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Check your overseas medical insurance coverage. If your policy covers you overseas, make sure it covers emergency expenses such as medical evacuation.
Absolutely the most important tip!!!
AAA sells travel insurance that is originally intended to replace the cost of your TICKET in the event that you cannot go on your trip. the pricing for the insurance is scaled based on your ticket cost. however, the insurance ALSO comes with EVACUATION insurance.
so for example, on our last trip our tickets were $1400 each and the insurance was supposed to be about $125 each. I didn't want to spend $500 on insurance for four of us, so I bought insurance that covered us for a $250 ticket, at a cost of about $30 each.
The important fact is that BOTH insurance packages carried and equal amount of coverage for Evacuation. So for less than $100 i got evacuation insurance for all of us. That is a great buy (I wasn't worried that we wouldnt make the trip, the probability was that we would get there.)
********EVACUATION INSURANCE IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT WHEN TRAVELING INTERNATIONALLY, EVEN IF YOU ARE GOING TO SO CALLED "1ST WORLD COUNTRIES"
my husband's cousin, a perfectly healthy, young woman,was in europe on business, did not wake up after a nap and was brought to the hospital where they determined that she had a rare heart problem. It was a nightmare of epic proportions ending in her being evacuated by air ambulance which cost upwards of $60,000. She is recovering at home now but for spending $30 through AAA she would have not paid anything (or very little)
Always get travel insurrance if traveling internationally, esp. if you don't ahve 100K in the bank to get you home in case of emergency.
Get an International Cell phone plan and make sure your phone is a GSM quad band type. You can call AT&T and make sure you have the international plan. Calling home from Europe is confusing country to country. You can also get a Europe calling card while you're there.
I think I've purchased travel insurance *once* in the many trips we've taken.
I am unconvinced of its worth. If nothing else, be sure to read the fine print.
I agree about not eating at McDonald's in Europe, but their bathrooms can come in handy, especially on a Sunday when every place else is closed.
I think the packing rule of thumb is: take half the clothes and twice the money.
I also agree with everyone on packing light. My three week backpack trip in Europe back in May I learned a lot. I had too many clothes! Here is a place that I learned a lot from about traveling light.
As cheesy and cliche as it sounds; its true (I travel way too much for my own good). I love how stressed people can get, and yeah I know we all have places to go and people to see. Sometimes we can get really inconvenienced; unexpected over-night somewhere or a mishandled bag (I always try to carry one bag as others have said), but getting stressed or yelling at the gate agent (who's probably been yelled at a few other times) is going to get you very far
Get an International Cell phone plan and make sure your phone is a GSM quad band type. You can call AT&T and make sure you have the international plan. Calling home from Europe is confusing country to country. You can also get a Europe calling card while you're there.
Or, if you are taking a laptop and have internet access, get Skype. It is dirt cheap to call home using Skype ($0.021 per minute). I've used Skype on several overseas trips and have been happy with the results, not to mention the low cost.
Better yet, have a skype account and use the many internet cafe's around Europe. A laptop is 5 pounds of extra weight to carry around on vacation. Remember, pack light!
Yeah, those laptops do get heavy (mine is closer to 7lbs, I think). But, then again, I was on a business trip, so I had to have it anyway . Great suggestions w.r.t. internet cafes, though.
Take an extra nylon bag in your suitcase to put the gifts and souveniers in when you go home. Last summer in England I had to buy an extra one to bring stuff home in!
[quote=BlueWillowPlate;4929359]I think I've purchased travel insurance *once* in the many trips we've taken.
I am unconvinced of its worth. If nothing else, be sure to read the fine print.
You only need to use it once in a lifetime to be convinced of its value. (Or fear for a loved one's life while they lay sick in a hospital while you scramble to find air ambulance companies and deal with lawyers (to read the fine print), and financial institutions (to finance the ride).
When faced with a $60,000 (to over $100,000 depending on where you are), $30 is a pittance.
We are insured to the hilt in every other aspect of our lives. Home, Auto, Health.
I personally would never travel internationally without it. If I can afford $1400 for a ticket, why not pay the extra .25% for evacuation insurance.
when my husband went to school in the caribbean, the school required the students all have evacuation insurance at a rate of $350 per year, this was in response to a student getting hit and severely injured by a transport (basically a 12 passenger van, or minibus). I don't know how much his parents paid to get him home.
If I paid for insurance on every trip I took internationally for my whole life and never had to use it I would consider myself extremely lucky.
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. Great suggestions w.r.t. internet cafes, though.
