Money Matters

It's true, it does. And yes, our bank account will be taking a hit by this decision. But it's not like it would have grown if there were a travel work assignment in Maui, given the cost of living there. Ultimately, it meant more to us to gain this experience than to gain a growth in our earnings by staying put.

The nuts/bolts:  the roundtrip flight for the 3 of us (flying into/out of 2 far removed spots mind you) is more/less $3000. That's with Eleanor 'paying' 10% of our fare. And we're budgeting about that much for the 2 months we'll be gone, ie $50/day. For 3 of course. Far-fetched in the US, but do-able where we'll be. We have our first week's accommodation in Chiang Mai lined up in a guesthouse at 1700THB (exchange rate 30THB/baht=$1). So something like $8/night. And not a dump by our distant assessment. I mean, marrie booked the room and her standards are head & shoulders above what mine are! http://www.rcnguesthouse.com/

From there, we'll see. Alot of this trip is open-ended...we're not sure how long we'll linger in Chiang Mai or where we'll go next. In general, I'm hopeful to find fewer places that we're happy to stay put for longer periods of time vs. more places that we spend less time. I think Marrie's a bit more focused on logging time at beaches/islands than I, but we'll need to make our way to Malaysia for our return flight so it's inevitable that we will be on the coast and/or an island or two.

But to defer some of the expense, we now have a paying tenant in the apt above the detached garage while we're away, and suspending cell-phone plans, dish/cable tv, car insurance, etc.