Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 5
Preparing to Travel
AFTER YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR INITIAL RESEARCH, you are
now able to begin actual preparations for your journey. The
research time you have spent has given you a much better idea of the steps
you must take and the items you must bring. Where should you start? The
U.S. Department of State offers a wealth of information for the traveler
about which items to bring, which to leave home, and a whole host of
other helpful things. Go to the website and download its travel checklists.
Doing so will help you immeasurably in packing the right way. Also con-
sult some of the many commercially available travel topics about the types
of items you should bring to the country you're traveling to. The excellent
Frommer's travel series is a treasury of important travel knowledge. How-
ever, for our purposes, we will deal only with issues of safety and health in
our preparatory travel section. State Department personnel travel more
than anyone in the world, except for pilots and flight attendants. The
State Department's website contains a tremendous amount of valuable
information from the most experienced foreign travelers around. It will
be more than adequate to help you identify the dozens of other items to
take care of before your trip.
NECESSARY DOCUMENTS
Check your passport. Has it expired? Will it expire while you are abroad?
Some folks like to live a bit dangerously in this regard. For example, if
your trip will last two weeks and your passport has three weeks until the
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