Travel Checklist - Things to Consider When Travelling Abroad

There are people who are not worried about anything, not even about travelling abroad. They just pack some “stuff”, go and have a great holiday and deal with possible problems off-hand. If you fit in this category this article is not for you, go travel and enjoy your vacation, or skip to the end and watch funny suitcase packing videos :-)

But the rest of us need a list of things to do or check before travelling abroad to make sure, it will be a troublefree vacation. We will try to sum up important things to think of when travelling out of your homeland. It is not a definitive guide, rather general checklist that should be useful with minor changes for the most of regular abroad vacations (not counting expedition to the Arctic pole, bare hands lions hunting or any vacation inspired by Bear Grylls’ Ultimate Survival show).

Let’s start with probably the most boring part of the trip, preparing the papers.

Papers

Except travel tickets and your hotel reservation you need to take care of a whole bunch of other papers like passport, visa, bank account, driver’s license, health and travel insurance. Before booking the vacation, always check travel policies of country you are going to visit. Some countries (e.g. Fiji) do not accept tourists whose passports will expire in less than next 3 months, even if their stay will be shorter. Also, before visiting some countries (e.g. New Zealand) you need to provide evidence of travel arrangements and a proof that your funds are sufficient for your stay. Do not forget to check if you need visa to enter your destination. The best source for answers to these questions is Ministry of Foreign Affairs of your country and Ministry of Tourism of country you are going to visit. If there is a chance you will rent a car, do not forget to take your driver’s license, but first be sure it is valid also in your destination. Travel and health insurance is a must. Medical treatment abroad without insurance is often so expensive, that in case of injury, it can be your last vacation for a very long time.

In case you are often losing stuff like wallet with ID card in daily life, think of scanning all important papers and sending them to your email. In this case, you will have at least some of your documents available online and ready for printing if you lose them or someone steals them from you.

Papers are checked, let’s continue. Your vacation is booked and you have one week before boarding the plane and flying away from everyday sorrows. It does not matter if you have planned a lot of activities during your stay or just wish to enjoy the sun on the beach, there is one thing that can break your plans and throw it into a trash can. 

Weather

Check the weather forecast and plan your activities considering it. If you are leaving for a beach holiday and temperature level is around 35 °C / 95 °F with no clouds around, you are probably safe, but when the weather looks more uncertain try to prepare plan B. And do not forget to check the forecast just before leaving so you can adjust the plans last-minute (it is not called forecast for nothing). 

Now you are sure the sun will shine and you have planned all the activities. Can the vacation start? No. Even if you are proud citizen of Uzbekistan, there is a really small chance, that the Uzbekistani som is an accepted currency in the rest of the world. 

Money

To make sure you have the right currency checkout list of currencies from wikipedia, it might be helpful if you do not find this information in official source. Before leaving, change adequate amount of cash to currency of country you are going to visit. Check if your credit/debit card is accepted in stores or by transport companies. Consider also changing some money for travel cheques which might be changed back to money in local exchange or are accepted in some hotels and restaurants and in case of stealing are refunded in full cost. 

Money is checked, let’s move to health.

Health & Vaccination

If you are regularly using pills, do not forget to take them also into your hand baggage and just for sure take more than you will need for the flight. Your luggage might get lost and you could possibly wait for it even for days. Consider also taking some bandage, disinfection and medicines for fever, pain and diarrhea. In case of sea holiday take something for sunburn, repellent can come in handy, too. In case your destination is quite “extreme” with high risk of catching foreign diseases, here is a list of countries and required vaccination. 

Telephone  

Most of us can not imagine spending a day without using a mobile phone and this also relates to vacation. Often, people want to share their adventures with family and friends at home by sending MMS messages or they want to have dinner at this great restaurant they have read about on TripAdvisor, but can not find it - GPS and Google maps could come in handy right now, but do you have activated data roaming, and if yes, are you sure that the data will not be more expensive than the dinner? Before travelling abroad, check at your Telco operator pricing for roaming services, so you will not be surprised, when the telephone bill arrives. 

Language & Culture

If your are going to experience adventurous vacation out of widely known tourist destinations, always read about domestic traditions and specifics, so you will not get yourself into trouble just by misunderstanding or ignoring some basic “cultural” rules. Do not rely on the English only and try to learn some basic phrases (or buy phrases dictionary) of language of country you are travelling to. Even in many European countries, there are still a large number of people not speaking any foreign language. Finding toilet or train station could be a very difficult task if local inhabitant has no clue what you are asking for. 

(Political) Situation in Country

Also, it is good to check political situation in country before leaving. Even if you are in tourist area, you can still be affected by revolution (Arab Spring in Egypt), or by something less dramatic, but still not very pleasant for vacation, like strike of airlines, floods in area or demonstrations of camion drivers with blockade of the roads. Fresh information about your destination should be available at Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Also check if your country has an embassy where you are travelling and save the contact to your phone, just in case. 

This is it. Try to prepare for your holiday, but remember, it is not a project at work, do not try to plan every minute, leave a space for spontaneous decisions, the best holidays are full of exciting moments which can not be planned.

Packing

There is one last thing that could come to your mind that  we did not mentioned - the suitcase packing. It is topic so vast; it deserves a new article(s series). Which stuff to pack depends on type of your vacation and it really matters if you are going to dive with whales or ski on the volcano.

But we will not skip this topic entirely, at least read a list of things which are most often confiscated on security control, however, if you want to “have fun” with security guys do not forget to fill your hand baggage with as many things as possible.

Most often confiscated stuff during security control

●       manicure

●       cutlery (knife & fork)

●       pocket-knife

●       cutter

●       metal castings

●       blade or razor

●       screwdriver

●       hammer or nails

Packing videos

And here are the promised suitcase packing videos.

Warning: How Girls Pack a Suitcase and How Guys Pack a Suitcase videos contain a strong language.

How Girls Pack a Suitcase

How Guys Pack a Suitcase

How to Really Pack a Suitcase