Continental Drift

How to prepare for six weeks far, far away from everything familiar

We’ve done it before but experience doesn’t make it easier. Kim and I are often away for three weeks at a time but a six week sabbatical is next-level. As we count down the fractured sleeps until our flights to Manila (and El Nido and Hanoi) we reflect on our recent travel resume.

In Croatia, we slept in 18 different beds in 21 days. We walked over 200km around Krk Island and by the end of the trip, we’d covered every mode of transport: catamaran, sailboat, water taxi, bus, tram and shotgun seats in a 1974 Land Rover.

In 2018, Kim and I played bunk bed bingo along the Camino de Santiago for 34 days and bookended our crossing of Spain with extra days in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France and Madrid. That bed tally remains unmatched. In 2022, we followed the wildebeest migration in Tanzania and then bounced over to Borneo, Indonesia. That trip involved a dizzying number of flights (17) and beds (18) of varying sag.

I always like to tabulate trip stats for these major six-week drifts. Our Tanzania—Indonesia combo included (in no particular order):

Orangutans! Like, this close! My Canon PowerShot 42x zoom is good but not this good!

3 mango pizzas

0 flat tires

78 bird species

6 beaches

1 Red Velvet Popping Boba (*it tasted like I was drinking something wrong)

3,370 images

1 cheetah, 1 leopard

1,000 Hubba Bubba pink flamingoes and 1,000+ flying foxes

1 Celine Dion song (of course!) and more perplexingly, three versions of Guns n’ Roses “Sweet Child o’ Mine”

Combining countries is chaotic when it comes to packing. We attempted this on a previous trip to sub-zero China with a beach bum finale in Thailand. You have to pack puffas and flip flops (and patience).

In Tanzania, we moved from long johns and toques at a crater fly camp in the chilly elevation of Ngorongoro to bikinis and brollies in baking Bali.

We shifted from looking for black mambas to snake fruit.

Fever trees and fireball ladies gave way to dragon fruit and Komodo dragons.

We drank Kilimanjaro lagers until we were in Bintang beer territory.

We (Kim) did complex conversions of shillings and then rupiahs.

From the dust ball of the Serengeti to the soupy, drippy, mosquito-inferno of Tanjung Puting National Park, these trips involve a lot of logistics—and most of them revolve around leaving home.

We own a big sleeping giant of a house in the woods and she doesn’t like to be left alone for too long. Kim has a master list of everything that needs to be shut down on the day we leave. “Last call for toilets. Have you brushed your teeth?” The well pump, infrared, salt water system and iron filter all get unplugged. The hot water tank breaker is flipped and all the water lines are drained. I usually have a panic piss in the driveway because I’ve missed my flush window and the toilets are off limits.

Back-up batteries get changed in the thermostat. The furnace goes down to 14°C. Our closest neighbours get tasked with monitoring our propane tank to ensure the gauge doesn’t dip below the warning level. If it does, they’ll have to call the company for a fill.

It’s easier to leave in warmer temps—then, the hummingbird feeder is our greatest concern. Will she have enough? Do we leave it up for her last visits in the fall? The spireas, hydrangeas and black-eyed Susans get clipped and we’re out of here. We don’t have to fret about frozen pipes, snow loads on the deck and roof or highway closures due to white-out conditions.

Luckily, we have no grass to contend with here as our property is 100% rock, cedar, spruce, tamarack and shaggy manes underfoot. However, in the winter, we have to lean on Murv. He earns a healthy income (especially this year) plowing the driveways in our area. We task another neighbour three doors over (thanks, Rita), to track his visits when we’re not here so we can keep an accurate tally for the season (we’re at eleven already!).

Our 90-year-old neighbour (two doors down) gets assigned with picking up our mail. It keeps her limber and we’re en route to the Little Free Library she likes to frequent at the trailhead to the lake. We still have an old fashioned end-of-the-laneway mailbox—and I hope I don’t jinx our mailbox which we’ve already replaced twice due to snowplow collisions! This job comes with its perks—I let her read my brand new issues of Toronto Life!

Before Kim and I leave home, we send a comprehensive flight path and hotel tracker document to my parents and Kim’s sister with reminders like: our wills are located XXX, house insurance is XXX, our hidden house key is XXX and we’re parking our vehicle (make, model, license) in Toronto at XXX park n’ fly.

Kim busies herself with the really useful tasks like creating a cutely laminated currency cheat sheet for both the Philippines and Vietnam. We weren’t able to order dongs in advance from our bank but we do have a nice stack of Philippines pesos to pass over to the first cabbie in Manila. She also checks all my pen ink cartridges (really! I’m a writer, it’s vital–it’s something I never considered).

We have two plants to pre-water—they are as self-sufficient as pitcher plants and cacti given our constant travels. The maidenhair fern shows some attitude if we’re away too long while the philodendron is much more forgiving. “Spidey” (because Kim thought she was a spider plant until my mom informed her otherwise), has seen so many moves from Oakville to Toronto to a homestay with my parents in Walkerton to Cambridge and back to Walkerton to here. She’s hearty and very camel-like when need be.

I do important things like loading up my Substack queue so my dear readers aren’t left empty-handed while we surf and turf in the South China Sea. I also thoroughly dust the house before we go. “Why?” Kim says. I don’t know. I can hear my late grandmother’s firm but friendly bark: “BE NEAT!” Nan Torti’s countertops were bleached daily and dust was never allowed to settle on a surface. I’m the only person I know that voluntarily and routinely dusts bowling pins.

