I’m packing my bags. My college roommate gets married on Saturday, and I’ll be darned if I miss it. Despite the fact I’m technically already traveling, and at one point my belongings here filled two suitcases, this trip will involve transit through four countries via bus, boat, two planes, and another bus – just to get there – and so out comes the checklist.
Aerial view of Montevideo
- Pay bills and credit card(s). While you’re at it, call credit/debit card companies to let them know you’ll be traveling so they don’t suspend your card. Feeding two people on five dollars in Budapest for the day was no fun.
- Figure out how you’ll get money wherever you’re going. I always went the ATM in-country route, wary of rapacious rates from currency exchange places and nervous of carrying too much cash. (But in Uruguay, the casas de cambio give a better rate than the banks.) I’ve also found myself in places where ATMs didn’t accept international cards and it was a bank holiday; where the lone ATM didn’t accept Mastercard (Visa advertising slogan for the win, at least on a remote Pacific island); and where drivers didn’t accept cash older than the year 2000. So bring some small dollar or euro bills as back-up.
- Write everything down. Maybe I’ll have internet, maybe I won’t. Maybe whipping out a guidebook won’t attract unwanted attention – or maybe it will. I always carry a little notebook with hand-drawn maps, flight numbers, phone numbers, postcard addresses – anything I can anticipate needing ahead of time. It’s more portable, subtler, and a great resource for re-creating my trip come photo-labeling time.
- Figure out power adapters ahead of time. Most small electronics work within 110-240 volts these days, but double-check! It also never hurts to bring a few extra adapters in case of unexpected detours, but if I dare say so, give up anything that requires a converter because they are heavy. So that may mean leaving the hairdryer at home.
- Purchase traveler’s health insurance. You never know.
- Print out boarding passes, and keep them accessible. It’s one of those things that’s easy to write off. Until I arrived at an airport, at 3 a.m., where the security officers were conducting an X-ray scan and boarding pass check – before the check-in counters. “What would you do if the computers were down?” the guard admonished me as I scrabbled around for the print-out. If the computers went down the airline would have probably had bigger problems…but don’t argue with guards with side arms.
- Do a last minute look. Luggage lock? Check. Travel sized toiletries refilled? Check. Laundry done? Check. Passport located at least two days prior to departure? (You laugh, but the number of frantic last minute calls I used to get from volunteers….) Check.
But in the end, once I overslept and found myself en route to the airport with a passport but no driver’s license, an iPod but no headphones, and a credit card but no cash. Granted, I was flying home and the situation was pretty minor, but a good reminder that the most important thing to remember is yourself.
Flora Lindsay-Herrera is currently a Fulbright Fellow in Montevideo, Uruguay. For more about her experiences, check out her blog. For more on departures, read “Runway Mix: This Time Tomorrow,” “Thoughts for the Outbound Voyager,” and “When are you coming back?”
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