Planning

Carry On Baggage Limits –New ways to take money from your pocket.

This year, for the first time flying Fiji Airways, and the last time flying Fiji Airways. Although they appeared to be a bit less expensive than Air New Zealand, I found that they have a new way to charge extra for people who travel light and only use a carry on bag and a personal bag.

In general, even if we travel for 2 weeks or a month, we do it with a carry on bag and a personal bag. My carry on bag for a month long stay may weigh 12 kg (26 pounds) and the personal bag may weigh in at 5 kg (10 pounds).

Now, although the still have the size limits for your carry on bag, they have added new weight limits. ONLY 7 kg for your carry on bag and 4 kg for a personal item that will fit under your seat. It is ok to have a cabin full of 100 kg passengers, but you cannot have a 12 kg carry on bag. They make you check it if it weighs more than 7 kg. I will be over the limit with my backpack carry on bag, with a tablet computer, my dop kit, 2 changes of clothes and a light jacket. Forget about three or four changes clothes you might want to carry for a month long trip. I guess that they want to force you to check your bags, and for that they can charge an extra fee.

I understand that if you are flying using the cheapest fare that they may charge you for carry on bags, checked bags, water, food, etc… But at least let me fill my bag with clothes and a dop kit. By the way, their checked bag is limited to 30 kg which is about 66 pounds and way more than I want to carry, but since  they charge for each bag, it may be better to only check one bag for the two of us and have to fight with the heavier bag if flying those airlines.

We found the same issue with Jetstar Airways to fly from Melbourne to Queenstown.

When compared to Air New Zealand, for flying economy, they have the same limits but for regular economy or business or various alliance partnership levels, the weight limit is 14 kg which is about 30 pounds plus you can have a personal bag or laptop or purse.

Quantas allows you to bring 14 kg of stuff onto the plane with the carryon bag being 10 kg and the 4 additional kg being in a personal bag or computer bag.

When I checked American Airlines and United Airlines, they both provided size limits for carry on bags as well as a personal bag to place under the seat, but no weight limits.

When we flew down under 5 years ago and again 2 years ago on Air New Zealand, our carry on bags weren’t an issue. The next time I fly down under, I know which airlines I won’t book with.

Should I buy a drinks package on my cruise

Photo from The Office in Cabo San Lucas in 2012

If you are taking a cruise, one of the things you need to decide to do before you leave home is to buy or not to buy a drinks package.  It really depends on several things because every adult in the cabin has to buy one if you do. Also, how much you drink per day is a consideration and finally, what do you drink. Is it regular everyday stuff or do you only drink premium liquor.

The cost of most packages adds up to the cost of buying 8-10 beers or 5-7 cocktails per day, every day, even when you are in port. If you only have a glass of wine or two at dinner, you would be wasting money on a drinks package. If you drink and the other adults in your cabin don’t drink, you would probably be wasting your money. Also, if you have kids in your cabin, some cruise lines require you to purchase a non-alcoholic drink package for each child.

Also, the drinks package does not include the drinks in the mini bar in your cabin or drinks on your excursions.

Here is a link to a drinks calculator to look at: Cruzley Drinks Package Calculator.

One more thing to consider, most cruise lines add 18-20% to the cost of drinks or a drinks package as a gratuity. Keep this in mind so that you don’t waste money over-tipping at the bar since the tip is included in the price.

Finally, remember that most drinks packages don’t include specialty coffee drinks either.

Save Time on Your Return From Overseas

When you travel to an international destination, especially if you travel from a smaller airport, you will discover that you are always routed through a larger airport on your return so that you can go through Customs and Border Protection(CBP). Now, it is true that you usually cannot fly to international destinations from your smaller airport, but you can still save time upon your return by being able to avoid the CBP hassle upon your return.

How, you might ask? Use CBP Preclearance.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Preclearance is the strategic stationing of CBP personnel at designated foreign airports to inspect travelers prior to boarding U.S.-bound flights. With Preclearance, travelers then bypass CBP and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inspections upon U.S. arrival and proceed directly to their connecting flight or destination. These airports also allow you to use your Global Entry identification number to make it through the check-in process more quickly. Also, keep in mind that you will want to get to the airport a little earlier on your trip home to go through the preclearance.

