SABBATICAL / LONG-TERM OR OVERSEAS TRAVEL:
Are You Planning a Long Trip?
Whether you’re leaving for a sabbatical or an employment contract abroad, a self-storage unit can solve a lot of problems and help you embark on your new adventure.
If you’re travelling for a long period of time, you can rest easy knowing your belongings are safely stored under optimal conditions. Whether you’re dealing with furniture, valuables or other items, a self-storage unit is much more secure than leaving your things in a family member’s garage or in a friend’s damp basement.
Organizing a long trip involves a lot of planning and research—you’ll have plenty of things to consider, arrange and purchase in advance. Since travelling entails a lot of paperwork and legwork, find out what you need to do by looking at travel websites and reading other travellers’ blogs. With heaps of personal experience under their belt, bloggers are eager to share their expertise and provide advice.
Tell Your Boss
Telling your boss about your plans is something you should deal with early on so they’ll be ready for your eventual departure.
Make a Budget
After you’ve negotiated your sabbatical, the next step is to make a budget. Clearly, not having a steady income for several weeks or months means you’ll have spend some of your savings, especially if that period of time entails a lot of travel. You’ll find better deals on airline tickets of you start looking several months before your date of departure. The more flexible your dates are, the likelier it is you’ll find decent fares. You can also compare prices by checking different websites.
Ask Us About Options & Plan Ahead
What are you going to do with your belongings while you’re away? Sell them, store them temporarily or leave them with family or friends? What about your car, or your pet? What are you going to do with the place you’re living in? Do you want to rent or sublet it to generate income? If you’re leaving your home for a long time, you have several options: you can leave it vacant and ask someone to go by and check on it regularly, you can look for a tenant, or you can join a home-exchange agency. With house swaps, you save money you’d normally spend on lodging and you get to live in an authentic neighbourhood. However, you have to be willing to stay in the same place for several weeks.
You should also set up a system, like automating bill payments, so all your monthly bills are covered while you’re away, and you should make sure you have enough savings to live out your dream. Remember to make credit cards payments before the due date to avoid any hassles during your trip! Is anybody picking up or dealing with your mail while you’re gone? Keep in mind you should shop around for long-term travel and health insurance before leaving.
Do you have a detailed plan for your sabbatical, or are you going to wing it, one day at a time? You can at least determine your itinerary in advance, as well as what you want to see, so make a list of must-sees and must-dos. Doing certain things abroad—like finding work, or even volunteering—entail a lot of prearrangements, and you’ll need to establish contacts prior to your departure.
Here’s a short list of the documents you’ll need and things you should do before you leave:
• A valid passport (check the expiry date)
• Do you need visas? For which countries?
• Banking: it’s a good idea to have 2 accounts
• Credit cards: having more than 1 card, each affiliated with a different bank, is recommended
• International driver’s license (valid for 1 year)
• Provincial health-insurance plan: check what services you’re entitled to
• Make sure your taxes have been paid and that other legal documents are current (a will, a protection mandate in case of incapacity, letters granting general powers of attorney or specific powers over bank accounts)
• Make copies of your ID, bankcards, private travel-insurance card, prescriptions (email them to yourself and to a trusted relative or friend)
• Cellphone (unblock before leaving)
• Vaccination certificates (check which ones you need for each country you’re visiting)
• Private travel and health insurance
Have a Plan B
Your travels can depend on a lot of other factors that nobody can foresee: anything can potentially happen. So you might want to consider an alternative destination: a different city or even a different country. By having a back-up plan, you can adapt to changing circumstances quickly. Even when you’ve envisioned two distinct possibilities, your travels may still not go exactly as expected. So be flexible and receptive to opportunities that come your way!
Contact Us
Call us or fill out our online questionnaire. Our team can recommend solutions so you can store everything that doesn’t fit into your new shared home. We have units ranging in size from 25 to 200 square feet.
1215 Mini-Entrepôts is the biggest self-storage facility on the South Shore of Montreal. We offer very competitive rates, starting at just $50 a month. Our facilities are equipped with a hi-tech security system and state-of-the-art surveillance cameras. With your key card, you can safely access your belongings around the clock, 7 days a week, every day of the year. Our storage facilities are heated and pest-free.