Long Term Travel Preparations – Caucasus Travel Preparations

I will go on a trip that will take about 1,5 months, covering the Eastern Black Sea, Georgia and Armenia. I wanted to share the preparations I made before going on this trip, under the heading of long-term travel preparations. I would like to remind you that every valiant eats yogurt and what I wrote is my personal experience.

First of all, I must state that this trip will be the longest trip I have ever made in one trip. That's why it's full of firsts for me too 🙂

Route Preparations for Long-Term Travel

While I was dreaming of a 1-1,5 month travel route this summer, I had many different routes from Trans-Siberia to Nepal in mind. If we look at a few important reasons for choosing the Caucasus route;

1. We are in the summer months and I have nothing to do with the heat, so I preferred places that can be relatively cool.
2. With the Euro and USD parity so high, I preferred cheap countries in order to keep my costs at the optimum.
3. For similar reasons, I preferred countries that do not require a visa, or places where I can get a visa at a low cost at the border.
4. It was easier to make my first long trip to the geographies I knew.
5.  I had very limited time to prepare a route, and it was much easier to make routes in geographies I knew.

I could extend this list further, but these five were the main reasons.

After deciding on the main route, I first determined the places to visit in the Eastern Black Sea Region and then in Georgia and Armenia respectively. I would also like to thank my followers who shared their suggestions during this process. On the map below you can see the places marked so far. It would be great if you add your new suggestions as a comment under this post ✌

Preparations for Long-Term Travel

I say long-term travel because, as I said at the beginning, this will be the longest trip I've ever made in my life. That's why I have a little different preparations than usual this time.

If I were to list my preparations for long-term travel;

• First of all, I checked the information such as the validity dates and passwords of my account and credit cards in order not to carry too much money on me. I renewed my Teb account card, which does not receive any commission when you withdraw money from your account abroad. There is a very comprehensive article on the use of money and cards abroad.You can check there for details. 
• I take out my travel insurance annually, since I travel frequently, it was also expired. I renewed it too. I don't neglect travel insurance, and neither should you.
• I checked the equipment that I would need during the trip and made sure I had any missing items. Is the tent stable as I am planning a tent accommodation in the Black Sea during this trip? I checked that all the necessary materials are in good condition. To make up for my shortcomings for camping equipment, I visited Decathlon, where you can buy sports equipment at very economical prices, and I made up for my minor shortcomings.
• If there was a need in the countries I will go to, I would have my missing vaccinations done, but there is no need for the Caucasus. You can get information by calling the travel health center's website or by phone to get information about the vaccines you need to have according to the region you are going to.
• For the first few days, I clarified the accommodation and exact transportation details. Making a longer-term plan for a long trip didn't seem very realistic, the plan will become clear on the way 🙂
• I got the pdf versions of the Lonely Planet guidebook for the regions I'm going to. In this international guide book, there is a lot of information that will be useful for me, from accommodation to places to visit, from transportation to things to watch out for. I download the pdf to my phone, so it's always at hand.
• Since I marked the places to go on Google Maps, I downloaded the maps of the places to go to my phone from the Maps.me application, which I can use offline, that is, without the internet, even if I have it on my phone. So I can access the map at any time.
• I made sure that I had enough materials such as sd card and powerbank for my phone and the equipment I would take with me. When you load everything on the phone, you have to take good care of it 🙂
• Since I will be traveling alone, I stocked up on movies, TV shows and music to watch/listen when I get bored.

When you finish all these preparations, the best part of the job, namely the journey itself, will begin! Despite all this preparation, I could not study my lessons about transportation and accommodation, we will see on the way, let's see what happens 🙂

You can find other notes of my Black Sea trip from the links below:

• Caucasus Travel Preparations
• Giresun, the City Named after Cherry, Places to visit in Giresun
• Hidden Gem Santa Ruins
• Mysterious Trabzon Monasteries 
• The Most Beautiful Rize Plateaus
• Artvin Highlands

Stay tuned, stay on track 😉