As of December 2023, CBP has staff stationed at 15 Preclearance locations in 6 countries:

  • Dublin and Shannon in Ireland
  • Aruba
  • Bermuda
  • Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates
  • Nassau in the Bahamas
  • Calgary, Toronto, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Victoria, and Winnipeg in Canada

I did not know about this program when we traveled to Calgary in 2021 and was quite surprised that we did not have to go through CBP upon landing in the US. After a little research, I discovered the magic that saved us time at the end of a long travel day.

Keep in mind that the time saved is great, but putting the extra hassle at the beginning of your return trip means that after a long and tiring flight, especially if you don’t sleep well on an airplane, means that you get out of the airport sooner to get home to your own bed for a good night’s sleep.

The real question has to do with the convenience of travelling through one of the above airports if you are going beyond those destinations. For example, is it worth the effort to fly through Dublin to visit South Africa.

Generally when we travel to Africa, we travel through London Heathrow to break up the trip as well as to spend a few days in London. But, London Heathrow does not have preclearance and Dublin does and we would love to spend more time visiting Ireland. So, as noted above, is it more expensive to fly through Dublin vs flying through London to get to South Africa.

When I checked in December 2023 for a trip to Africa during the Emerald Season in May 2024, the round trip from Sacramento was priced between $2250 and $2750 per person for economy plus. Those flights went through various European airports, but not Dublin. The round trip from Sacramento to Dublin was about $1600 per person and the round trip from Dublin to South Africa was about $1500. That means that it would have cost about $400-$800 more per person to fly via Dublin.

Follow-up to Planning for an Emergency

When you prepare for a trip, it’s smart to prepare for an emergency too. The threats of political unrest, natural disasters (hurricanes, wildfires, and earthquakes), and terrorist attacks—both at home and abroad—are not going away any time soon. But by all means don’t focus so much on highly unlikely, spectacular risks that you ignore the mundane risks that are far more likely to do you harm. For example, I traveled to London recently, and I optimized my family’s safety not by doing anything so extreme as avoiding the Tube (a target of past terrorist attacks) or abstaining from a cricket match at The Oval (another potential target, what with 24,000 spectators in a stadium), but by making sure that we looked both ways when crossing the street (it’s easy to look in the wrong direction in countries where people drive on the left) and that we used a bathmat in our rental apartment so we would not slip and fall in an unfamiliar shower.

In addition to keeping risks in perspective, here’s what I do to be prepared for emergencies when I travel:

Before Your Trip

1. Enroll in STEP.
Signing up for the State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program makes it easier for the U.S. embassy to send you important information about safety conditions, contact you in an emergency, and help family and friends get in touch with you. Enrolling is easy and quick.

2. Activate your phone for overseas use so that, at a minimum, you can send and receive text messages.
That way you can communicate with others in your traveling party via text message, receive STEP security updates and Twitter Alerts (see #14) via text message, etc.

3. Depending on how remote or risky your destination is, consider carrying a satellite phone or satellite text-messaging device.
In an emergency, you could lose your ability to communicate by cell phone. Internet access could be unavailable as well. Satellite devices do not depend on cell-phone or Internet technology and are much less expensive to rent than they used to be. In countries where satellite phones are illegal—India and China, for instance—you can rent a local mobile phone.

4. Whatever your communication device is, carry extra battery power for it.
If you’re using a smartphone, attach a Mophie or carry a charging block; if you’re using a satellite phone, have an additional battery.

5. Choose a hotel in the right neighborhood, with the right TV news channels and high-speed Internet access.
If you’ve got CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, and fast Wi-Fi, you can easily monitor the news and check local English-language websites for news and help. Pick a hotel that is not located close to a symbolic plaza where protests and traffic jams occur (e.g., Taksim Square in Istanbul, or Tahrir Square in Cairo).

