Pre Travel Tips
Things You Must Do Before You Travel
These pre travel tips are to assist you with remembering all the small things that you must do before you travel anywhere. We have divided them into three main categories, i.e. you travel documents, money matters and health related issues.
Pre Travel Tips
Make Sure All Your Travel Documents Are Safe And Proper
You have of course checked your passport expiry date long ago and if applicable applied for all the necessary visas, had your vaccinations, etc. Now you must make sure these documents are kept safe during your journey, e.g. in special travel wallet or money belt.
Travel documents you must remember to take with you include:
- Travel tickets and accommodation confirmations
- Passport and driving license if you plan to do any driving (can also be useful as second ID)
- Your travel insurance policy
- Updated international vaccination card if applicable
Prior to travelling you must also take necessary safety measures, i.e. if you for any reason would lose your travel documents while travelling. This includes:
- Make two photocopies of your passport, your travel ticket and hotel confirmation (as well as copy of your credit or debit cards details and your traveler's cheques receipt if applicable)
- Store one set of the photocopies in a different place than the originals
- Leave the other set with a family member or friend at home, so in the unlikely event of losing both sets you will still have access to a copy
- Another option is to scan your documents and store them on a USB stick that you can take with you. If you do you must store the USB stick safely and also in a different place than the original documents
- You can also e-mail yourself the necessary details, this is especially relevant if you will be travelling with your own personal computer
- However now-a-days you can easily get an access to computer, like at your hotel or at an internet cafe. Be extremely careful though when accessing personal information on a shared server, always use codes when writing down any personal information
Top Pre Travel Tips
There are many ways to hide personal information with coding. Using dates or telephone numbers are a popular way of doing this.
The best coding is when it's looks authentic, e.g. if you have a long list of names, addresses and telephone numbers, and you hide your pin number as part of one of the telephone number. Telephone numbers tend to be longer than pin numbers so don't put your pin number all in one row, e.g. use the 2, 4, 5 and 7 number or any other combination you like. Just don't forget the rule you used!
Remember, as with passwords, make sure your coding is not easy to find out. Use your imagination - be creative.
Pre Travel Tips
Make Sure Your Money Matters Are In Order
One of the things you must do prior to travelling is to arrange for your bills to be paid while you are away. The easiest way to pay the bills now-a-days is to schedule the payments on-line. However if that is not an option you can ask someone you trust to pay them for you or even pay them all in advance.
You can of course take care of this remotely while travelling but it is ideal not to have to worry about mundane everyday things like that while on holiday.
You also have to decide what kind of payment mode you are going to use while travelling. Are you going to buy foreign currency before you go and then how much? Are you going to use cash, prepaid currency card, credit card, traveler's cheques, or...
Prepaid Currency Cards are very sensible choice to secure and save on your travel money.
Pre travel tips recommend not relying on only one payment mode when travelling, or like the saying goes - don't put all your eggs in one basket. Take some cash and at least two payment cards or any other payment mode combination that suits you best.
Few more practical pre travel tips include:
- Check the expiry dates of your credit and debit cards
- If you are withdrawing money abroad use debit card rather than credit card, it's much cheaper option as you are withdrawing your own money (so no interests) not borrowing them from your credit card company (and paying interests)
- If you are withdrawing money from your debit card make sure you have sufficient funds available in your account... otherwise you will be charged with overdraft fees which is very costly
- Make sure you remember your pin numbers, if you need to write the down make sure you do it in a coded manner (see our previous top pre travel tips box)
- Credit card companies operate overseas fraud detection programs so inform them prior to travelling about your whereabouts, i.e. travel destinations and dates. This will eliminate the risk of your card being suspended when you most need it!
- Bring more than one card, as a back-up if one card doesn't work for some reason or gets lost
Pre Travel Tips
Take Care Of Your Health
It is important to take care of some health related issues prior to travelling:
- Make sure you have the Best Travel Insurance for your type of travel
- Check if you need any vaccinations and if so remember to bring the updated international vaccination card with you
- Make sure your First Aid Kit has all you might need in it, like plasters, bandages and tweezers
- Depending on your destination you might want to take some preventions products with you, like sun block or insect repellent
- Make sure your travel medicine kit has all you might need in it. You might like to take some painkillers with you as well as something to deal with: diarrhea, incent bite, infection, travel sickness and sunburn
- If you are on prescribed medication then ask your doctor for enough prescription medication to last you throughout your journey
- Same applies for contraception, you should bring them with you if you use them
Check out our Home Security Travel tips, but they cover practical pre travel tips concerning your home, things you must do before you travel.
Did you like this article?
Tell your friends about, share it on your favorite social media.
Many thanks!