Reva and I get asked often about the places we travel and how we are able to manage all our trips.  Well, its not always easy and certainly not always smooth, but we have learned a lot over the years.  In this blog I am going to share a few of my top recommendations.  These aren’t in any order and I am not including everything…just what I consider the most important.

Pick a great travel credit card: Right now, we prefer Capital One’s Venture X Card.    It costs $395 annually ($545 if you add a guest for the airport clubs).  It gives you $300 travel credit plus 10,000 points.  That is $400 in value.  It provides “primary” rental car insurance and access to all the Capital One and Priority Pass Airport Clubs.  It is substantially cheaper than the Chase Saphire Reserve or the American Express Platinum Cards.  It has a nice sign-up bonus as well.  If you are interested click here:   https://i.capitalone.com/JILPEqKZF

Travel light…real light! We learned the hard way and now travel with just a 21-inch roller bag and a backpack.  It doesn’t matter if we are on the road a few weeks or a few months….that’s all we take.  The first time you have to lug your suitcases up and down stairs at the train terminal or up a four-story walk-up in Europe, you learn quick.  Also, the cost for checking bags on flights is also a major deterrent.   Even now, we often find that we haven’t worn all the clothes that we packed.  We have found laundromats on our travels but usually we will book an Airbnb with a washer somewhere along our adventures.  

Make sure you have cell-phone data. We have the Magenta Plan with T-Mobile which gives us data in over 200 countries.  Some travelers buy Sim cards for the countries where they are traveling.  For us, that is too much hassle.  If you need to talk internationally, Voice over Internet works great for calls back to the US or Canada.  For international calls, set up a WhatsApp account.  Overseas, everybody uses WhatsApp!  AT&T, and Version both charge a daily fee for data.  It’s not ridiculous, just make sure you know how to activate it.  Also, if you are on a cruise ship, make sure you keep your phone in airline mode.  If your phone connects to ‘Cellular at Sea”, you can get a very nasty surprise.  For a 20-minute phone call, I was charged over $200.  I fought it and had the charge removed, but it was a major hassle.

Watch you stuff…travel defensively. It’s not really “Pickpocketing”, it’s flat-out robbery or mugging.  There are groups of criminals that will distract you and steal everything you have.  We have been targeted multiple times but have been fortunate enough not to be robbed … at least yet.  Keep your passports and your money safe and watch your backpacks.  Avoid crowds in the major tourist areas…. especially in Barcelona!  Everyone seems to get robbed on Las Ramblas.  Often, someone will distract you, someone else will grab your backpack and pass it off quickly to someone else.  This can happen in seconds!  We have some friends that have been robbed more than once there.  It’s best to leave your valuables locked up at the hotel and travel with just your phone, a little cash and a credit card.  Also, take a photo of your passports and credit cards before you leave,  make sure that those photos are backed up so you can find them if you need them.

Plan, Plan, Plan…..consider what could happen. This is a tough one.  You need to balance the “what if’s” with their probability.  As an example, we navigated the Italian Railway strike by booking high speed trains and having back-up options….but we didn’t expect a landslide that would block the tracks.  If you are taking an international flight, how do you ensure that you don’t miss it? (FYI, the correct answer is “you don’t miss it!”) Do you have insurance?  Do you need it? Have you considered all the country entry requirements?  Are there Visa’s or special charges?  Did you know that to enter some parks, you need to pay the entry fee in cash?  (Gallipolis Islands charge $200 in cash at arrival.) Are there in transit restrictions on your flight connection?  (We saw people denied boarding because they didn’t have a Yellow Fever vaccination and were making a flight connection in Columbia.)  Are you renting a car and need an International Driver’s License?  I could go on and on; the bottom line is you need to look at each step of your travels and make sure you have made plans.  FYI, your credit cards probably won’t be accepted in China and you may need to pay using their phone apps.  Of course, you can’t anticipate everything but you should try.  We see so many clueless Americans traveling around and making dumb mistakes which cost them time and money! 

Get your money in Country. Don’t waste your time or your money changing cash before you leave the US or Canada.  Avoid exchanging money at the airport as well and wait until you can get to a bank ATM.  By using your debit card, you can get funds out with minimal fees.  In Europe, many of the ATMs have no fees on international cards and many US banks rebate fees anyway.  Just do a little research and you can easily avoid getting a bad exchange rate and bad fees.  Your credit cards will work almost everywhere, just check first.  I made the mistake once in Paris and used a money exchange…that was expensive…I lost 20%! There is one notable exception on using banks and ATMS and that is for Argentina.  In Argentina you need to use a Money Exchange “Cambio”.  This is a very dynamic situation so check it out before you travel.  Also, when you use your credit card always pay in the local currency.  If you opt for USD, they will hit you up with a bad exchange rate.  So, always pay (when offered) in the local currency.  You will usually see this when you tap to pay in Europe.  The machine will ask you to confirm your currency.  Push the Euro Botton!

 Your credit card can provide you limited travel insurance, understand its limitations. When traveling, we try to charge as much as possible on our Venture X Card or our Bank of America preferred credit card.  Both provide very good travel insurance in case something happens.  The Venture X even has some limited emergency medical coverage.  As long as you charge a portion of your trip to the credit card you will be able to claim the expense.  I have used it twice for travel issues.  The first one, a cancellation during the Covid -19 pandemic,  was denied (Chase); the other one, a hotel room when the landslide blocked the railroad tracks in Italy, it was quickly approved (Bank of America).

 Expect the unexpected! “Semper Gumby….always be flexible” No matter how well you plan, there will always be surprises.  If you have planned well, you will be able to handle most of them easily.  Actually, when things haven’t went as planned, like landslides in Italy, we have ended up having very pleasant surprises.  Go with the flow!  Our landslide experience ended up stranding us in Domodossola, Italy.  We had a great evening in this small town and ended up spending a few hours chatting with a couple of teenagers at a local pizzeria. It was a much more memorable experience that our original destination; Zermatt, Switzerland. We arrived there the following morning after taking a bus around the landslide.

So go out and enjoy …. Just do your homework first😉