3 Things You Need to Do Before You Leave on Your Overseas Trip

Getting ready to travel internationally is an exciting time, especially if this is going to be your first trip. The anticipation during the days and weeks beforehand builds, and you have something big to look forward to in the middle of the doldrums of your ordinary day-to-day life.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

But as with anything bigger, traveling anywhere requires a fair amount of planning and preparation, and this is even more important if you’re going to be leaving the country and going somewhere overseas.

Here are three things that you will need to do before you leave on your overseas trip:

#1 - Confirm That Your Passport Is up to Date

Just because that your passport is still valid doesn’t mean that the country you’re traveling to will accept it.

As a golden rule, your passport still needs to be valid for at least six months after your date of return. The State Department even recommends that it be valid for at least nine months after your date of return, and at least other travelers say one full year.

The reason for this is because if you are detained or delayed in the country you’re visiting for whatever reason, the authorities want to make sure that it will still be fully legal for you to travel.

#2 - Get Cash

Specifically, you need to get cash in the currency of the country you’ll be visiting. You can absolutely pay for everything with credit cards if you want to (in fact, that might be smart so you can add up rewards points), but it’s still wise to have cash on hand as well for emergencies.

To acquire cash in another currency, you will need to use a third party money transfer service. As Remitly points out, all you will need to do is convert your money and then have the cash of the other currency sent to a pick-up location in the destination of the country you’re visiting.

#3 - Invest in Travel Insurance

Travel insurance is an investment that many novice travelers neglect to make. This is a mistake, because travel insurance can really save you financially if you encounter any costly emergencies overseas.

For example, you may have to return home quickly and cancel your upcoming flights and hotel room stays. Or, you may get sick or sustain a serious injury and require medical treatment in a foreign hospital; chances are extremely high that you’re current healthcare plan isn’t going to cover overseas medical costs, but several travel insurance plans will. Just be sure that you read the fine print of your plan.

Leaving on Your Overseas Trip

Yes, there are more things you’ll need to do to prepare for your trip besides those things that we have just covered. But the trip preparation steps that we have covered here today are among the most important for you to remember, especially if this is your first international trip ever.