Author: Tim

Watching TV While Travelling

Back in 2006 when I spent 3 months in Europe with my sister, I watched and kept up with a lot more TV shows than I do now… How I Met Your Mother, The Sopranos, 24, Lost, Veronica Mars (*sigh*), One Tree Hill, Scrubs, etc. (You can tell a lot about a person based on the shows they watch…). But since my trip was from June to September, missing episodes wasn’t really a concern. This time around, we’re travelling right in the middle of the TV season, so even though it’s a total luxury, I made it a point to make sure we can keep up with whatever TV shows we want to watch.

Prior to this trip, I was already a somewhat frequent traveller for work, and I’d always bring my Nexus 7 (2013) with me to watch TV shows, movies, and read books. The tablet has 32GB of storage, and I’d copy media to it for each trip. For this trip with Kait, our requirements are slightly different. We’re travelling for way too long for a 32GB device to fit enough media to last the whole trip, and we won’t only be using the device to consume media when we’re on planes and trains. We’ll want to be able to watch things together wherever we’re staying, and it’s a lot easier to do that on a TV than on a 7-inch tablet.

So, there are 2 functions we required in order to satisfy our need for TV from back home.

  1. Get/Download the latest TV Shows after they air.
  2. Play the downloaded shows on TVs wherever we’re staying.

Now, we have a Netflix membership which is good for some content, but other than Netflix produced television shows, the only other show that gets new episodes weekly on Netflix (in Taiwan at least) is Better Call Saul. That leaves “less mainstream” ways for us to get everything else we want to watch… but that’s never been much of an issue for me.

That leaves #2, getting the shows we want to watch on to the TVs where we’re staying. Or, for those interested in the more technical specifics, I want to smoothly stream Scene Standard 720p x264 encoded videos from my tablet (Nexus 7, 2013), phone (Nexus 5x) or laptop (Macbook Pro, 2009) wirelessly to a TV.

IMG_20160407_213036
The goal is to get that video (Masterchef Canada) playing on a TV through the Chromecast

Our current (imperfect) solution uses a Chromecast to stream the videos from our devices to a TV. The Chromecast works with our phones (Android and iOS), tablet (Android) and Laptops (Chrome Browser). On top of the local content, it also lets us stream videos from services like YouTube and Netflix.

In order to stream local (downloaded) content from our devices, I needed to find an Android App that could “cast” the videos to the Chromecast. After some testing, the best (free) app I could find is called ES Chromecast Plugin. This plugin requires ES File Explorer (which is the file explorer I already prefer on Android), and it allows you to browse to whatever video file using ES File Explorer, and then cast it to a connected Chromecast device.

Another (free) option that works so-so is to Cast the entire device screen, then play the video using VLC. Interestingly, when you are casting the whole screen and start playing a video in VLC, it doesn’t actually play on the device and mirror to the Chromecat, but it plays exclusively to the Chromecast and the screen on your device shows playback controls. Overall, I find the ES Chromecast Plugin performs better.

For streaming from our laptops, if the video file can be played inside a Chrome tab, then you can just cast that tab. For everything else, I found an app called “Videostream for Google Chromecast” which works really well for streaming all sorts of video files (and it does the best job at streaming 720p videos).

Now, while this is a working solution, it isn’t ideal…

Your device and the Chromecast need to be on the same LAN in order for the devices to see each other. If you’re connecting to hotel WiFi (or some other public WiFi), the connected devices probably won’t have permission to see other devices on the network. Second, if the WiFi you’re connecting to has a captive portal (e.g. click here, view this ad, agree to the terms of service, etc), then the Chromecast device can’t get past the portal to connect to the internet.

The solution to this is to create your own LAN/WiFi for the Chromecast and your devices to connect to, so they are on the same network. I bought a travel router for just this purpose (I’ll write about it later).

Another problem, (or “feature”), of the Chromecast is that it MUST have internet connectivity in order to work… even if you’re only playing local content (i.e. not streaming video from the internet). I found this out the hard way, and it was pretty disappointing since it really doesn’t make any sense. The only logical explanation I can think of is that the Chromecast sends usage data back to Google, and even when you are playing local content, Google wants to know what you’re doing… They want to know so bad that they won’t let the Chromecast work even if everything your casting to it is local.

For the most part, this hasn’t been an issue for us, but it’s enough of an issue that makes it really hard to recommend our current solution (Or the Chromecast in general) to others. For example, say I have a TV, a Chromecast, and a photo on my (Android) phone… why on earth should I need Internet access to put that photo onto the screen through the Chromecast when both the Chromecast and my Phone are connected to the same network. Perhaps I expect too much from a < $50 device, but when it feels like it’s being artificially crippled, it’s frustrating.