6. Book your trip through the right destination specialist.
This gives you a local fixer, advocate, problem solver. The travel specialists on my WOW List know which areas of their destination are safe and which aren’t, and arrange trips based on the latest on-the-ground intel. They connect you with the savviest drivers and “guides” — more expediters and strategists than traditional tour guides — who have the background and credentials to keep you safe and have access to key people in the country who will take care of you. I know this based not only on personal experience, having traveled under their vigilance, but also based on years of feedback from travelers. For example, when Nepal specialist Toni Neubauer had WendyPerrin.com travelers in Nepal during the 2015 quake, she quickly got them on a flight out of the country. (Read the review of Toni that the travelers, Joe and Rowena Burke, posted on Toni’s reviews page.) At dicey moments, Israel specialist Joe Yudin has kept WendyPerrin.com travelers safe (read Nadika Wignarajan’s review here), Turkey specialist Earl Starkey has as well (read reports from his travelers here). WOW Listers also provide you with the physical tools to stay safe: India specialist Sanjay Saxena, for instance, gives you an in-country mobile phone pre-programmed with numbers for local staff, hotels, emergency services, etc. Of course, his in-country and U.S. staff are available 24/7 as well.

7. Pack certain medicines.
Bring a prescription antibiotic and prescription pain reliever that you know work for you, in case you end up needing to be your own doctor. Bring iodine tablets (or one of the newer technologies) to purify dirty water too, since, in an emergency, bottled water supplies quickly run out.

8. Plot on a paper map where the local embassy, consulate, and best hospitals are.
In an emergency you won’t want to rely on your smartphone or Google Maps app to get you there; you’ll want to save your battery for calls to loved ones, doctors, etc. Know where the best hospitals are—not just for the capital city, which could be hours away from where you are when a crisis strikes, but for other cities too.

9. Purchase an emergency assistance plan.
A MedjetHorizon membership can get you safely out of a crisis situation 24/7 and can also get you out of a foreign hospital and back home to a hospital you know and trust. They can come to the rescue in the event of a terrorist or political threat, violent crime, or if you need a ground ambulance, specialty hospital transfer, or cash advance.

During Your Trip

10. Program your cell phone with emergency numbers.
Remember that 911 does not work for countries outside the USA and Canada. Here’s one list of local emergency numbers, but also ask your hotel concierge for the best numbers for the police, medical emergencies, and someone at your hotel who can help.

11. Carry a mini-flashlight.
You don’t want to get caught in the dark.

12. Carry your hotel’s business card, in the local language.
You can show it to police or taxi drivers to get back to safety quickly.

13. Carry a photocopy of your passport photo page and any visas.

Keep it on your person during the trip, in case the original is back at your hotel (usually the smartest place to keep it) or gets lost in the emergency.

14. Follow relevant Twitter feeds that can provide reliable, accurate updates and potentially life-saving alerts.
Such Twitter feeds will vary by destination and type of emergency. Usually, though, you’ll want to follow the U.S. embassy feed in the country you’re visiting, as well as the U.S. State Department’s feed, @travelgov. The @RedCross and Google’s Crisis Response Team, @GoogleCR, are also worth following, as are the local airport’s feed, which may post updates about airport delays and shutdowns, and the feeds of local hotels, which usually have an emergency action plan and may be offering help or a landline. You can also turn on Twitter Alerts for the feeds relevant to the destination you’re headed to.

15. Know that Google has a person finder and Facebook has a Safety Check feature.
In natural and humanitarian disasters, Google helps track missing persons. When a crisis occurs, Facebook activates its Safety Check feature: If you’re in an affected area, use it to alert friends and family that you’re okay; if you’re at home, you can use it to search for travelers and confirm their status.

If You Have a Trip Booked to an Area Perceived as Risky

* Don’t overreact: Realize that the geographic area affected is limited.

So often, when a crisis strikes a country, U.S. travelers unnecessarily cancel trips to a huge swath of the world surrounding that country. They avoid regions that have not been affected in the least—which would be like Europeans deciding against a trip to New York because there was an earthquake in San Francisco or a terror attack in Orlando. The Italy earthquake is no reason to cancel a trip to Tuscany, the same way the Nice attack was no reason to cancel a trip to the Dordogne.

* Don’t confuse the probability of an incident with the probability of becoming the victim of that incident.
Is it virtually certain that there will be another terrorist attack in Europe this year?  Yes.  Does that translate into a high degree of risk for the individual traveler to Europe?  No.

