If you want to have a carefree and safe journey, you have to take certain precautions. While some of them might seem commonsense, you’d be surprised at just how many people neglect these tiny details that can make the whole difference. The following five tips will help you with your preparations and keep you safe while you’re vacationing.
1. Be Careful When Buying Tickets
Depending on where you’re traveling, airline tickets can get quite expensive. While you’re making the decision about which company you want to go with, you’ll likely stumble upon certain websites that offer tickets at much cheaper prices. However, this can cause you a whole lot of problems since most of the time these platforms aren’t legitimate. You’ll book a ticket for a certain price, only to later receive a request for additional payment due to a certain change. At that point, you won’t have enough time to ask for a refund and you’ll end up paying a large sum.
To avoid these nuisances, you should only stick to the websites of airline companies. After all, it’s worth it to pay a bit more and have peace of mind.
2. Book Accommodation Carefully
Similarly to the aforementioned airline tickets, accommodation prices can widely vary. You can either book it in advance by yourself through certain websites, or employ a travel agency to do that for you. The former method is much more suitable when you want flexibility, but it also brings certain dangers with it. You could book accommodation, travel to it, and find out that it doesn’t even exist or that the owner claims that you haven’t made a payment. While these cases are rare, they’re more likely to occur when you use shady websites.
Platforms such as Booking.com, Hotels.com, and TripAdvisor are all good choices when you want to find high-quality, scam-free accommodation options. Pay attention to the reviews and ratings of different alternatives, compare prices, and contact the owner if you need more information.
3. Back Up Important Documents
Driver’s licenses, passports, and travel visas are just some of the most important documents that you’ll need to have on you during your trip. They’re also very hard and expensive to replace, which is why you have to be extra careful if you’re bringing them on your trip. An effective, cheap way to keep them safe is to make both hard copies and digital ones while leaving the original versions at home. Digitizing them is very easy – if you have a scanner at home, use it to get PDF versions on your PC. Otherwise, you can visit a local copy shop and get it done there.
However, before leaving the originals at home, make sure that the country accepts copied documents. You’ll probably have to get them certified beforehand.
4. Medical Insurance & Spokeo Protect
Nobody wants to think about health hazards or potential injuries when planning a trip. But the reality is that accidents happen, and medical bills in a foreign country can get abnormally high. While hospitals can’t refuse you emergency treatment with or without insurance, you’ll have a lot of benefits if you’re insured. There are various plans that cover different expenses, and which one you’ll choose depends on your personal preferences. While it can be hard to pay for something that you might not even need, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Alongside medical insurance, you have to protect yourself from potential identity frauds which are quite common among tourists. An identity theft protection software, such as Spokeo Protect, safeguards your financial information, personal data, and it also works extremely well alongside medical insurance. With these two combined, you practically won’t have anything to worry about while on your trip.
5. Consider Internet Availability
While public WiFi hotspots might be available in almost every part of your country, that isn’t necessarily true for other international places. If you are highly dependent on a solid Internet connection (if you’re working online, for example) then you should do some extensive research so that you know what kind of Internet availability you can expect. Nowadays, almost all good accommodations have WiFi access, but you shouldn’t just rely on that. Ask the owner what the speeds are, as well as the previous visitors.
In the worst-case scenario, you can find prepaid data SIM cards in almost every somewhat developed country. While this is a bit more expensive option, you’ll at least have a reliable connection.
Maguire Haigh is a marketing manager for Spokeo. He is interested in the latest technology trends, marketing strategies and business development. He also prefers traveling, exploring the world and meeting new people. Maguire has great experience in creating and editing articles on different topics.