Job Discussion Forums

[davechile]

When you make the transition from your life in your home country to life on the road. There is always the purge and what to bring with you along the journey.

I have fairly new ski's and boots. However I am beginning my TESL career in Costa Rica...not much snow there. Do you think it is worth keeping the ski's for three years with the folks at the remote chance I may need them? Or sell them and rent some as needed. I was thinking of keeping the boots. I just see myself in a more tropical environment for the next 2-3 years. Is there good skiing in Korea? I hear it is crazy expensive in Japan.

How light do most of you travel between assignments? I know there are a few of you out there that have planted roots for over 4 years in countries. But, how light do you really travel? rebuying kitchen stuff? Where do you put the various cultural nick knacks you pick up along the way?

Is it a pair of Large suitcases - clothing, bedding, books, etc??
What about camping gear?

Please, let me know what you've learned over the years of picking up and moving from one country to the next?

[naturegirl321]

Clothes usually don't weight me down so much as papers do. Photo albums, all the certificates, a couple of books. I usually bring a backpack and a suitcase. I've moved three times in three years inside of Peru and keep on accumulating more stuff, all my MA books, furniture, computer. Now when we move, it's be inside Peru so we just stuff stuff in plastic bags.

I hope the next time we move it'll be outside Peru and I plan on leaving all my paper stuff at my in-laws.

Bedding, no way, get it where you're going to live as bed sized can vary and it's probably more expensive if you buy it at home. Same goes for camping gear, I saw a four person tent for 50 USD.

[MELEE]

I started travelling as a student is 1993. I had all summer to pack and pack so extrodinarily light you wouldn't believe it--every item of clothing coordinated with every other item of clothing. I could make 20 outfits from like 5 things. It was amazing, and I've never done it since. I was only there 9 months but by the end of it I left all those clothes behind I was soooo sick of them. I even made three ninety-minute mixed tapes of all the essential songs in my music collection, I still have those and still love to listen to them!!!
Next I went to Ecuador, again, I only took clothes and a few books, and think I took about 10 tapes then--you kids have it so easy these days with ipods!!! I was a recent graduate and I got rid of everything else--car, bedding, household goodies. I stored some stuff in three different states (BAD idea, I later had to just wash my hands of a lot of it).
Then came Japan and I needed a wider variety of clothes due to professional wear and the climate. I took clothes, books, a photo ablum, nothing else. In those days in Japan you could still pick up some great stuff on "big garbage days" and I got a lot of funky vintage furniture I would have loved to keep--but how. I did bring back a lot of Japanesey sort of stuff, some I still have, most I gave away to friends and family.
When I first came to Mexico, I only thought I'd be here a year, maybe two, so again I brought few things, some momentos because for the first time I had a job with an office in need of decorating. Clothes, I did bring sheets and towels because it was recommended. In Mexico those things are WAY more expensive than in the US and CHAFA (shoddy quality). Each time I went back to visit mom and pop I brought more stuff down here with me, first clothes, what's the point of having those in storage? Then all my music and books, and other things. Now I have a house here so most of my stuff is out of my parents house and the stuff I had to two other locations I had a small memorial cerimony for and have come to terms with the fact I will never see that lamp again despite the fact I loved it so.

Bring you laptop. Sell the desk top--it will become obsolete while you are gone. It would be difficult to birng and in Mexico you'd have to pay duty.
Bring clothes they will just go out of style stored away.
Don't bring household items, you can live with one plate, one bowl, one spoon, for the first six months. If you decide to stay you can bring some stuff after you know the local market and your local lifestyle.
I don't ski, so I don't really understand owning skis, but if you think you will return and they will not be obsolete by the time you get back AND you have a place to store 'em--keep em. Ask someone in Costa Rica about other outdoor equipment, costs, usablity, etc.
PET--tough call. and a very personal choice.

[tedkarma]

If you can store things with family - it might well be worth doing so.

Most people find, when they return after a few years, that the things that seemed so valuable at the time really weren't. Your life perspective tends to change, often quite a bit, once you've spent a few years out and about in the big wide world.

My wife and I recently went through a lot of stuff that we had stored with family - some of it for over twelve years. Of 20+ boxes - only few found there way to us here - we gave the great majority of it away.

And, as naturegirl said - the stuff we kept was photos, family albums - family memories type stuff, books, documents, etc. I guess the older you get - the bigger the photo pile gets. Though digital solves that problem these days.

[naturegirl321]

[tedkarma]

Actually, I do too - they create a social event with family. Also, the oldies don't look as nice when they are converted to digital.

[Sonnibarger]

life time supply of pit stick and dentle floss

[Joeys ESL Room]

I would not recommend holding onto your skis and boots just simply for the fact that plans change, so you won't necessarily be using them in 3 years. I once carried a surf board that I bought in Bali, all throughout Thailand and back in Korea where it collected dust in my apartment. I had planned a big trip to South America a year later, so I decided to hold onto it. That trip never happened, but I was lucky enough to have had someone in Korea interested in buying it off me.

For a list of things to pack with you, check out this article:

http://www.joeysesl.com/teacher-ideas/276/what-to-pack-and-how-much-to-bring-when-going-abroad-to-teach/


Joey

[denise]

I left my snowboard behind on this most recent move to Oman--not much snow here! (although there is an indoor resort over in Dubai...) My salary is good enough to allow me to rent one on my winter vacation--of course, I'd much rather have my own, since I've bonded with it and have had a fair few adventures on it. I'd say that unless you're planning on taking a winter vacation somewhere snowy during your time in Costa Rica (which would involve a costly flight back up to North America or way down south to Chile/Argentina), leave them behind with family or friends. Trust me--you'll look silly picking up your skis at the baggage claim in Costa Rica! I know from experience, since I had my board with me in Peru.

