When I know that a vacation is coming up, I get so excited. It’s nice to have a chance to forget about your daily routine for a while and just relax.
The problem comes when my brain checks out for vacation long before I actually leave. It’s all too easy to let your drive slip away when your single-digit vacation countdown is getting smaller and smaller.
The only way anyone can really enjoy a vacation is when they can trust that their life back home has been safely put on pause. That means that you need to prepare a few things which can be dangerous to forget about.
Check out this list of things you can’t afford to forget before you leave for a trip. I always make sure these get checked off my to-do list. That way, when I get to lay out on the beach or start hiking in the mountains, all I have to do is enjoy my time away from home.
1. Give Advanced Notice
It’s good practice for everyone to give as much advanced notice as possible to their place of employment before taking time off. At my office, we have to submit out time off request at least two weeks ahead of time. It’s a courteous way to help not leave your coworkers hanging. The only time I ever take off time without that kind of notice is if it’s an unpredictable emergency, like falling sick overnight.
2. Pay Your Bills
Once I know how long I’ll be gone on a trip, I always check my planner for bills. Even if I’ll just be gone for the weekend and there’s a five-day time frame to pay the bills that I won’t exceed, I still arrange for automatic payments anyway. It’s one less thing to worry about when I get back, and it’s a good habit to form if you plan on taking longer trips in the future.
3. Call Your Bank
One time I left on a cruise and used my credit card to make a few purchases at the first place we docked. I immediately received texts and emails warning me that my card had been stolen and used to make those exact purchases.
It took a good while to contact the bank back in their timezone and get everything straightened out. It’s so much easier to call your bank before you leave and let them know where you’re traveling and for how long. They’ll flag any purchases as suspicious after you return home, so you don’t have to worry about dealing with fraud alerts and frozen cards while you’re on vacation.
4. Check Your Security System
If you own a home, it’s smart to have a security system installed. I never worried about that kind of thing when I lived in an apartment, mostly because I couldn’t install a camera outside my front door. Now, my home has a couple cameras around the front and the back of the house, plus a general alarm that I can program to protect the inside of my home.
You should always double-check your security before you leave for any kind of vacation. You never know who might be strolling through your neighboorhood looking for a house that hasn’t had any activity in the past few days. A security system will catch their faces on video and alert the police so the robbers don’t get away with your belongings.
5. Buy Travel Insurance
I traveled for a long time before I learned about travel insurance. It’s not something people talk about, but it’s incredibly important to get for expensive or international trips.
There are a few scenarios where you’ll be glad you covered yourself with travel insurance for any kind of big trip. If you need to cancel a five thousand dollar cruise, have to go to the hospital in a different country or crash a rental car, all of that comes straight out of your pocket. Insurance will reimburse that cruise fee and pay for bills from things like accidents and hospital trips.
6. Lock Your Luggage
People lose their luggage all the time. It’s happened to me countless times. Sometimes you can get them back on the same day, but other times it takes days or even weeks to see your luggage again. To prepare my bags for this possible scenario, I lock my luggage now.
You can lock your luggage bags a couple of ways. There are suitcases made with built-in locks, which are great if you can afford them. If not, research TSA approved locks so you won’t lose your lock after going through security.
Write It All Down
I’ve traveled a lot throughout my life, but I still find that I get more done before a trip if I write everything down. I make a list of all the things that need to get done, like these travel tips, so it’s all right in front of me. Set alarms, reminders or whatever you need to you can use these tips before your next trip and have a much safer, more enjoyable vacation.
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