The last issue (and the reason I’ll continue to look for a better solution) is that 720p videos don’t stream perfectly from my tablet to the Chromecast. The videos play fine on the tablet itself, and I’ve seen 720p-like video play from the Chromecast just fine when it’s streaming from Netflix, so I suspect the issue is either in the app I’m using to cast the video (ES Chromecast plugin was the best, but I tested others that performed worse, so software can definitely improve casting performance), or in the network throughput I’m getting with my travel router (more testing needed). The videos play fine for the most part, but the occasional stutter is really annoying.

So, this is what our current setup looks like:
– Google Chromecast (the newer one)
– HooToo TripMate TM06 Elite Travel Router
– Nexus 7 (2013)
– SD x264 TV Releases (1hr TV Shows come in at 200-300MB or so), since 720p videos stutter
– ES Chromecast Plugin (For ES File Explorer, Android)
– Videostream for Google Chromecast (For Video Files on PCs that won’t play in Chrome)
– Whatever TV (with HDMI Input) we have access to.

Thanks to this setup, Kaitlyn had the pleasure of enjoying nearly 3 hrs of The Bachelor Finale…

Spending Summary: Taiwan

Now that we’re in Korea, it’s time for me to look at how our spending went during the first leg of our trip in Taiwan. We spent 30 days in Taiwan through most of March, and our final travel spending total is…

$2956.53 (Canadian)

Here’s how the spending breaks down:

  • Accommodations:  $1,525.19
  • Food:  $825.42
  • Transportation:  $547.42
  • Activities:  $58.50
  • Souvenirs: $0

This works out to around $100/day for 2 people travelling around Taiwan, which I think is very reasonable. Looking at the totals though, some things jumped out at me. We spent more on transportation than I expected (not sure why I thought the trains would be cheaper), and less on activities. Not too much surprise with food and accommodations.

Accommodations

I would put our spending on accommodations in the lower mid-range in terms of travel budgets for Taiwan. We had the benefit of family members providing accommodations, as well as splitting costs between 4 adults while Kim, Noel, and Nate were in Taiwan with us. The accommodations we booked ranged from lower end hotels to fancy beach resorts. At the end of the day, the main comparison Kait and I wanted to make with our accommodation spending during our travels was whether or not we spent more on our accommodations than we would have spent on rent back home in Vancouver. With that in mind, I consider our accommodation spending in Taiwan a success.

Food

Food can be very inexpensive in Taiwan, particularly eating out. But at the same time, as with lots of things, you can spend as much as you want to. Unlike at home, we intended to eat out for most of our meals while in Taiwan. We had a kitchen in a lot of our accommodations, but the kitchens were only used for cutting fruit and prepping meals for Nate. If you’re not comfortable eating street food or sitting at a table with other diners, our food spending is probably on the low end of the spectrum. Otherwise, our budget is probably a pretty good estimate for dining in Taiwan… around $15/day/person.

Transportation

This category really encompasses two different things, intercity and intracity transportation. We spent $478.28 travelling between cities and $69.14 moving around within cities. For a trip that involved doing a loop around Taiwan and another round trip between Taipei and Kenting, I would say this is on the low end of the spending spectrum. As mentioned in Taxis vs Transit vs Walking, our preferred modes of transportation naturally lends itself to minimizing spending. Between cities, we took trains and used regular rail instead of high speed rail down the west coast when we did our loop. This kept our intercity travel low. If you expect to take more taxis, you’ll probably spend more for intracity travel (and if you plan to make use of the great bike shares available in Taiwan, you’ll probably spend less).

Activities

This was the biggest surprise for me. We really didn’t spend as much on activities as I thought we would. Even more surprising, the spending here was dominated by 2 things: The National Palace Museum (overpriced now thanks to a large influx of mainland Chinese tourists?) and watching Batman v Superman (not even including the pop and popcorn). Those two made up over 70% of our “activity” spending. Although looking at the total surprised me at first, it really shouldn’t have. My favourite thing to do when I travel is to walk around and look at things that are out and about…. and that’s free!

Souvenirs

So, we basically spent nothing on souvenirs. We’ve bought gifts (which I haven’t included in this total) and we’ve spent money on a few other things that are more related to life than travel, so I probably won’t include those in these summaries. When it comes to souvenirs though, I imagine Kait and I will eventually get something from our travels, but we’re packing pretty light, so we have to be picky. I like to collect coins and banknotes, so I’m sure somewhere along the line, I’ll set aside some nice coins and crisp banknotes to save. When I do, I’ll consider the money spent on souvenirs.

