Image

Going traveling, whether it’s for a week, a month or a year, is an amazing thing that everyone should experience at least once in the lives. The fun planning comes into play when you’re deciding on where to go, what to see and do, and even who to go with. The not so fun stuff follows those decisions, like how are you funding your travels, what do you need to do to ensure your own safety, and what do you do with all the boring, day-to-day stuff back home. And as mind-numbing as these things are, it is vital that you make those choices, and others, before you set off.

Health Insurance
Starting with a biggie – this isn’t a part of your travel that you can take the budget option for. Your health insurance could be what saves your life, or just masses of debt in another country. Find a top provider on sites like www.moneysupermarket.com, or go with one that has been recommended to you by a trusted source, and go for an option above the bottom tier. Once you have your insurance sorted – duplicate the documents. Have a copy with your other travel documents, and one tucked away in case that gets lost or stolen. Luckily, we can have everything appear at our fingertips, but if your phone gets lost, broken or stolen, a paper copy is your only chance or viable proof.

Travel Insurance
Much like health insurance – you can’t scrimp on this one. Travel Insurance covers your belongings, any instances of lost tickets, postponed flights and extra accommodation. If your things were to be lost or stolen, could you afford to go out and buy everything again straight out of your bank account? Because there really isn’t many travelers who could say yes to that question. It’s much better to buy a decent level of travel insurance, that covers more than what you think you will need, and not to use it. Then to not have any at all and then need to claim.

Roaming
As we said previously; our lives are on our phones these days. But that doesn’t mean that you can just hop countries and expect your phone to work the same (and cost the same) as it did at home. Most phone companies offer a roaming package that you can add to your contract if it’s not already on there. If it’s included, then you just need to activate it. If you don’t inform them that you’re going abroad, and your phone is suddenly being used on the other side of the world, some companies will shut off your phone until they can get in contact with you to see if it’s you or not. Which can be annoying if you’re not lugging around another device to check on your emails.

The same thing can happen with your credit and debit cards. You can get travel cards which you just load up with a set amount of funds before you go traveling – but if that runs out, you lose it, or if there’s an emergency, you might need to access your normal account. But, if money is leaving your account in another country you could have your card blocked until they can contact you, or you could just be acquiring some huge bills for withdrawing money abroad. Simply letting your bank know before you head off will avoid all of that hassle.

Mail
If you’re not lugging around your laptop, and your 4G isn’t reaching the depths of the Amazon, how are you going to access your emails? The answer is that you won’t be able to. If you rely on your email for important work things, or think your bank will be contacting you for withdrawing money without telling them, then have someone at home who you trust linked up to your account so that they can keep an eye on it for you, and alert you if there’s anything important you need to deal with.

As for physical mail, because we all still get it, you might not have a set address for it to be sent to. And if you order anything on your travels to be delivered to your home – seeing as you won’t be able to carry it around in your already overstuffed backpack – you might want to think about setting up a virtual mailbox. Places like physicaladdress.com does exactly what it says on the tin. It sets up a physical address for you to redirect any mail to, so that it’s ready waiting for you when you get back. Again, you might want to set it up so that a trusted person can access your post, in case anything important is delivered.