big, ugly carp. I can’t keep up the fish metaphor forever, so let’s just say I’ve thrown away a lot of shit.
2. Frugal living – Last year, I stopped blowing money on stuff I never use. I’m sure Reader’s Digest is still a wonderful magazine but really, they should have lost my loyalty when they stopped sending me letters telling me I had already won a million dollars. It may have been a lie, but I used to feel like they cared.
3. Personal assessment – Prepping for extended travel gave me the incentive to look inside myself and be honest about what I wanted in my life. Amongst other things, I want to go to my grave after living a life that is extraordinary. I mean, not… you know… soon with the whole “grave” thing. But someday.
4. Getting in shape – It hasn’t been easy, but increasing my riding has finally enabled me to counteract the free snacks at work. I know, technically I still shouldn’t eat an entire bag of Oreos in one sitting but I’ve never been much for rules. Or even principles of common decency.
5. Goals & renewed sense of purpose – Setting a date and working toward something meaningful has lifted my mood tremendously, even though the final outcome is a big unknown. Mysteries are great motivators. I mean, look at Scooby Doo and the gang. They always seemed to get a kick out of traveling aimlessly and pursuing mysteries, but that might be because they were all high.
6. Connecting with old friends – Leaving Los Angeles, perhaps for many years, sparked me to catch up with people I haven’t seen in months. Facebook is great for keeping in touch with far away friends, but when it takes the place of real contact with people who live in the same town, it’s a problem. Knowing you’re going to leave is like a pleasurable form of being given 6 months to live. It’s time to catch up, to laugh about the past, even tidy up unfinished business.
7. Writing again – for fun! My first few blog posts were oozing with business-speak and CYA as though someone might get pissed if I didn’t leave myself weasel room. It was all “the outcome is most likely to be x” and “I would imagine that y might happen.” Now I can write whatever the Hell is on my mind and only worry about people telling me it sucks. And screw them, anyway.
   

   mmmm...giant donut...

If my life has improved this much just from planning to travel, then I’m looking forward to the marshmallow clouds, lollipop trees and ice cream gardens out on the road. And the virgins. There’d better be virgins.

There have been a lot of tips outlining small ways to save money for a round the world trip. But c’mon, anyone can give up Starbucks and save a couple bucks a day. With all due respect to the wonderful Stephanie at Twenty-Something Travel, I’m going to show you some shortcuts that are like wormholes to a whole new dimension of savings.

1. Stop buying engagement rings. I can’t emphasize this one enough. I don’t care if you’re a paperboy, you don’t have a clue how much street food 2 months salary buys in Bangkok. Don’t wait until after your fourth one to kick this habit.
2. Skip over your mid-life crisis. Traveling to Paris on the spur of the moment may be awesome and impetuous, but taking along some cocktail waitress you met after your fifth pint last weekend is overkill. The sex isn’t THAT good.
3. Take a hint from The Hangover and stay away from Las Vegas. It’s okay to go ONLY if you have a foolproof betting system. But be cautious, because that whole “double your bet after every loss” thing doesn’t work as well as you think it should.
4. Don’t be on the cutting edge. You may think it’s a $5000 investment in the future of travel, but the Segway screams geek more than any device ever created. Also stay away from these: 50 Worst Gadgets of the Decade author’s note: if you want any of those items, I’m having a yard sale on April 3rd
5. Never shop at a yard sale

One last bit of advice. If you’re dating someone who buys a beach house in Kaua’i as an impulse purchase, MAKE IT WORK.