If you are about to head for lifetime travel (or at least to be away from home for several months or more), then there are a few things that you should do before packing your bags and driving to the airport.

1. Open accounts in various banks and get all possible types of credit cards (Visa, Master, Maestro, etc.). If you live your life in travel and never know where your journey brings you, then foresight should become your main characteristic!
2. Register for PayPal or any other similar system to get access to WebMoney.
3. If your personal documents (birth certificate, passport, driving license, etc.) are not in English, then translate them and notarize them. You never know which document you might need while being abroad.
4. Make scans of all the above-mentioned documents and make them available online. This guarantees that any document is in your hand when you need it.
5. Take several SIM cards from different operators, that offer roaming services and do not require constant replenishment of the account 7.
6. If you have a trustworthy person in your hometown (a relative or a very close friend), then make him your trustee to deal with all the documents, banks and any other operations with official papers.
7. Don’t take too much stuff with you. Take only the most basic items as everything else can be purchased on spot. If you travel to some third-world country, then it will be way cheaper than paying for excess luggage.
8. Buy a netbook, it is a very useful thing! You can store all photos and videos, use Skype to get in touch with friends and relatives back home, work on the internet, etc.

If I have missed something really important, then you are very welcome to make this list full by adding comments!

Travel and Work Balance

Many people all around the world are faced with the question of how to combine work and travel. Of course, those who were far-sighted enough, have chosen travel professions to avoid this problem. I’m talking about geologists, sailors, pilots, conductors of passenger trains, truck drivers as well as travel journalists. But for some reason, it is considered that office clerks don’t have this opportunity to travel the world.

I, personally, think that this is not true. Don’t look for causes and analyze the obstacles, seek a solution! When I was an ordinary office clerk my annual leave was also limited to 21 working days, but I wanted to travel so passionately, that invented a thousand and one reasons to extend it.

In other words, where there’s a will there’s a way! You can try to find ways to travel working at your current position or to find a temporary “professional shelter”, earn a certain sum and head off for your lifetime travel. And when you’re back home, you can try to apply for the same position you had before the journey. Or to find another temporary job to earn money for your next trip. Last, but not least consider freelance work. It’s not that easy and requires a high level of self-organization, but there’s nothing impossible if your will to start a nomad lifestyle is strong!