* Understand the psychological reasons why your fear of a terrorist attack is out of proportion to the risk—and why you fear a terrorist attack more than an earthquake.
I explain it in my article 7 Keys to Traveling Without Fear Despite Terrorist Attacks.

* Know where the real dangers lie.
Remember that the single biggest cause of death for Americans traveling overseas is motor vehicle accidents.

 

 

  1. PAULA DAVIS

    Reply
    After my mother had to have her appendix removed in Italy -I also suggest you have google translate downloaded on your phone and keep a record of not only your medications,/doses but recent major surgeries as well along with contact information for those surgeons and your primary care doctors.
  2. LINDA DE SOSA

    Reply
    One other note – I was in a bad car accident in a rental car. Make sure they have given you the number to call for help. I ended up being transferred to their internal computer help number like my monitor had broken. Thdy wanted me to call AA which I found out an agonizing day later.
  3. DONNA THOMAS

    Reply
    Hi Wendy a great and timely article. I had always left my medications , spare contact lenses and glasses back in my hotel room. as did my travelers. I learned in the Christchurch earthquake what a mistake this is. I now advise travelers to keep at least half their essential medication with them and the spare contacts, glasses with them not in the hotel. As several of our hotels were destroyed in the quake , travelers could not reach their medication or spare seeing devices. Now by carrying a few days of meds with them they are assured they will have essential prescriptions for a few days. We learned you cant always get back to the hotel. During the earth quake pharmacies were closed so even a prescription we had faxed could not be filled, We were fortunate to work with the local Christchurch Hospital in obtaining necessary medications for our travelers but some locations might not be as helpful..We also found passports quite the challenge. Many travelers had stored them in their in room safes which could not be accessed in a hotel in rubble , having the spare copy of the photo page as you suggested was essential but also leaving a copy of it with their WOW specialist would ensure a quicker reproduction of their passport at the embassy.

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Turning Dreams into Memories,
One Vacation at a Time.
Bon Voyage!!!

As you might guess, this document is a compilation of information from our travels as well as from other travelers. I hope it has been of value to you.  Check out the important links below.

Don’t hesitate to email us when you return from your trip with any suggestions that will make this document better for you and your fellow travelers!

You may also want to visit our Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/TeamEdwardsTravel

Travel Documents – COVID-19

It’s Time to Travel!

For the past 2 years, most of us did not do much in the way of international travel because of the COVID-19 restrictions. However, we did manage a 2-week trip to Alberta, Canada last year. I can fully recommend a trip to Calgary. We stayed in Canmore which is just a few miles from Banff. Beautiful place to visit.

Now that most countries are allowing travel, you need to know as much as possible regarding entry requirements for the countries you are visiting or transiting through. It was time for us to dust off our 2020-planned trip to Zambia for another safari.

It is pretty clear that the U.S. still requires an antigen test and in fact, requires you to obtain it one day before you board your airplane to come home. Not a problem since they are available almost everywhere. I had already located the lab in Lusaka, Zambia where we could get the test. That meant staying an extra night in Zambia since their website still said that it would take 24 hours for the results when everywhere else only took 20 minutes; but that was ok. I also discovered that it would be cheaper to do the test at Johannesburg airport, so, at the last minute we changed our plan to get the test in Zambia and opted to get in Johannesburg. That would save us about 500 Rand (about $32 USD). Not a lot of money, but money none the less.

A Bump in the Road

Unfortunately, not every country keeps an updated website listing their requirements, or they are often vague about what you need to do. So, no matter how well you plan, you can still end up with problems like we did.

COVID19 Blank Vac RecordFor example, our planned trip to Zambia would transit through South Africa. When we started planning the trip, both countries required us to get a PCR test 72 hours before going through their countries. In late March 2022, both countries changed their rules. As of March 22, 2022 you had to do the PCR test or to provide proof of vaccination. No where on the government websites of South Africa or Zambia noted what exactly was required for proof. Would they accept the little paper copy of a shot record from Kaiser? That is what we had in hand when we set off on our trip. All set, or so we thought. When we arrived in Johannesburg, late in the evening, they told us that our documents did not meet their requirements because they did not have the QR code, but since the unit that handles that issue was already closed, we were allowed to pass thru without any other issue. Yay!