I generally try to gauge how much to pack by whether or not I will already have paid accommodation set up for me when I arrive. If so, then I don't bother with household things like towels, sheets, etc., but I might throw in an extra knickknack or two to personalize my new home. I've never bothered with dishes, but I do bring along my favorite knife and maybe some oddball utensils that might be hard to find, as long as they're small and light.

If I don't have housing arranged, I throw in an old, ratty towel or two (just to tide me over until I can go shopping) and I leave behind the knickknacks.

I try to pack clothes seasonally and have a box of off-season clothes ready to be mailed out after I arrive. Might not really work in Costa Rica, though.

I have a small stack of photos of family and friends that I bring along every time I move, but I don't get carried away with large photo albums.

I have loads of stuff left behind in boxes in San Francisco. Mostly books, which are way too heavy to pack (I allow myself just a few books each trip out and just seek out English book stores when I arrive--expensive but worth it for me). I imagine once I get back and start sifting through it, which my ex has not-so-subtly hinted that I do next time around, since he's footing the bill for storage, all of the non-book stuff will have lost its importance. I really don't even remember what else is in those boxes! Aaah, my U2 collection on vinyl... time to sell it, I imagine.

Good luck with the packing! It can be a bit of a nightmare. I must be learning something, though, because my bags have come in underweight for my last two trips.

d

[MTelmar]

[jillford64]

Bring your pet. If I had it to do over, I would bring my kitties with me. I thought I could come to Mexico for 9 months and everything would be the same when I got back. As it turns out, I've stayed much longer than I expected and both of my kitties have died while I've been gone. This is my one big regret.

Also, MELEE once suggested bringing good quality, high-thread count sheets and I am really glad I took her advice. Blankets you can get, but good sheets are hard to come by.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

I approach it like this:

1. What do you absolutely need?

- shoes: at least one pair of extra workshoes and one pair of casual tyoe of shoes (shoes take a lot of space, but at least in Japan are very hard to find at bigger than American size 9 for men- same with socks, and the stupid thing is that more than half of the senior high school boys are bigger than me)
- at least one suit for work (or a shirt and pair of pressed cotton pants, if North American business casual is okay where you will be- but really, you will probably need a suit for some sort of occasion and you cannot count on being able to get it in another country), shirt, tie etc
- actual degree and certificates (copies are usually not sufficient- a mistake I made when i first left Canada)
- cash, and (if it's a relatively safe country) quite a lot of it, preferably already converted into local currency for when you arrive (depending on the country, it could be several weeks before you have a bank account and you will have to live off the cash in your pocket- by bringing extra, you can hopefully find clothes etc that you might need and didn't know about until you got there).
- ummm... a keychain compass and little battery light, especially if you speak zero of the language (it's surprising how very dark it is when you discover that things like street lights are not the norm where you live, can barely read the script and are lost trying to look at some little map to find your way home half drunk your first week in your new country)
- pocket dictionary of the language and even smaller phrasebook

2 What do you really really want?

- laptop computer
- pets (I don't have pets and don't know if I would want to put them through the quarantine if I had them, but don't know if I could bear to leave them behind if I had them)
- work related books (including at least one lonely planet style book for the country/ city or state/prefecture/province/district where you will be primarily located)
- maps of the city etc printed out from the internet if you can't get them from a store in your home country- it isn't always easy to find them in English, but if you are somewhere that uses Roman letters, it isn't all that hard, even if you are in Korea, it isn't that hard because there is an actual syllabry, and you don't have to struggle with a kanji (Chinese character) dictionary. (this is actually a must-have, but you will be able to get them when you arrive- but maybe not in English, especially if you are in a big city)

Don't forget, as soon as you get your address, you can always spend a few hundred dollars and sea mail boxes of stuff to your address that won't be absolutely necessary for the first few months.

Not only do you have an allowance of only a couple of suitcases and a laptop bag (sometimes plus a carry-on, sometimes the laptop is your only allowable carry-on, and that's the type of thing they like to tell you only as you are actually boarding the flight). You need to be able to carry all this stuff from the airport to the bus, car or whatever means of transportation you are using when you get to the other side, may not speak the local language, may not really understand the rules of the country, and may have been travelling from airport to airport for 24hours straight and be exhauted. So the less, the better.

[Jetgirly]

When I moved to Italy all I brought was two massive suitcases full of clothes and toiletries, and a backpack with stuff like my MP3 player. Everything else I bought there. I'm glad I brought all those clothes too, because short of Gucci and Prada all the clothes in Italy were disgusting artificial-fibre atrocities.

[JZer]

[MELEE]

Jzer,
In the 80s and 90s there was a thriving business in the US for people who converted old Super8 home movies onto VHS. Not it's turn your VHSs into DVDs. People bought steroes that recorded LPs to cassettes. I've had some cassettes fed into a computer and spit out as mp3 files (and spent hours searching for other old songs online). When ever there is a need someone will make money filling it.
Having a digital camera doesn't mean you can't have a photo album. You can now use snapfish and the like to make very nice coffee table books with your photos in them.

Gambate, rather than a battery light, I suggest one of those shelf charging shake flashlights, no need to fill the world's landfills with batteries! And an ATM card makes getting cash from your home bank account easy in almost any corner of the world these days.