My Experiences Planning Our BIG ADVENTURE!!!
I am about to embark on my greatest adventure! In just over three weeks John and I head to South America. We are spending a couple of days in Santiago, a couple of days in Buenos Aires (BA), then up to Sao Paulo to hang with Johns brother for a bit. Next year off to the UK or the States to pay off our credit cards 
My experiences so far include:
Applying for UK Tier 1 Visa: Much more difficult than I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong, the actual visa process was great, but arranging all our supporting documentation took a lot of work!
Booking Flights: I looked into it online (I spent a whole day checking out different sites) then I went to adventure travel (a branch of House of Travel) and not only were they super helpful, but they got flights much cheaper than I could find! Would highly recommend checking with a travel agent before booking flights, especially if you have an unusual itinerary – Jodi at Wellington Adventure Travel is really great.
Booking Accommodation in Santiago and BA: Was made very easy to make an informed decision using this site: http://www.hostelworld.com/ I cannot recommend it highly enough! Will update you once we actually turn up because there is still a lot in the process that could go wrong
Getting vaccines: We got these yesterday. I was a little anxious before we went in (I hate needles!). The doctor at “the Travel Doctor” was very informative, and the nurse who did the shots was really nice. It was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be but I have had a mild dead arm for the last 24 hours.
Selling our life on TradeMe: once again TradeMe have done very well out of us. I sold our whole life and am arranging all the pick ups at the moment – takes all the project management skills I learned at Provoke!
Getting over material things: I admit I was a little freaked out that all we will have in the world will fit in two packs. I have since gotten over that – my new mantra is “I am not attached to material things. It is kind of liberating not having any stuff. Saying that I am looking forward to shopping in BA 
So far so good. Getting super excited!
29 October, 2008 at 9:34 pm said:
Exciting! I used hostelworld a lot when we went to Japan and found the reviews to be pretty accurate. Good way of sorting out the fun hostels from the dirty/boring ones!. Would be even better if they sorted out their community features like finding other peoples profile (e.g. http://aribakker.myhostelworld.com) tho.
29 October, 2008 at 9:45 pm said:
hehe you sound like you have turned Buddhist already
oh im so happy for you too and excited too! its going to be great! 
p.s. don’t forget your pm friends at provoke when shopping in Buenos Aires!!!
31 October, 2008 at 5:16 am said:
Mega exciting stuff!