I’ve proactively completed my taxes. Kim has proactively replaced the wheels on her roller bag. I assume all blame for this measure after I insisted we jump off a bus in Santorini two kilometers from our hotel. Two clicks along the gravel shoulder of the highways ground her wheels down like the molars of the anxious. But, look at the view!

Kim is forever solutions-based and while a normal person would have simply purchased new luggage Kim wondered how she could fix the problem instead. Fun fact: you can buy universal swivel wheels for your roller bag through Amazon!

We’re getting smarter with every long-haul trip. This time we’re packing Imodium. I may even travel with it under my tongue after our Madagascar “situation.” I’m not sure what happened to our Dukarol dose pre-trip but it must have been a placebo.

I still need to commit to my book choices for this trip. The first in line for the 15-hour leg to Seoul is The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb as it’s set in Vietnam. Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder will see me through the return leg from Singapore (insert another 15.5 hours here).

Normal People by Sally Rooney and A Time for Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor are on the short list to fill the beach bum hours on Palawan.

In a pinch, I can re-read my 10 pages of research on flowerpeckers (they’re birds, people!), paper kite butterflies, cockscomb mint, banana ketchup, nem cua (sea crab spring rolls), puto bumbong (violet-coloured rice, coconut and brown sugar in a bamboo tube).

What else??

☑Pause Global News, golf and (shhh) Kim’s soap opera on the PVR

☑Double-check converter plugs for both countries

☑Double-check postcard addresses are in passport sleeve

☑Chill prosecco for our traditional packing ritual

☑Haircuts + eyebrows (Kim has us on a strict 5-week haircut cycle and I should put my eyebrows on something similar)

☑Count out exact number of Q-tips (and a few more just-in-case) and seriously estimate product use to avoid weird Vietnamese options

Kim has learned that hairspray is not universal and oil-sheen hairspray (as found in Uganda) doesn’t really cut it. The same can be said for some curious toothpaste brands around the world. Desperate, we once bought an Arabic-emblazoned tube that was intended for infants aged 2+. It tasted exactly like icing sugar. There was another desperado toothpaste tube from Bali that was so peppermint hot it was like brushing with wasabi. I am partial to the cutesy tubes from hotels in China.

Speaking of wasabi, we’ve now reached the mindfulness stage of our pre-trip regime. No more 50% off sushi from Foodland. No expired yogurt either. No expired anything, really. We’re in freezer clean-out mode now.

It’s all carbs, really, which is no problem for me. Dark rye, baked pretzels, cinnamon raisin bagels. And two pizza dough balls. We bought a bag of balls to trial in the Ooni pizza oven (with various not impressive results) and they’ve been taking up precious real estate. On last week’s Friday pizza night those damned dough balls were thawed, rolled out to a whippet-thin crust and wolfed back. DONE!

Kim reminds me, “You’re in charge of that beer bread!” She hates it, politely. It was a baking fail but I’m a firm believer that the 1516 Bread is so-named because it’s dense and trench ready. This loaf could double as a weapon or boot heel. I loved the simplicity of the recipe: one bottle of beer, 3 cups of flour, 4 teaspoons of baking powder and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Bake for 40 minutes at 350°.

Earlier this week, I made a kitchen sink “goulash” to use up the grape tomatoes, corn and cilantro. Nothing stays in our freezer beyond a month (*except those #@&$ dough balls). Kim and I have a shared childhood-induced phobia of hoar frost ice cream. Next on our to-eat before departure list: a ring of shrimp, eight bite-sized samosas and half a bag of edamame.

It’s a lot of fridge pressure. Kim has already created a one-week-out menu for us to ensure that we use every last pickle, baba ghanoush dip and bowl of Life cereal. She would NOT make a good pioneer. Nothing can be saved. All must be eaten, now!

I’ve already started expressing my affection for our bed. We tell the bed how much we love it knowing that there are going to be a lot of tossy turny nights in our future. And, basically two days spent in the sky, nodding off at 90 degrees. I am looking forward to reckless showers (ie. no squeegee-ing required). Kim is ready for a shoveling sabbatical.

On our last big jump over to Madagascar in September, I had just celebrated my 50th birthday and found myself capitalizing on my Turning 50 To-Do List and a $1 radish sale. Yes, really. The night before we were leaving for Madagascar for three and a half weeks, I was watching online radish rose tutorials. And then Jenna, a devout Substack follower, asked if I had heard of radish mushrooms. So I made those too.

I’ve promised Kim I won’t make good on my birthday goal to learn how to make a monkey’s fist knot or shark origami or start sprouting an avocado pit. There’s a time and a place for these things—and it’s probably NOT the night before going to the Philippines and Vietnam for six weeks.

Did I/we miss anything?

These are all champagne problems, of course. I acknowledge that. I hope this serves as a small (but not universal guide) on what it’s like to travel for six weeks. I don’t recommend carving radish roses last minute, even if they were on sale for $1.00. Choose your paperbacks wisely. Don’t buy toothpaste for infants. It tastes like wet candy.

Just a friendly FYI: from February 18–March 24th I will be genuinely Out of Office. You’ll still receive your weekly Substack dose here. I’m responsible that way! However, if you comment, there’s gonna be crickets until I get back—-but you’ll hear from me, don’t fret.

Now, onward and skyward!

Do you have any pre-trip traditions like popping prosecco while packing? Have you traveled for six weeks or longer? It takes a village to travel—thank you to our dear neighbours who make it all possible by picking up our mail, checking our propane gauge and for making sure that bears haven’t moved in during our absence!