For anyone else who's considering doing what I'm doing or going traveling at all, there are two people in this thread whose posts you can completely ignore: uga98 and Hellbender. But you probably already knew that.
And if you're interested, you can follow me around the world:
http://yeahletsgothere.tumblr.com/
Despite what Gui says, my writing doesn't suck slimey fish-nads.