10 Travel Tips from a Seasoned Traveler
Recently I’ve just completed a trip outside of United States. I am not a world traveler and I learned a few hard lessons that I would like to share with you. Here are the top ten suggestions I’d like offer to make your overseas travel a more smooth experience than mine was.
I have written them from my perspective which is that of an American traveling to other countries. It is also worthy of note that I travel and thus write from the “coach” perspective as I have never traveled “first class” and so can not comment on that experience.
Here are some of the things I learned.
1. Airline Food. If you request a kosher meal you will probably be served before the other passengers. This may get you some grudging looks from the other passengers but at least it will give you time to actually eat something before the flight attendant comes back to take your tray. In addition some airlines offer a children’s menu. This is good to know just in case your son or daughter isn’t a great fan of steam leeks. It is a lesson I wish I had in advance and it particularly sinks in when the child in the next seat over is munching on chicken tenders rather than the aforementioned creamed leeks on your child’s tray (sorry girls).
2. Claim and Recheck Baggage. Much to my dismay, I learned upon my return to the United States that I needed to claim and recheck my luggage before I could make my connecting flight. If you don’t know this, then you don’t know to build an extra hour into the time you need to make your connecting flight and end up rushing about the terminal like a fool.
3. Travel Light. You may be able to expedite your entrance and departure from the airport by forgoing the use of checked baggage and using a carry-on only. In addition to the hassle of checking bags twice as mentioned in number 2, you save loads of time otherwise spent standing about the luggage carousel in the herd with the other travel beasts of burden, while you await the appearance of your luggage (which looks just like every other piece of luggage) then fighting your way to the front of the line before it disappears through to baggage handlers port of no return before your eyes.
4. Show Me the Money. Rather than exchanging for local currency before you begin your journey, you may wish to stop at an ATM in your network when you arrive for some walking around money. Large financial institutions get a better exchange rate than an individual can secure.
5. Protect Your Documentation. Scan copies of all your passports and travel documents. Then save them to a USB compatible storage device. I put mine on a lanyard around my neck. Wherever you put yours make sure it isn’t the same place as your passport. One of the things that make this so important is the brisk market for stolen travel documents. This is not a day in which you can easily explain how you indentification became involved in the commitment of some fraud on soil that is not your native home.
6. Share the Plan. Register with the U.S. State Department. This will provide a way for you to be contacted should there be a family emergency while you’re away. However, advise your family of what constitutes an emergency you should be contacted about. It may be callus but I tell my family, unless it is something I can do something about from 2,000 miles away don’t tell me until I get home. Another benefit of this service is that it provides a way for you to contact family if you encounter an emergency someone at home can help with while you are abroad. Plus, it’s free. I’m a big fan of free.
7. Are You Really in Good Hands? Advise your medical insurance providers that you will be traveling out of the country. You may need to purchase riders or supplemental coverage to protect you while you travel. There are also some quality policies you can purchase from independent providers who specialize in this type of protection.
8. Reach Out and Be Touched. Arrange for your airlines to email, text message (international travel cell phone required in some cases), call you with changes in your flight arrangements. This could have saved me several hours worried waiting when terrorists bombed a nearby airport on my trip.
9. Drink Bottled Water When Traveling. Request bottled beverages if you are not sure of the source of the water. Read this for more information on advices on water consumption.
10. Relax. You might as well. You’re traveling in a foreign country and your fate is in the hands of people you’ve never met before. There is absolutely nothing you can do about it so you might as well enjoy it. Life is about the journey, after all.
Editor update: Updated the title, introduction and #9 to avoid confusion.
Reg Adkins writes on behavior and the human experience at Elemental Truths.
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Comments
Garry says on July 6th, 2007 at 9:38 am
I think someone’s been winding you up over number 9!
Virtually all UK drinking water comes straight from the mains and is safe to drink. Rainwater is collected, but only for watering the garden.
Bob-O says on July 6th, 2007 at 9:44 am
This is as inspiring as a third grade book report…
Mark says on July 6th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Don’t drink the water - The South of England may have water shortages (although I don’t think even Thames Water is this bad), but there is never a shortage in Scotland (we don’t even pay for water as part of the Council Tax), so this never happens (I still think it was a joke…).
Matthew says on July 6th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Don’t drink the water? I think somebody was exploiting the common *wrong* perception that Americans will believe anything they’re told …
Jonathan Street says on July 6th, 2007 at 10:31 am
I’d like to echo what’s being said about number 9. Some of the newer, eco-friendly houses, do collect rainwater to be recycled in the house but this is limited to toilet water.
My understanding is that bars and restaurants are required to provide tap water free of charge. Obviously there is no benefit to them (apart from pleasing the customer) so they try and get a bit more money out of you by providing bottled water. A frequent trick is to ask whether you want still or carbonated - the assumption that you’ll get bottled being unstated. Personally I generally insist on getting tap water.
Andrew says on July 6th, 2007 at 10:44 am
What a typically ignorant comment about UK drinking water.