That meant that we would need to get our vaccination records with the QR code. I did remember logging into a California website a few months earlier that provided a QR code vaccination record. To make sure that we were ready for our return trip, I logged into the California Department of Public Health, Digital COVID-19 Vaccine Record website. I completed the information and they provided our proof of vaccination with a QR code. Everything was ready to go with a copy of the document in my phone. (I am sure that your state provides a similar service.)

Are You Kidding Me?

As they say, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry”. When we arrived in Johannesburg, they would not accept our State of California proof with the QR code. They did not say what they would accept, but it had to have the QR code on it. They also said that their rules had changed at 10:00 am that morning which now required their sacred vaccination record with the QR code or an antigen test. Our only alternative was to wait for 2 hours in a line of a few hundred people to get an antigen test before we could actually enter the terminal’s passport check area.

We took our test but, but they did not issue a certificate. They just taped the plastic test piece to our travel documents to enter South Africa and required us to photograph it and show the photo to the border guards. They would not give us the proof of the test. That left us with the question of “How do we get back into the U.S. without a certificate showing that we had a negative antigen test? Then, I remembered our return trip from Canada last October and that the airline only asked for the Passenger Disclosure and Attestation Form, not the test certificate signed off by the person who gave the test. With that in hand, we were ready to return to the US. Just remember that you really want to have that proof of testing in hand when you enter the US. They could always ask for it at your first port of entry as you go through passport control.

We’ll Be Ready Next Time

Africa Union LogoWhen we got home, I was still looking for the info needed to get the correct document with the QR code for travel to Africa. I finally found it so that you don’t have to look for it.

On that site, you fill out the info on your tests from your little vaccine record card. Then photograph it and upload it to their website. When completed, they give you the option to print the certificate with their approved QR code or email it to yourself. I have my document, but I have to say that I am not fully convinced that it will get me through the Johannesburg airport. They will probably have changed their rules before we return to Africa. Just in case, next time I will also have a PCR test before we get on the plane.

There are a couple of additional documents you may need, depending upon which country you are visiting. Both Zambia and South Africa require you to complete a Traveler Health Questionnaire before you land and to provide that document to airport staff person checking your documents. You can even fill out the PDF and bring printed copies with you.

If you were planning to travel to Mexico, I just discovered that “Starting March 2022, it will NO longer be necessary to fill out the Health Questionnaire, to fly in/out from Mexico.”

As with every trip we take, we learn something new. “Travel is broadening”; just don’t come back too broad! We’re looking forward to our next trip, next week, to Cabo San Lucas!

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Turning Dreams into Memories,
One Vacation at a Time.
Bon Voyage!!!

As you might guess, this document is a compilation of information from our travels as well as from other travelers. I hope it has been of value to you.  Check out the important links below.

Don’t hesitate to email us when you return from your trip with any suggestions that will make this document better for you and your fellow travelers!

You may also want to visit our Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/TeamEdwardsTravel

What do you do when you can’t get an Uber or Lyft?

The logical answer might be to just call a taxi. I don’t know about you, but I am not too fond of taxi cabs. Besides that, I like to book my transfers before I leave home. Call me paranoid, but that is what I do.

The back story; the airlines have changed our flights from Venice to Paris, and I don’t think there is enough time to make our flight after the ship docks and we get off and get a ride to the airport. Unfortunately, as far as the airlines are concerned, the time difference is not enough to qualify for us getting a new flight without paying about $350 per person in penalties along with any difference in the cost of the tickets.

Our solution is to disembark at Trieste, Italy and take the train to Venice and stay the night close to the airport so that we an make our flight. That leaves us with the need to get from the cruise port to the train station in Trieste as well as from the train station in Venice (really Venezia S. Lucia in Mestre, Italy) to the hotel near Marco Polo International airport.

After giving up on Lyft and Uber, I found the perfect solution. GoOpti. Their fares are great, especially compared to a cab. Only 30 Euros in Trieste and 18 Euros in Mestsre for the two of us. That plus 14.80 Euros for the train ride and about 150 Euros for the hotel room sure beats the penalty for trying to change our flights.

The best thing, of course, is a sightseeing train ride in Italy that will cost less than the cost for an excursion that we could buy through the cruise line.

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Turning Dreams into Memories,
One Vacation at a Time.
Bon Voyage!!!

