Transition to Travel specifically addresses what to take care of when making the transition from settled to nomadic, both on a remedial side (e.g. the minimums and necessities), and on a generative side (e.g. those things that go above and beyond “what’s required to get on the plane”, but which significantly improve your experience of travel).

The course is designed to comprehensively cover the initial process of making the transition “once and for all”, and the ongoing processes involved with switching locations “again and again” – giving you both the tools & steps to make the change, plus the information to adapt the process to your preferences & lifestyle.

The main points that have to get covered from both sides include:

• At the meta level, deciding how you’re going to be traveling (at least from the outset, as it can change later), to contextualize the types of things you’re going to have to do.

• What to do with your stuff, big and small, including whether & what to sell vs. give away vs. store and how

• What to bring with you from what you have, and how to prioritize what is practically useful for traveling vs. what you may have just gotten used to packing when the context was “I’ll be back in 1-2 weeks and will probably still need this stuff at home” (like shampoo, which is a cheap commodity that is almost never worth its weight, unless it falls into another category of being an important/specialty item that is scarce elsewhere, in which case the opposite might apply, and you may want to bring a LOT, sacrificing other commodity items for it).

• What you may need to buy that will help you in traveling, either to replace things with significantly improved “long-term-travel-friendly versions”, or because it’s something that wouldn’t be relevant to pay much thought to in day-to-day settled life, but increasingly so while traveling (for various reasons, including on the other side of the equation, things you may currently take for granted, which unfortunately, by their nature can be hard to distinguish before you’ve long-term traveled – as they may not have even been on your radar to check out during a vacation – and can also vary depending on where you plan to go).

• Whether it’s keeping & bringing, or buying, or buying as you go, special attention is paid to the key things you’ll need while traveling, the “basic load out” if you will, around which you customize according to your unique situation.

• The various documentation you’ll need to have, including obvious basics like a passport, but going beyond that in terms of convenience and facilitating the “smoothness” of certain situations.

• How to take advantage of the financial systems & structures available to you for – again – convenience, but also, importantly, both redundancy & not paying as many “travel tolls” for the mere accessing of your money (it is key to note here that I don’t mean tax advice – that is separate and my personal view is that this type of thing is best handled by licensed professionals – but rather how to setup things locally before you go that can benefit you, like bank accounts that offer ATM cards which both don’t charge & refund ATM withdrawal fees, credit cards that have no foreign transaction fee & good exchange rates, etc) – and the good news is doubly that (a) America is absolutely the best place to setup these kinds of things by an order of magnitude in terms of the travel-related benefits that are available, and (b) you don’t have to be an American to access that financial system.

• Other infrastructure you may want to setup/take advantage of before you go, like insurance (and whether that’s necessary – in some cases and for some types of insurance it may not be worth it, though I certainly wish I had it when I first started), healthcare boxes to check (like vaccines, various checkups, including dental), what will happen to your mail, dealing with your subscriptions (some you may want to keep – for example Costco membership is worldwide and a great source to stock up on vitamins and supplements) making sure you can physically pay whatever bills remain.

• “Miscellaneous” stuff you might benefit from starting out before you go, like for example making a plan for dealing with your fitness in the face of “unlimited amazing (a.k.a. highly caloric) exotic dining options with plenty of excuses to indulge”, deciding what language(s) to pick up a foundation in, etc.

• We also get into the topic of picking which places to go to, finding your personal criteria, etc., both In terms of making sure you have the necessary logistics in place, and obviously the amount of enjoyment you get out of the place by finding & knowing what you like, then re-evaluating over time based on your experience to pick more places that more suit you the more you travel – plus the various considerations for visas in this process, from getting them initially (or when applicable, not needing to, like visa on arrival or visa-exempt) to extending them (when & where possible).

• Picking your accommodation type (depending on, usually, the length of the trip, and how different lengths affects the type and availability of your accommodations), e.g. the main differences usually being between 1-2 weeks, 2-4+ weeks, and 2-3+ months – and the top sites & resources to use/tips for getting the most out of each tier, according to your criteria for accommodation, as well as avoiding bad experiences with misadvertised places.

• Obviously then, the process of booking flights, as something you’ll have to do over and over along with accommodation, in what is actually a joint process to get you the best combination of availability, price, and flexibility, between both accommodation & flights – including factors of comfort that go beyond (but within) the flights themselves, like upgrade options that can get you a lot for a little, or as is sometimes related, which unfortunately occurs more and more these days, having to pay separately for your luggage, and other factors like arrival times and how that impacts your experience, etc. – plus potentially related to visas, how to deal with the occasional need to prove ongoing flights, etc.

• Taking care of personal transportation and the various options available, from buying bicycles to renting scooters (if you think this one in particular is going to be for you, one of those important “before you go” logistics things mentioned before is to learn how to drive on 2 motorized wheels prior to getting on the plane – me and many other people have scars to prove the folly of getting overzealous on two wheels in your 20’s before you can afford, or know, better – also relevant to the recommendation to get insurance when you start out), to the various options for car rentals, from the big known companies, to longer-term-but-still-short-term specialty rental programs, to local options that are still trustworthy (note: this primarily focuses on private transportation, whether it’s personally “managed” like the aforementioned, or ad-hoc like ride sharing services such as Uber and regional equivalents, including dealing with taxi’s – not so much public transport).

• Then, when you’re in a place (but ideally researched beforehand – and after a while when you get to know what you like/want/need, readily done by a VA), taking care of your standard set of logistical needs. This could include, in addition to accommodation, flights, and transportation, as described above, things like getting your internet/phone sorted out (i.e. local SIMs, ideally in your hands before you leave the airport), to initial options for doing your first shopping (and any country-specific stuff that you want to pick up when you’re there, like if it’s a good place to stock up on certain things), then the “lifestyle hubs” you rotate around such as your gym (yes even for short stays – there can be plenty of monthly or sometimes weekly options available), coworking/private office/cafe’s/library’s (I highly prefer the former two), getting your airport transfer (usually via the SIM you picked up, unless you’re in a hotel that offers it, or are picking up your car at the airport), and turning this all into a streamlined process that after a while becomes second nature (then later your VA’s second nature).

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