How do I prepare for a 7 month trip

You know when and where you are going but what now?

There are many little things you have to do before you leave for a long term trip. This was my list of what I had to do before leaving for Australia:

1) Get the visa -- Check out here for help on how to get the 462 work and travel visa for Australia.

2) Check your passport validity: it should be valid 6 months after your trip. If not, renew it!

3) Get a travel insurance: I chose the Chapka travel insurance which was 278euros. This is valid for the whole time under the work and travel visa but also for 90 days outside of the work and travel visa destination, which is great if you are planning to travel around.

4) Vaccinations: Do this in advance, sometimes you need to get 2 or even 3 shots for one vaccination. If you are only going to Australia, you don’t need any special vaccination except the standard vaccinations. In addition they do sometimes require you to have the yellow fever vaccination. However, if you are also traveling to Asia, there are some important vaccinations to do, some that are needed and some that are recommended.

Here are the vaccinations needed:

- Typhoid

- Hepatitis A and B

- Tetanus

- Polio

- MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella)

Recommended vaccinations:

- Rabies: If you get vaccinated before your trip, and you get bitten with a suspicion of rabies, you do still need to get some shots in a local hospital. However, if you do get the vaccinations before your trip, you will have more time to go to the hospital. It is an expensive vaccination, but in my opinion it is definitely worth getting it!

- Japanese encephalitis: Although it is a rare disease, better be safe.  

Check into a travel clinic or with your doctor, they will know what you will need in function of the countries you want to visit.

5) Get you International drivers license. This may not be needed for every country, but it is always better to have it.

5) Reserve your flight. We are flying with Singapore Airlines!

6) Reserve your hostel/hotel. We chose to book a hostel for the first 9 days in Sydney in order to have enough time to figure everything out. We booked at the Mad Monkey Backpacker Hostel in Sydney. Although I cannot give a full review yet, I can say that they are super helpful with reservations. We had booked the wrong dates (stupid us), got super worried because initially it was stated they were non refundable, but after contacting them, they changed the dates to the correct ones without a change in cost or whatsoever. So for now, I can only recommend it!

7) Make copies of all of your important document -- give them to a family member or friend and save them on a USB stick. This will be very useful in case you loose something.

After this, you can start with your packing! Blog post coming on this soon. Subscribe to be updated!

Last but not least, have a good bye party, enjoy with your friends and family!

Love,

Jil