As you might guess, this document is a compilation of information from our travels as well as from other travelers. I hope it has been of value to you.  Check out the important links below.

Don’t hesitate to email us when you return from your trip with any suggestions that will make this document better for you and your fellow travelers!

You may also want to visit our Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/TeamEdwardsTravel

Thinking About a Self-Guided Trip to Europe?

Picture of Parliament at night in Budapest
Thinking About a
Self-Guided Trip To Europe?

If you are planning a trip to Europe where you will be traveling via airplanes, trains and the metro and you have never done it here at home, you may be in for a rude awakening.

Most of our trips had been by car or by car to the airport followed with a rental car or a shuttle to the hotel or resort.

Each one of us almost always had one 24″-26″ roller bag that was checked plus a 22″ carry on plus a personal bag like a purse or computer case or book bag style backpack for personal stuff that you wanted to have handy at all times.

We were not ready for the challenge of hauling all of our suitcases up and down 2-3 flights of stairs to get from one metro train to another, nor were we really familiar with how to navigate the metro system with all of those bags.

If you are planning such a trip, I suggest that you do what I heard Rick Steves say in one of his videos(that you will find on this page). He said to pack your bags, take a short trip via train, bus and subway or metro and spend the night and return home one or two days later. You will be ready to trade in your big suitcase and learn to pack light so that you are not lugging 80 – 100 pounds of stuff with you on your European trip. You will enjoy that trim much more if you can learn to travel light.

ebags Backpack

On this trip we will start in Sacramento and spend a couple of nights in San Francisco. First, we will have a friend drop us at the Amtrack train station in Sacramento. From there we will travel to Richmond, take the BART(our version of the Metro) to San Francisco, then walk to our hotel. We will do the Hop on-Hop off bus tour of the city, just like we were tourists, to get the lay of the land. On Saturday we will visit the great farmer’s market at the Ferry Building, then return home on Sunday.

You can try the same thing wherever you live. Do it or you will hate your self and be miserable on your European Vacation.

 

Travel Documents – Global Entry

One of the things to think about before your trip is the process of coming home and going through Passport Control.

You have 3 options when you return to the US.

  1. You can wait in the long line with the rest of the people.
  2. You can use Mobile Passport to go to a shorter line.
  3. You can get your Global Entry approval to go to the very short line.

Fortunately for those of us who have opted for number 2 or number 3, most people only take infrequent international trips and don’t know or don’t want to take the time to learn about the other options.

We don’t want to be in those lines. We may have had to suffer through them when we arrived in the foreign country on our trip, but we don’t want to do it when we’re tired after a long trip home.

The second option is using an app on your phone called Mobile Passport. We continue to use this second option while we wait for the government to get back to us. I wrote a post about Mobile Passport several months ago. You can click here to read it. The best part of this option is that it is free.

The third option is really the first choice for frequent international travelers. That would be to sign up for Global Entry  Of course, that means that after your conditional approval, you will need to go to one of the very few international airports for your interview. For us, that means going to San Francisco to do the interview. A pain in the back side. Also, after you fill out the documents and pay the fee, you can still end up waiting months before you get your conditional approval. We applied in May for an October trip. Still no joy and it is already September. It does not look like we will have it for our next international trip; maybe we will have it for next year.

After you get the conditional approval, you need to sign up for the interview. Unfortunately, it could be several more months before you can go in for your interview. If you have your conditional approval, you can get an interview on the fly if you return from an international trip and land at one of the several dozen airports that allow it, you can do your interview there after you disembark. When landing in an international terminal follow the signage directing you to CBP officers who can complete your Global Entry interview during your admissibility inspection. Click here for info on that process. We hope that we at least have the conditional approval before we leave in October so that we can use this process when we return. Otherwise, it will mean a trip to San Francisco before our next big trip in 2020.

One of the nice things about Global Entry is that it includes Pre-Check. Unfortunately our Pre-Check was expiring this fall and we expected to have Global Entry in place so we were not going to renew it. Well, we had to renew it because of the long delay in getting Global Entry. That was an extra expense of $170 that we were not happy about.