So that’s our spending in Taiwan. I expect our spending rate to increase in Korea, and increase again in Japan. After that will be Australia (and New Zealand?) where I expect our spending to peak, before we finish things off in South East Asia where I can (hopefully) blissfully enjoy how inexpensive everything is.

 

Changing Input Source on Chinese (Mandarin) TVs

So, say you’re travelling in Taiwan, and you’ve got yourself a Roku Stick, (Chromecast, Fire TV, Miracast Dongle, etc), and you’ve finally (blindly) plugged it into the back of the wall mounted flatscreen TV in your hotel room, and now you just want to change the input source for the TV so you can start watching things from the device you just (struggled) to plug in, but you’re faced with controls on the TV and Remote Control that are all in Mandarin, and don’t have the familiar arrow-pointing-into-a-curved-rectangle icon that you’re used to. Well, you could do what I did and hit every single button until you find the one that changes the input source (and in the mean time, accidentally change a bunch of other settings on the TV), or you can read on below to see what button to press.

Look for a button labeled with these characters on the TV or Remote

輸入選擇
Pronounciation: shūrù xuǎnzé
Translation: input select

Sometimes it’s just 輸入 which means “input”. Rotate through the HDMI inputs until whatever you’ve plugged into the TV shows up, and enjoy!

Taxis vs Transit vs Walking

To travel is to move from one place to another, and when faced with getting from point A to point B, Kait and I do what most people do these days… we use Google Maps.

People move around in different ways, and when it comes to travelling, how you move around can really define what type of traveller you are, and what your “style” of travel is. When travelling long distances from one city to another (or one continent to another), you can go by plane, boat, train, or automobile (or Hyperloop in a decade?). What I’m talking about now though is at a smaller scale. How do you get around once you’re at your “destination”? What’s your preferred mode of travel?

  • Private tours with drivers
  • Tour groups on highway coaches
  • Renting or driving your own car around
  • Taxis/Uber
  • Public Transit
  • Hitch-hiking
  • Cycling
  • Walking

Chances are you use some combination of the above, but what your preferences are and the distribution of your usage define your travel style.

So far on this trip (and in general when we travel), our choices are really defined by the directions provided by Google Maps: Drive, Transit, (Cycle) or Walk.

Driving
Without a car, driving for us basically means taking a taxi. Driving almost always provides the fastest option, but it’s also the most costly. When we travel, we usually take it easy and try not to make ourselves feel rushed. So driving is usually the first option to get eliminated.

Taking Pubic Transit
Most transit options that Google Maps covers are either buses or rapid transit (e.g. Subways, Metros, etc). For me, they couldn’t be more different. I love rapid transit but despise buses. Either way, transit is more cost effective than driving, and is our top choice when we need to travel longer distances. I love seeing and using the rapid transit systems around the world. It’s one of my favourite things about a city. They’re a great way to see (creep on) locals out and about, they don’t make me car sick like (stupid) buses, and they’re efficient at moving lots of people in densely populated areas. If it takes us longer than a hour to walk (yes, an hour… even if it’s uphill to the mid-levels in HK with luggage), then we’ll probably take transit.

Walking
My favourite mode of travelling around town is walking. You get a real feel for a city when you’re walking. You see the streets, you see the people, you experience the climate (good or bad), and you have every opportunity to stop and smell the roses. When you walk, you can go off the beaten path. When you walk, you get to experience the wonders of bipedal gait. You never stumble across a great discovery when you take a cab, and the areas surrounding transit hubs rarely offer any treasures, but when you walk, you open yourself up to the unexpected and to unique discoveries. Most of my favourite memories (and meals) when travelling have been because I walked. Although a personal choice, I highly recommend walking as much as you can when you travel.

Fitbit (the authority on this apparently when I did a Google search) recommends 10,000 steps a day. That’s a pretty difficult goal if you drive to work at a 9-5 and don’t do anything active in the evenings. That’s not a very difficult benchmark to reach if your travelling and your primary mode of transportation is walking. With that in mind, Kait and I set a goal of trying to reach 20,000 steps a day. She’s been including our step counts in her daily posts, and we’ll look at sharing more (like distances and maps) in the future.

