Preparing for a vacation tends to be relatively stressful. Apart from booking a flight and reserving a hotel room, you also have to establish a travel solution in your final destination and craft a serviceable itinerary for your group. As you might imagine, facilitating these tasks is very time-consuming and it may even turn you off from the idea of taking a holiday altogether. After all, ascertaining every salient detail of a vacation plan is similar to seeing how a sausage is made; you’d rather have nothing to do with it at all. It might be useful to take a look at some advice on holiday planning before taking a trip.
However, in this day and age, it’s important to create a comprehensive holiday plan that covers all your bases. Otherwise, you’ll be left out to dry if an emergency arises, not to mention having to deal with that nagging feeling of “what did I forget this time?”
After you book your flight, hotel, and travel solution and craft an itinerary, it’s time to dive into the more meticulous aspects of planning for a holiday. As there is a distinct gap of time between now and your departure date, it’s important to make the best use of your time. This article will help you facilitate a checklist of sorts in the intermediate period. This preparation process consists of ensuring that your home is fitted for a long absence, packing all of the necessary provisions, and, most importantly, ensuring that your healthcare is accounted for during your travels.
Preparing Your Home for an Extended Leave
So, you were able to confirm your trip and just got off the phone. Now what? Well, it’s important to understand that this introductory part of the planning process is all about obtaining peace of mind and ensuring that there are no loose ends remaining after you take off. With this in mind, you should actually start by cleaning your house. Although this may seem superfluous and unnecessary, there’s nothing worse than coming home from a long vacation only to be required to clean a disastrous abode. Then, you should contact your bank and credit card company to inform them of your upcoming excursion. This way, you won’t have to deal with theft prevention protocols when you try to access your accounts abroad. If you don’t give proper notice to your account servicers, you’ll get declined during your vacation, which is something that no one should have to deal with. To boot, you might even discover that your bank or credit card provider has some bonuses on offer for travellers. In a similar fashion, you should also notify your neighbours of your journey so they can help keep an eye on your property, retrieve your mail, and update you on any developments while you’re gone.
Packing Tips
As any veteran vacationer will tell you, packing is always the most stressful part of the entire process. One of the best ways to create a checklist is to imagine yourself on the plane and then work backwards from there:
- Pack an Extra Outfit in Your Carry-on: If your primary luggage gets damaged, lost, or placed on the wrong flight, you’ll be left with no extra clothing for days. Storing an extra outfit in your arm bag will be a lifesaver if this type of situation arises.
- Use Compression Bags: If you happen to be an indecisive packer who feels the need to pack his or her entire closet, you might want to look into space-saving bags, also known as compression sacks. They mitigate the amount of unused space in the container, allowing you to condense clothing into half its current size.
- Bring a Versatile Wardrobe: Each item of clothing you pack should be interchangeable and relatively light so as not to overwhelm the weight restrictions at the airport. More often than not, you won’t even wear every single piece of clothing during your travels, so be as economical as possible when packing.
- Separate Toiletries: This is an obvious one but also an oft-forgotten one as well. No one wants to experience the horror of opening his or her luggage only to find that his or her clothing is drenched in toothpaste and shampoo. Keeping your toiletries in a separate plastic bag is highly advised.
- Miscellaneous Money-Saving Tips: You should bring an empty water bottle and your own snacks. Many of the shops in tourism hubs and airports attempt to take advantage of the lack of alternatives by charging exorbitant markups. Instead of patronising these overpriced stores, you can fill your bottle at water fountains and snack on your own comfort foods inexpensively.
Accounting for Your Healthcare Abroad
Over the past several years, travel insurance has become a staple in the tourism industry, and with good reason too. These policies cover trip cancellations, evacuations, and delays in addition to providing a 24/7 assistance helpline. However, for people with poor health or chronic illnesses, being able to cover medical expenses during a vacation is of the utmost importance. This is the main reason why travel insurance for those with pre-existing medical conditions is so crucial regardless of the final destination. In addition to the aforementioned coverage, this type of comprehensive policy also pays for emergency hospital visits, dental care, medical expatriation, lost medication, medication refills, and other general medical expenses.
When taking into account the fact that a lost pill bottle can cost hundreds and a medical evacuation can run into the thousands, it’s imperative that you remain protected against the worst possible situations during your travels.
Prioritising Your Approach
The five Ps of success – proper preparation prevents poor performance – rings true with regard to executing a successful and enjoyable vacation. In order to obtain true peace of mind before your plane takes off, it’s important to account for not only your home and packing responsibilities but also your medical coverage abroad, especially if you or a fellow traveller has a pre-existing medical condition. Only by addressing all of the potential concerns can you truly kick back, relax, and let your hair down during your time off. After all, you’ve spent a lot of time and money in planning this holiday excursion so it’s important to protect yourself against unforeseen incidents with a proper travel policy.
