Some “to do” before you travel

We all love to travel, isn’t it.  In the amusement of travel we often forget some basics which are necessary. Here I would explain some fundamentals one must practice before travel. They may not sound important but missing even one point can make the travel difficult, costly or time consuming. So here I scribble my ideas for you which have purely come from my personal experiences. Wish you all a happy travel experience!

1.     Most of the times travel agents would not brief you on the conduct that is expected overseas and that can land one in trouble. They would just attain you a visa and do your bookings. A visa does not necessarily grant you an entry in the country of your travel. You must possess all necessary documents at the immigration counter and be able to handover them to the immigration officer on your turn. You should possess your Return tickets, Hotel reservation, Insurance copy , inter country transfer tickets if any and most importantly “money” to show that you can take care of your expenses. Mostly in Europe you would be asked to “show your money”. You can show them your forex card or cash in that case. Providing these documents will assure you a smooth immigration. Don’t walk there just with your passport, have your folder ready. That would save you lot of time, I can assure you of that.

2.     Take a forex card instead of cash. That would save you a lot on the conversion margin. Do not approach a bank for your forex or currency needs. Instead approach a money changer like BOOK MY FOREX.COM. They do not play much on conversion and get you better rates as compared to the banks. In case of forex cards, they simply work on the inter bank rates which is absolutely excellent. They give you cards where cash withdrawals are free, so why not just take the forex card and withdraw cash abroad.

3.     One needs to be connected on the go, so usually we choose the option of international roaming on our existing phone connections. These prove ultra costly and if you have taken data on it then you have no limits on how you would be charged when the bill arrives. There would be no clarity on your usage and the bill would be giant size. To avoid this case, one should go for international sim cards which can be taken in India with fixed minutes of calls and data. You can choose and fix the amount you need to pay from several plans available. In these plans, incoming is mostly free so you can be well connected with your family. You just need to submit your travel documents and the number would automatically be active from your date of travel. I have personally used this and found it very satisfactory. Roam1 is one such service provider and there may be many more.

4.     In case if you are travelling to a country where there is “visa on arrival” for Indians, in that case you must check if you have a connecting flight to your destination and how much is the time gap. For example if you are travelling to Phuket then we all know that there is no direct flight to Phuket from India. You need to transfer from Bangkok. So in that case please check the interval between your landing time at Bangkok and take off time from Bangkok to Phuket, before your travel. If the interval is not a minimum of three hours do apply for your visa in advance from India. There may be a long queue for “on arrival visa” applicants in your city of arrival and in case the flight has had a slight of a delay then you might just miss your next connecting flight. This was just an example and you can see this scenario for your travel plan and be sure of getting a visa beforehand for your travel to these countries in case of a small time gap.

5.     Always take internet along with you when you travel abroad. Having an internet assures you of having a navigation application along, and it seriously helps a lot in a foreign land. Be it finding you an Indian restaurant nearby or the nearby metro station, all becomes easy when you have internet on the go. So do not travel without internet, it will save you like a brother, trust me.