First preparations

I know, it's still some time to go but as we will be travelling to New Zealand and Thailand for 8 weeks in total first, some things need to be done.
First of all, we want to maintain a bank account in Australia for the time we're away. We may settle in New Zealand again after our trip, but we simply don't know yet. Very helpful is HSBC with their online savings account, which is actually free. Even better, HSBC is operating worldwide, so, for a $200 fee the process an application for a checking account and debit card with their US branch. $200 seems much, but still, having a US bank account will be very helpful when buying a campervan and for the trip later. We will be able to lock in a favourite exchange rate instead of using a NZ or Australia based credit/debit card and pay conversion fees, usage fees etc.
We have already applied for an appointment with the US consulate in Auckland ( not much of a waiting list here apparently) for the compulsory interview for a visa as our trip will be longer than the 90 days allowance on the normal visa waiver program. Hopefully they will give us that long term visa! That is no guarantee that we will be allowed to stay for longer than 90 days, but it's a good start anyway.
I have done a lot of research into RV's - campervans. We want to visit quite a few National/State Parks and go to Alaska as well. It seems that the C-class RV's are more suitable to a possibly slightly rugged terrain, unpaved roads every now and then. Another consideration is required to the length of the RV. RV's longer than around 30 feet can have trouble finding a place to camp in quite a few National Parks, hence we will be lookingt for something around 25 to 27 feet, definitely with a walk-around bed in the back, hard to find in a 25 feet RV, but possible in a 26ft. We'll see how that goes.

On the road again soon

Here we go again... Last year's trip around the world got us hooked! Claudia and I have decided to shorten our bucket list of things to do before we finally return to New Zealand, so this time it's another visit to Thailand, mainly Bangkok, Chiang Mai and possibly a couple of days in the Khrabi region. Short trip to Germany to see the relatives, then off we go on a 9-month trip through the States, Canada and Alaska. At the end we will have a couple of days to go back to Big Island Hawaii to finish off our visit from last year.
This was last year's trip, well, it went on 'til March 09