If it is so tainted, why did the Coca Cola company bottle it to sell as Dasani in the UK?
Did you consider that the line was fed to you to get you to pay for bottled water?
You were too quick to believe something because it fit with your belief that nowhere in the world is as civilised as America.
Read a book.
Richard says on July 6th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Yes, I’ve lived in England all my life and I’ve never known a house that has anything other than mains water on tap (from the cold taps). Collecting rainwater is mentioned on a few “Go Green” TV shows, but few houses do that yet, and it’s for flushing only, as Jonathan said, above.
Hot water, however, is commonly fed from a non-sealed cold header tank in the roof, and so shouldn’t generally be drunk or used to make hot drinks. They are usually covered and insulated, but there could be a dead pigeon floating up there, theoretically!
But with our passion for tea, every home has a kettle, which you should fill from the cold tap and boil for your hot drinks, cooking, etc.
Kristof says on July 6th, 2007 at 10:52 am
Congratulations … I admire people who dare to write about topics they are not knowledgeable about.
The post is a typical story written by a US citizen who thinks that in any place outside the US people still live in trees. For your information we Europeans stopped doing that quite a while ago. And also for your information we have cars, cell phones and even microwaves. Unbelievable isn’t it?
Cheers,
Kristof
Simon says on July 6th, 2007 at 11:02 am
this made my day.
health insurance thing in the UK isn’t a big deal because they actually have a national health system. yay!
‘This is not a day in which you can easily explain how you indentification became involved in the commitment of some fraud on soil that is not your native home.’ Classic stuff.
Giles says on July 6th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Echoing many sentiments above, this post restored my faith in Americans!
I hope you don’t seriously believe the water in the UK isn’t safe to drink? Tap water is generally safe all over Europe, thanks to our zealous EU official rules.
Generally, I think you need to lighten up! These days, international travel isn’t as dramatic as it was in the old days- e.g. most people could cope with being in London as well as being in Los Angeles. Now, rural Devon is a bit different to those, but it’s not quite like heading to the Himalayas.
I’m flying to Mumbai in six hours, for the first time. Am I fussed? No.
Garry says on July 6th, 2007 at 11:57 am
“This could have saved me several hours worried waiting when terrorists bombed a nearby airport on my trip.”
If you were in Devon, chances are you flew into London. Which is nowhere near Glasgow. And even then they only blew the doors off.
As a seasoned traveller, this could’ve been a good post if it had been researched and thought out a bit more thoroughly.
Dave M says on July 6th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Some houses have a cistern in the roofspace that feeds boilers / water heaters. The water from these almost exclusively comes from the mains.
Some older houses MAY have the cold water in bathrooms fed from these cisterns, but that is getting rarer.
Rainweter is sometimes collected for use in the garden etc.
Re travel Documents - Before I travel, I put a scan of our passports, bith certificates and driving licenses on an online email account - some may question the security of this, but I’ve not been hacked yet!
Seduction Chronicles says on July 6th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
I have to say, this is one of the WORST posts I’ve ever seen on LifeHack.
“This may get you some grudging looks from the other passengers but at least it will give you time to actually eat something before the flight attendant comes back to take your tray.”
I’m always annoyed because those flight attendants don’t pick up my tray for like 20 minutes after I’ve finished. I’m sitting there like an idiot with trash on my lap… how old are you, 75?
“Scan copies of all your passports and travel documents. Then save them to a USB compatible storage device. I put mine on a lanyard around my neck.”
What kind of nerd does this? If you’re going to do anything, save it to a USB and put it in your pocket, or save it to a digital camera that you carry around. Put it around your neck? Nothing screams, take advantage of me like a lanyard around your neck.
“Advise your medical insurance providers that you will be traveling out of the country. You may need to purchase riders or supplemental coverage to protect you while you travel.”
Clearly it would cost more for two weeks of American overseas medical insurance than 3 months of cancer treatment in the UK.
“I know this sounds like a joke but there is reason behind it. While in the U.K. I stayed with extended family and I thought nothing of drinking water from the tap just like I do in the U.S. of A. However, at one point we went to a restaurant by the sea and I ordered water and was curious when the server asked me if I wanted it still in the bottle.”
Visit NYC and you’ll get the same treatment at restaurant. It’s not that drinking water from the tap is bad, its that higher class restaurants give you the option, and make MORE when you buy it from the bottle. I’ve never been to England, but I can guarantee you its better than LA and NYC water.
“You’re traveling in a foreign country and your fate is in the hands of people you’ve never met before.”
Oh my goodness. This is when the post got too sensationalist. If you travel to any city in the USA in which you don’t have friends, I guess you’ve done the same. Oh no!
This post was a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT, and deserves to get it’s ass deleted.
Insidoubt says on July 6th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
You realize this guy has manipulated all of you into behaving like twits, right?
