Mike and I are anxiously preparing to travel to London and Edinburgh over Spring Break. It’s been a couple of years since I journeyed outside the country, so this week I’ve been making an effort to remind myself of all the travel wisdom I’ve accumulated over the course of a lifetime.
I was 17 years old before I set foot on an airplane. I was in my early 20’s before I made a solo trip beyond the borders of my hometown. In short, I wasn’t raised to be a traveler. Most of these lessons, I learned the hard way–but fortunately, you won’t have to.
1. Carry cash.
When traveling internationally, it’s best to wait and get cash from an ATM in the country you’re visiting (whenever that’s possible.) Getting foreign currency from your bank at home usually involves hefty fees, and cash exchange bureaus in foreign countries often charge these as well. Almost all U.S. banks have international partners that won’t charge any transaction fee at all.
If you’re the sort of person who always has cash on hand, remembering to get some cash before you travel is a no-brainer. But if you’re a person like me, who prefers to pay for everything with a debit or credit card, you may be thinking This is archaic advice. Everyone accepts credit cards these days.
Consider this: even if you’re headed to a place where credit cards are widely accepted, what will you do if there’s an extended power outage (which would also impact your ability to get cash from an ATM)? What will you do if your credit card company freezes your card? (Believe me, it happens–even if you’ve filed a travel alert with your credit provider.) Or what if, heaven forbid, your wallet–including your credit and debit cards–is stolen?
Getting some cash should be at the top of your priority list anytime you’re traveling. Then, divide and stash it in various places. Put some in the suitcase you’ve left at your hotel. Stick some in a pocket, some in your purse. If you don’t end up spending it, that cash can go right back into the bank when you get home.
2. Take a credit card.
Even if you’re a person who never uses credit cards, get one to have on hand only for emergencies.
The first time I flew home from graduate school for Christmas break, I wound up spending a night in the Denver airport because my flight was cancelled due to bad weather. I didn’t yet have a credit card, so there was no way I could go to a hotel for the night. (I had $20 in my wallet–I couldn’t even take a cab to a hotel.)
And this was in those long-ago days before smartphones. That was a very long night.
Shortly after that experience, I secured a low-limit credit card. It assured I would never again need to spend a night sleeping on top of my carry-on luggage.
3. Take hard copies of important documents.
If you’re traveling internationally, this includes your passport. Otherwise, it includes reservations and confirmation numbers. All these things can be stored on your phone, of course, but that won’t do you any good if your phone suddenly decides to stop working.
4. Be prepared for discomfort.
If you’re prone to motion sickness, as I am, don’t leave home without a full package of Dramamine. (You never know how many pills you’ll need, given delays and cancellations.) I also travel with a tin of Rescue Remedy, to help with the general anxieties of travel.
Beyond that, bring along a small pharmacy: antihistamines, anti-diarrhea medication, and whatever else you think you might need. Keep everything together in a small zippered pouch or plastic bag, so it’s easy to find. Yes, you can buy most of these things at your destination, but do you want to drag yourself through an unfamiliar city in search of what you need while fighting an upset stomach? If you’re in a foreign country, do you want to decipher unfamiliar packaging (and perhaps an unfamiliar language) through a feverish haze?
Given the laws of the universe, packing a pharmacy virtually guarantees that you won’t get sick. This alone makes it worth the trouble.
5. Plan way ahead.
When Mike and I first got married, one of the challenges we faced was a profound difference in our planning styles. He preferred to wing it–to see what kind of accommodations we could find when we arrived at our destination, rather than making reservations. He didn’t like the idea of being “locked in” to a travel date or an arrival time–or a safe, clean hotel room, apparently.
All that changed after our night at the Jones Motel. It was the only place we could find with an available room late in the evening on a summer road trip, perhaps because the motel was some distance off the Interstate. Ours was the only car in the parking lot.
Our room had no telephone (and, again, this was prior to the age of cellphones.) The bathroom had a shower nozzle sticking out of the wall and a drain in the center of the floor. The sink and toilet sat at the opposite end of the bathroom–presumably beyond the shower’s spray, since there was no shower curtain.
Bleary but wide awake in bed that night, we heard footsteps crossing the gravel parking lot just outside our door. We wondered if it was Mr. Jones. He’d seemed pretty angry when we interrupted his TV program by checking in.
“If we die out here,” Mike said, “no one will even know where to start looking for us.”
Needless to say, our travel from that point forward has involved advance research and prepaid reservations–especially when we’re traveling at the height of vacation season. It’s not the freewheeling adventure Mike once preferred, but at least we go to sleep each night feeling pretty confident that we’ll live to see the morning.
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