Mapping our Trip

The last time I travelled for an extended period of time (2+ months), it was 2006 and I did the whole backpacking through Europe thing with my sister. On that trip, I shocked myself that I had the discipline to write every day in a journal. Even on a night where I barely remember how I got back to the hostel (in Lagos), low and behold, there was some (not so great quality) writing logging the events of the day. This time around (and this is probably the first of many comparisons I will make to 2006), I find myself lacking in discipline to write about the events of this trip on a daily basis. I’m so glad Kait is motivated and putting together an excellent record of our trip that we can look back on in the future.

Do you ever have a deep desire to do something, and are really motivated (or downright OCD) to do some very related things, but just can’t bring yourself to do the actual thing? That’s me with daily journalling. There are a lot of good reasons to journal, and I was recently inspired again to keep a daily journal by something my cousin wrote, but although I’m disciplined in a lot of aspects of logging my daily life, writing out the day’s events in prose is not one of them. I recognize that short coming, but still want to keep a log of things we’ve done, and record my thoughts, on a regular basis. Our memories are incredibly flawed (in the sense that we really don’t remember things the way we think we do), so it’s valuable to keep a record of events and of our thoughts and emotions as they happen, in order to more accurately reflect on the past.

With that in mind, I already do two things rather compulsively that keep a pretty good log of my daily events: I track every penny I spend and I record events in Google Calendar. I started doing both these things for different reasons, but I’ve found that they’ve had the added benefit of providing a pretty good log of my day to day activities. For this trip, I’m adding a third item to this list that, while serving another purpose, will also provide a good log of our activities.

I will be mapping out our trip as we go, and sharing it here on the blog. The main purpose of the map is to share the places we’ve been to and talked about in blog entries, and hopefully make it easier for people to find them if they decide they want to go to the same places. While Google Maps is pretty incredible in North America, I find that a lot of locations we are going to are not actually on Google Maps, so finding them may not be so easy. With the map that we’re creating, we’ll drop pins on the locations of places even if they’re not on Google Maps. Hopefully someone will find this useful!

The map also creates a spatial log of our trip (along with the spending log) which helps provide a record for us to look back on. For me, this helps lift the burden of writing a daily journal logging the events of the day. However, this doesn’t mean I don’t want to write. It lets me focus my journal on thoughts and feelings without the “chore” of listing out daily events. I can still write about events of the day, but I’ll know I’m not obligated to because they’re being recorded elsewhere in a different fashion. (And worst case, I’ll always have Kaitlyn’s blog entries… but of course those will record the events as seen through her experience, not mine).

So my “Journal” for this trip looks something like this:

Hopefully they’ll provide a satisfying record of our adventures and provide insight to future Tim regarding current Tim.

Travel Without a Budget

Something many people asked us when we first told them we were quitting our jobs and travelling was what our budget was. “How much do you plan to spend”, “are you sure you want to quit your jobs”, and “did you win the lottery”, were all things we heard in one form or another. While a budget for a trip like this should be an obvious thing to have, the questions actually caught me off guard. As much as Kaitlyn and I talked about whether we actually wanted to take this trip or not, a budget wasn’t something that ever really entered the discussion. If you know me (and my obsession with personal finance), you might find this surprising, but let me explain.

Travelling without a budget doesn’t mean we have unlimited funds (whether saved or through debt) to spend on this trip. What it means is we have no predefined spending plan that we will try to adhere to. We will allow ourselves to spend as we please, but we’ll be conscious of our spending. We’ll deal with money and spending on the road the same way we did at home (while employed)… without a budget (which don’t work for most people).

I enjoy (or rather, am compulsive with) personal finance, but I don’t believe in budgets. They may work for some people (e.g. crazy disciplined people, of which I am not), but I genuinely believe they don’t work for most. So how does a person concerned with personal finance go about their spending without a budget? I practice (what I call, not sure if there’s a formal term…) value based spending. To me, it is the most important principle in personal finance, and the one thing everyone should be aware of. What you spend your money on is a true reflection of your values. No exceptions. (The same can be said of your time, but that’s a topic for another day). So, consider what your values are, and spend accordingly. Simple, right?

Or maybe not so simple, because people can have little or no idea what their values are, and when they do feel like they have certain values, a reflection on whether their spending habits actually align with their “values” can be a difficult thing to reconcile.

  • Do you spend more money on charity or on shoes?
  • Do you save for financial security or take on debt to buy things you can’t afford?
  • Do you value things or experiences more?
  • How much money have you made in your lifetime and what do you have to show for it now?

So how does value based spending allow Kaitlyn and I to quit our jobs and travel for a year (without a budget)? First and foremost, we value freedom. As long as we were dependent on our work related incomes, we weren’t free. We were wage slaves to our employers. So, we spent money on ourselves (i.e. saved a high percentage of our income), so that we had enough savings to afford our (temporary) freedom. Second, we value frugality. Given our frugal nature, we can spend freely without a budget knowing that our savings provides us with enough of a buffer. (If you value luxuries over basics, and convenience over frugality, then save (or budget) accordingly).

