what to do a week before an international flight

Traveling internationally is an adventure best planned alee of time, and not but when information technology comes to booking flights and packing. Sure, showing up at your gate sans passport or forgetting melatonin for your reddish-eye flight tin put a damper on your long-awaited escape, but most of your training should exist dedicated to ensuring health, safe, and financial necessities are covered. To save you some prep time, I've compiled this international travel checklist for your next long-distance journeying.

Focus on Rubber Beginning

One of the easiest and near important items on an overseas travel checklist is likewise arguably the most ignored. Travel insurance and State Department alerts tin be incredibly important in emergencies abroad, but many tourists bet they won't become part of the minor percentage of travelers who crave evacuation assistance or protection from hotel or flight cancellations.

Subscribing to the State Department'due south Step alerts for your destination can assistance you stay up to date on upcoming and current travel restrictions, strikes, and areas of political unrest. Whatever alerts you receive will let you know whether or not to programme for some unexpected obstacles in advance.

Travel insurance can cost as petty as a few dollars per travel twenty-four hour period and cover anything from replacing a broken camera to emergency medical attention, potentially saving you lot hundreds, perhaps even thousands of dollars.

Become Your Travel Documents and Credit Cards in Order

Make sure your passport and any necessary travel visas are up to date. Some countries require a passport to exist valid for at least six months later on your scheduled render, so make sure you won't be turned away or delayed at customs considering of an old passport. Non sure if you need a visa? See this list of every land that requires a visa for Americans.

Keep physical and digital copies of your passport and all your paperwork in example anything is lost, and give copies besides as your itinerary and contact numbers to family unit and friends whom y'all tin contact in case of an emergency.

Notify your bank and credit card companies well-nigh your travel dates and so they don't deny your purchases, and ask about international ATM fees and so y'all tin notice out which ones won't charge y'all. It's ever a good idea to bring multiple cards in case one stops working.

Don't underestimate how helpful a cell phone photograph of your passport can exist. Whether you take to go to the consulate and report it lost, or are but filling out a customs card and need your passport number, information technology will probable come in handy. Electronic mail the epitome to yourself to have an extra digital re-create in case your phone runs out of batteries or goes missing. You lot may also want to bring a spare copy of your passport photograph on your trip; having information technology handy volition speed the processing of a new certificate.

Go Vaccinated

It's best to get the necessary vaccinations out of the way as before long as possible since it tin can take a few weeks to build total immunity. Some also crave multiple doses, which may need to be administered over days, weeks, or even months. Talk to your physician nigh getting the CDC-recommended shots, as the protocol for vaccines varies by state. For example, dozens of countries crave proof of a yellow fever vaccination if y'all've been to at-chance areas. A travel dispensary can assistance you sort out which vaccinations and medications y'all might need.

Go along your vaccination document in your deport-on in case community requires you to present it when entering the country.

Report Up on Your Destination

Whether you're a travel app connoisseur or more of a paperback guidebook person, having some source of noesis about your destination is invaluable. Read virtually the region you're traveling to in accelerate to gain insight into important information such as currency exchange rates, useful phrases, tipping norms, appropriate article of clothing, and cultural/legal community. It'due south best to be prepared and so you lot don't country yourself in a compromising situation.

Make Sure Your Domicile Is Cared For

There's nothing worse than realizing once y'all're six time zones abroad that you forgot to finish your mail delivery or ask someone to water your expertly cultivated house plants. Make certain your daily tasks are covered earlier you leave, or appoint a trusty friend to exercise them for you.

You tin can observe a firm or pet sitter to do your chores if yous're willing to list your dwelling on TrustedHouseSitters.com. Plus, yous could notice lodging through the site for your trip abroad if you're willing to spend some time with someone else's furry friends.

Stay Connected

Want to stay in touch while traveling abroad? If yous haven't taken your phone overseas earlier, call your mobile provider to make certain it will work in the country you're visiting and to ask most international phone plans that might be available. If your carrier'southward plans are expensive, a mobile hotspot tin be a cost-effective culling.

Download the Necessities

Sometimes the virtually important thing y'all'll pack is in your smartphone rather than your suitcase. Offline maps are your all-time friend when it comes to traveling with limited data or battery. You can find Wi-Fi in many places, but downloading offline maps through Google Maps or CityMaps2Go volition allow y'all to follow your GPS without using up battery life and roaming data.

Downloading in-flight entertainment could as well salve you if your Television malfunctions on the long-haul flight. Streaming won't be available without consistent in-flight Wi-Fi (which y'all shouldn't e'er depend on) but y'all can pre-download movies and TV shows through Amazon Prime, and music streaming service Spotify allows paying users to download tracks for offline use with the press of a button.

Don't forget a portable fill-in charger. Watching hours of your favorite Idiot box show is sure to drain your battery life, and there's nothing worse than finally finding a Wi-Fi spot just to have your telephone die.

Pack These Essentials

While the contents of your checked handbag will largely depend on the climate you lot're visiting, you'll want most of your trip's essentials on manus in your bear-on. Start with this international travel checklist of items to pack:

• Passport and visa
• Medications
• Insurance and ID cards
• Greenbacks, debit cards, and credit cards
• Pen to fill out customs forms
• Portable charger
• Earplugs, eye mask, and sleeping pills
• Electrical converters and adapters specific to your destination
• Headphones
• Antibacterial wipes
• Sweater/scarf in case the plane is chilly
• Prison cell phone and charger

For more ideas, see this international packing listing.

Consider taking photos of your packed suitcase (both inside and out) in case it gets lost. That way, airline employees will know what to look for, and y'all'll know what was within in case y'all don't get it dorsum and need to file a claim.

What'south on your international travel checklist? Share your tips in the comments below.

Pin the Checklist for International Travel

Adept Walking Shoes for International Travel

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More than from Smarter Travel:

• The Ultimate Packing List
• ten Ways to Survive a Long-Haul Flight
• x Things to Pack That Volition Relieve You lot Money

Editor Shannon McMahon writes near all things travel. Follow her on Twitter @shanmcmahon_.

Editor's note: This story was originally published in 2016. It has been updated to reflect the most electric current information.

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