The Administration of Life - 48° 27' 46" N 07° 28' 41" E

We are often asked how we manage the administration of life with travelling as we do.  It has taken some time to set up but we now can float around as we please with things mostly taking care of themselves.

Banking

In today's world of internet banking, things are much simpler than they were once.  Online banking enables us to take care of most of our banking from anywhere.  There is a complication with two-step verification.  We deal with our Canadian banking via text message to Sean's Canadian phone number.  For our Australian banking, we use a dongle that generates a random number and allows verification that way.  This means we are not reliant on a phone.  

We have experienced one hiccup with all of this.  Under recent changes to Canada's money laundering laws, we are required to do large transfers in person at the bank.  Our boat payments have all fallen into the large transfer category and we have had to be in Canada in order to make these payments.  

Managing foreign currencies

As we all know, using Canadian/Australian credit cards overseas can get very expensive between the fees and the terrible exchange rate.  We use WISE for everything that is not in Canadian or Australian dollars.  For those who are not familiar with WISE, it is an online foreign exchange company.  It offers cost effective exchange between 40 currencies.  They also provide you with a Visa debit card that acts like a local card where ever you are spending money.  This means there are no fees. You can also send the same currency to pay a bill (such as a boat payment!!) without cost.  

It is a far cry from the good old days of travellers cheques and is working extremely well for us!

Bill Payments

We have all our regular bill payments set up on autopay.  We still review them at intervals but this way we can be completely out of touch and still be confident our bills will be paid.

Mail

We have spent the last few years moving everything we can to online such as bank statements and utility bills.  For the few things we still receive by mail, we are fortunate to have lovely friends who have allowed us to redirect our mail to them. 

Telephone/internet

Sean has kept his Canadian number but does not use it other than to receive texts for two-step authentication as roaming can get quite expensive.  Rather than buy local SIM cards for each region, we use Airalo.  Airalo is a mobile virtual network operator and we can buy a eSIM card to cover the area in which we are travelling.  It is very cost effective and very convenient as we do not have to find where to buy a SIM.  We tend to buy just a data package rather than phone/text because, at this stage, we don't really need a phone number.

Once we are aboard the boat, we are looking at options for satellite internet.  These include Iridium Go and StarLink.  We have yet to make a decision on this because, while we are coastal sailing (usually within 10 nautical miles of shore and mobile phone reception), we do not need the satellite capability. We have had Iridium Go pre-installed on the boat, a decision made over two years ago before StarLink was a viable option.  Garcia now has a StarLink antenna option that does not impact the solar panels which we may go with. 

Keeping in touch

Gone are the days of the aerogramme and even the colourful postcard seems to have run its race.  We mostly use WhatsApp for messaging and calls.  The beauty of WhatsApp is that you can change your phone number without having to notify anyone.  They will still just contact "Kate" or "Sean" and we will be on the other end!! It seems to be very universal and we rarely come across someone who does not use it.

We have opted not to create a comprehensive brand across our blog and various forms of social media.  We will post to our separate social media accounts and will keep this blog updated to anyone can keep track of us.  Once we have been issued with a licenced MMSI number, the Where Are We? tab on our website will track the location of the boat through No Foreign Land.

Health

Being Canadians, we enjoy universal healthcare when in Canada.  On leaving, we need to carry travel insurance to access health care in other countries and are required to have our provincial health care in Canada to be current in order to get this.  We have registered with Alberta Health that we will be out of the country for the next two years which ensures our health care remains current.  Not every insurance company does long-term travel insurance but some do.  We pick and chose which insurance is right for us each leg of our adventure - and if we exclude the USA, the premiums are much cheaper!

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Having these administrative details set up and carried out using these marvellous methods means that we can focus on the more interesting and exciting aspects of our journeys.