Of course, there are a couple of other options. If for example all of your international travel is between the US and Canada, you may want to consider Nexus. If your travel is only to Mexico and Canada, then you should look at Sentri. These two examples may include Pre-Check too.

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Turning Dreams into Memories,
One Vacation at a Time.
Bon Voyage!!!

As you might guess, this document is a compilation of information from our travels as well as from other travelers. I hope it has been of value to you.  Check out the important links below.

Don’t hesitate to email us when you return from your trip with any suggestions that will make this document better for you and your fellow travelers!

You may also want to visit our Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/TeamEdwardsTravel

Travel Documents – Visas and ETAs

Passport Graphic

Whenever you plan to travel internationally from the United States, you need to check to see if you need to have a visa. Many countries are on a short list that approves travelers with US Passports without a visa. Many of them who do require a visa, do not require that you get one before you leave home. You can often get one at a border crossing or at the airport.

You do need to make sure that you have adequate room in your Passport for the stamps and for most countries, you need at least 6 months left on your Passport’s expiration date to enter a foreign country.

When we went to South Africa in 2015, we got our visa online before we left home, but picked up our visa for Zambia at the airport after we landed.

When we went to Kenya and Tanzania in 2018, we needed to go online to order our mulit-visit visa for Kenya. On the other hand, we did not get our Tanzania visa before we left home. We didn’t want to send them our passports and hope we get them back before we left for our trip. Also, there is more than one type of visa to visit Tanzania. There is one for people who are transiting the country. At the time of this writing, that is about $30. For those who are visiting Tanzania, the fee is about $100. Also, they want newer, clean, crisp $20 dollar bills, or in the case of the transit visa, a couple of $5 dollar bills to go with your $20. Also, if you are with a guide, they won’t believe that you are transiting the country so make sure to have the $100 in clean cash.

Another thing to think about when we discuss getting a visa. For many years, most countries listed the United States on a short list of countries that did not have to apply for a visa to visit that country. Things are changing. Many countries, such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia, now require us to apply online for an ETA (Electronic Travel Authorization). Check the rules closely since they can vary based upon your method of travel. For example, as of September 2019, to go to Canada by air, you need an ETA, but by ship or car, you don’t need one.

You need to do this before you leave home, so don’t forget to check the countries you are visiting to make sure you are good to go.

———————————————————————-

Turning Dreams into Memories,
One Vacation at a Time.
Bon Voyage!!!

As you might guess, this document is a compilation of information from our travels as well as from other travelers. I hope it has been of value to you.  Check out the important links below.

Don’t hesitate to email us when you return from your trip with any suggestions that will make this document better for you and your fellow travelers!

You may also want to visit our Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/TeamEdwardsTravel

Travel Documents – Real ID

I am sure that you know that you need a passport for most international travel.I am also sure that you have heard that by October 1, 2020, you will need to have your driver’s license updated/reissued to travel stateside in compliance with the Real ID law. Of course, you could use your passport for all of your air travel, but if you don’t want to carry it for domestic travel, get your driver’s license updated if you are over 18 years of age.

Of course, each state has to set up the issuance of a Federally approved Real ID. All of them are doing it through their Department of Motor Vehicles. For my friends who live in California, here is the link to the DMV website to use to determine which of your documents will suffice to get your Real ID. As of September 2019, almost all of the states have had their version of the Real ID approved by the Feds. Click Here for more info. If you live in Oregon or one of the other states without an approved Real ID, make sure that you have your passport in order. Yes, there are a few other documents that will suffice, but whatever you do, don’t show up at an airport after October 1st without the proper ID or you won’t be allowed to fly. That could really ruin an otherwise well planned trip.

Now that we have done the extra research about Real ID, it is time to double check our passports to make sure that we have at least 6 months on our passports beyond the time we will be traveling and that we have at least 2 empty pages for passport stamps and visa stamps for each country that we are visiting.

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Turning Dreams into Memories,
One Vacation at a Time.
Bon Voyage!!!

As you might guess, this document is a compilation of information from our travels as well as from other travelers. I hope it has been of value to you.  Check out the important links below.

Don’t hesitate to email us when you return from your trip with any suggestions that will make this document better for you and your fellow travelers!

You may also want to visit our Facebook page, www.Facebook.com/TeamEdwardsTravel