Sheila Tips and Challenges While Traveling
No matter how well you think you've planned a trip, something is bound to go wrong and/or forgotten. For example:
- I keep a generic packing list on the computer with sections covering everything from winter sports, trekking and hiking to sightseeing;
- Laid everything needed out carefully, and checked off the above list;
- Double check passports and visas. (I even put a paper clip on the proper visa page if we need one. Saves looking for that one elusive visa page.) ;
- Have started to notify the credit card company that we're traveling out of the country so they won't deny authorization. (Guilty of forgetting that one before a trip to Buenos Aires and discovered this mistake when a credit card purchase wouldn't go through. A fast, collect call to the credit card company resolved that issue.); and
- Triple-check hotel reservation dates. (Bad me.. We once arrived in Switzerland and discovered that I had reserved for the next day! The nice hotel found us a room for the night.)
Even with all that, and this is the short list, there was the time...
- The dental floss ran out, and we are dental floss fanatics, with no place to buy more;
- Our family of seven was traveling around Europe and I wasn't smart enough to give everyone the name and address of our hotel. You can just guess what happened. We separated into two groups, one group looking for the hotel while the others stayed put with the luggage. Did I know the luggage group would hail a taxi who knew where the hotel was and leave? The next hour was spent in panic, imitating Laurel & Hardy, driving up and down the streets of Amsterdam in another taxi looking for husband with three of the children. That incident took years off my life;
- On the recent trip to Nepal, another cardinal no-no. Steve's prescription glasses broke and without a spare pair, the two of us had to duct-tape the stems every day;
- Forgot contact lens solution, a necessity. Ended up using unpurified water and worried the entire trip that I'd end up blind or with infections in both eyes; and
- I didn't make 2nd Class seat reservations on a French TGV (always obligatory) thinking we'd do that in Paris. Paid big time for this extremely costly error. Because the day we had to travel fell over school holidays, 2nd class was completely sold out. We had a 2nd Class pass and had to buy an entirely new ticket for 1st Class to travel that day. I'll never hear the end of that one from husband, Steve....
A perfect trip? Impossible. But it doesn't stop me from trying. This video has some tips and shows a few challenges we faced in Ethiopia. Hope the mistakes I've made, and video helps you...