Kate Davis says on July 6th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
In built up areas there are very few buildings which are not connected to the mains water supply and therefore it is true that the tap water in the UK is safe to drink because the water companies have to meet very stringent tests.
However as a point of notice, there is increasing interest in installing rainwater harvesting systems following the drought in the south last year and large quantities of rain this year. So in the future many buildings could have a supply of rainwater into the house or business.
But there are regulations already in place which require the pipework to be a different colour and to ensure there is no contamination of mains supply water, so there would be no need to worry about the quality of the tap water (unless you tried to drink from a purple tap).
Just a thought to leave you with, why treat water to drink water quality for toilet flushing and garden watering?
Mark says on July 6th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
This post was absolute drivel. No wonder Americans rarely holiday outside their own country.
The water comment really took the biscuit, you couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Jez says on July 6th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
As a 32 year resident of the UK, I spat out all the Water I was drinking! I NEVER realised that the water I drank came straight from the roof of my house! OMG
Leaving sarcasm aside, I must admit this post was one of the worst LH posts I had read in ages. How disapointing! The writer made out that the UK is a 3rd world backwater, where we all have to drink bottled water to survive.
Health Insurance? You wouldn’t know this, but my recent year long RTW trip via (Snowboarding in NZ), Australia, Fiji and the USA cost £600 ($1200) in Travel Insurance. If I had missed out USA it would have been half price.
You dont need health insurance in the UK, as we have the NHS. Its great! But the media would have you believe that all of our taxes go towards expensive computer projects…
PLEASE LH get the editor to sanity check your contributors.. Thanks
jay vee says on July 6th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Was this written by someone who speaks english? What are steam leeks? This is an completely useless article. The finer points of ordering airline food? Travel light? Relax? How is this helpful at all?!
ex-pat says on July 7th, 2007 at 1:56 am
Aw, cut her some slack. Someone fed her a line and she jumped to conclusions. It happens. I’m thinking she doesn’t travel a lot overseas.
Here are my suggestions as 20 yr ex-pat American who visits the US about 2x a year, always coach-class long haul flights, I’ve actually gone the other direction re: baggage. I now check in almost all my baggage and try to get on with just my handbag and my cursed laptop. Much easier thru security checks esp. with the (inane) liquids/gels ban.
On the plane on long-haul flights: it really is true what they say — get up and walk around as much as they let you. Go the restroom 10 times. Your legs will thank you later. Ask for the aisle seat.
Airline food sucks worse every trip. Buy or bring a sandwich or at least a protein bar. And though it’s never happened to me, there are those horror stories about planes being stuck on the tarmac for 10 hrs and no food or drink service. Have a snack and a small drink on hand ESPECIALLY if you are traveling with kids.
(Of course any beverage bought in the airport after you clear security can come on board.)
One more small kid trip tip:
Bring an extra change of clothes for the child & a tshirt for you. Once my daughter threw up ALL over me and her. I threw away her shirt but I had to wear vomit for the next 8 hrs.
Virgin says on July 7th, 2007 at 9:29 am
I ask that you check your facts before posting on something you have little knowledge of.
Ray says on July 7th, 2007 at 9:54 am
As a British citizen I find it disheartening to read how our allies across the pond fear our water supplies. Perhaps, given our strong sense of the ironic and a pinch of the sarcastic someone really took the pi** out of the writer.
I second many of the other comments- our NHS is one of the most envied institutes in the world. “Free at the point of need.”
FYI I was listening to a programme on Radio 4 this morning concerning literacy in the US. According to the programme the average reading age in the US Army is ten. The programme later went on to explain that manuals for armoured vehicles were written up in cartoon form by Marvel comics.
On a more sane and balanced note: The UK media would have us believe that UK to US tourists will be mugged within ten miles of most US airports. Which whilst it may happen sometimes I’m sure it doesn’t happen 100% of the time!
Andrew Molloy says on July 7th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
I know this has been commented on many times already but I couldn’t believe that #9 was posted purely relying on the word of one person who’s after your money. In fact for your information, just like the USA, the mains water here in the UK is MORE strictly regulated than bottled water, so in fact bottled water is LESS safe to drink than mains water. And I’ve never in my life heard of cold water taps being connected to anything other than the mains supply and even the water reclamation talked about for toilet water is still pretty rare.
Ed Moore says on July 7th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
So to sum up, this post is quite far towards the MISS end of the HIT/MISS scale. Ho hum.
Edster says on July 7th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Aside from the controversy surrounding #9, I’d like to add two suggestions:
Regarding #1) You don’t necessarily need to order a kosher meal to be served first. Airlines generally serve any special meal first, so instead, you could order, for example, a vegetarian meal. However, be warned, a special meal may mean you get served last, not first.
Regarding #4) It’s generally advisable to carry at least *some* money in local currency. While ATM machines generally do offer better rates, it’s safer to carry at least enough to arrange transportation to your hotel.
To be frank, and I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I did find the article a bit amateurish. I think there are many more seasoned travelers out there.