Meditate on what you value (or want to value), then see if your spending aligns with it. If it doesn’t, ask yourself why not, then take action.

While we may be travelling without a budget, that doesn’t mean we don’t track our spending as we go. Just as I do at home, I am meticulously recording our spending on this trip. An important part of value based spending is tracking your spending so you can review and reflect on whether your spending aligns with your values. When things don’t align, you have the information to make the necessary adjustments so that your spending better reflects your values.

We’ll have future posts with details on our spending (maybe 1 post per country?). Hopefully, those posts can help you with planning your own trips and allow you to set a budget (if you happen to be one of those people who’s good with using budgets).

For those who are curious, I’ll also share what software I’m using and maybe post a spreadsheet or two. I’m sure you’re all dying to know what this is for:

=IFERROR(INDEX(Transactions!$L:$L,MATCH(1,(Calendar!$B2>=Transactions!$J:$J)*(Calendar!$B2<Transactions!$K:$K)*(“Accommodations”=Transactions!$G:$G),0)),””)

 

Making the Most of Aeroplan Points

The “backbone” of our current leg of travel is an Aeroplan Rewards booking. This booking is a round trip flight from Vancouver to Melbourne, Australia, with layovers in Taipei on the way there, and in Ho Chi Minh City on the way back. This cost us 80,000 points each plus $596.21 in additional fees. Aeroplan changed their redemption costs last December, so North America to Australia is now 90,000 points. Now, the additional fees weren’t ideal, but they were by far on the lower end of things when we looked at different itinerary options, and more importantly, if we wanted to reduce the surcharges further, we would end up with less than ideal flight options.

Before I get into too much detail, let me first say that in my experience, talk of travel and rewards bookings online are either too complicated and advanced (and only understood by people who spend all their time on FlyerTalk Forums) or too simple without concrete examples and advice. Hopefully I strike a balance between the two, so you can understand what Kait and I did without knowing ICN > HND is going from Seoul to Tokyo.

There are just 2 things you need to do to maximize the value of your Aeroplan Points when making a redemption:

  1. Book a round trip fixed-mileage flight reward with 2 layovers
  2. Choose flight segments on airlines that don’t have surchages

1. Layovers

One of the best things about Aeroplan flight rewards is that you get to have 2 layovers (i.e. Stops in cities for longer than 24 hrs) added to your itinerary for free (or for the cost of the additional surcharges on the extra flight segments, see #2). So, in our case, booking a round trip reward flight from Vancouver to Melbourne costs the same amount of points as booking reward flights from Vancouver to Taipei to Melbourne to Ho Chi Minh City to Vancouver. So always add 2 layovers to a reward booking to maximize value.

(There are rules about total distance you can fly, and thus, what cities are viable layovers. This gets into the advanced stuff. Try to pick your destination city for the round trip to be as far from your starting city as possible for a given rewards booking, and most reasonable layovers on the way there and back should work).

2. Minimize Additional Fees

Air Canada is part of the Star Alliance, so Aeroplan points can be used for reward bookings on flights with any carrier in the Star Alliance. Each airline and their respective rewards programs differ from one another, and each have their own policies with regards to additional surcharges for reward bookings. In the case of Aeroplan rewards bookings, if the carrier airline charges additional fees for reward bookings, Aeroplan passes those fees on to you. If the airline doesn’t charge additional fees, then Aeroplan does not charge you additional fees. So, the trick to minimizing additional fees is to plan your route in such a way that all (or most) of your flight segments are on Airlines that don’t charge additional fees for rewards bookings. Which airlines are those? Here’s the list:

  • Air China
  • Brussels
  • EgyptAir
  • Ethiopian
  • EVA Air
  • Scandinavian
  • Singapore
  • Swiss
  • Turkish
  • United

Value of Points

Conservatively, for our booking it would have cost around $2600 to book flights to all the cities in our itinerary. Taking away the $600 we paid in surcharges, our 80,000 points was redeemed at a value of approximately $2000. This gives a value of 2.5 cents per Aeroplan point.

General rule of thumb for Aeroplan points, anything better than 1.5 cents per point is good value. Don’t use your points if your getting less than that.

So that’s a quick overview of how to maximize the value of your Aeroplan Points. I’ll have another post in the future on how to actually plan out your itinerary trying to follow these 2 rules using the Aeroplan booking tool.