Tips for safer travel (part 2)

We’re continuing today our list of tips for safer travel, because there are obviously more than three.

Scan all your major documents

It used to be something of a good habit for experienced travelers to Xerox their passports, visas, travel insurance and other documents, and then keep the copies in a different piece of luggage, in order to safeguard in case of losing them. Nowadays you can do something simpler, simply scan your documents and then e-mail them to yourself or store them up in the cloud, digitizing your documents will ensure that you won’t lose them even if you lose all of your bags.

Don’t trust strangers

This sounds like the type of advice that is given to children – and for good reason – but it also translated very well to older individuals as well, especially when traveling. Obviously, you can never really get to know the true local culture if you don’t trust the locals, but there have to be limits to exactly how much you should trust them.

This extend to things that relate to your direct personal safety – like going with them into a dodgy area of town, or giving them money of consuming their food and drink – when they’re not consuming it themselves.

There will always be scammers looking to take advantage of unwary tourists, so make sure to check out specialized Internet forums and message boards to find out about the latest scans that travelers report in.

Travel insurance

Depending on where you travel, health costs for getting ill or even slightly injured can ramp up fast while abroad, so make sure you get yourself some travel insurance, it will be worth it in that very unlikely case that something bad does happen.

Vaccines

Make sure to visit your doctor before you leave on a trip to some exotic place in order to get all the relevant vaccinations/immunizations for the destination that you’ll be traveling at, and also inform yourself about the health precautions that you should follow once there.