Nathan's Insights

With two big international trips coming up in 2024 with my nieces in April 2024 (Europe with Darby) and December 2024 (Ecuador and USA with Erin) my mind has focused on how I can help them prepare.

So I started considering what I had learned over my many trips.

What were the mistakes that easily could have been avoided?

How could I keep my costs under control by being prepared?

This line of thinking had me recalling several misadventures including:

• Having only one set of earphones which stopped working in South America on a long 16 hour trip and that killed me listening to music plan.
• How essential the gastro medicine was after getting food poisoning in Peru and India. It stopped a difficult situation from becoming a disastrous situation.
• The one time I was on a plane and a drink fell on me, I though no problems I have a spare top in carry on for this 14 hour flight, but when I dropped some chocolate ice cream on myself this changed to maybe I should have two backups, to I definitely should have more backup when later my checked bag took 2 days to show up.
• The time I lost my wallet in Colombia before a flight which made me glad that I had back up cards and cash in a separate location. I never thought this would occur to me but over 700 days travelling you almost have to expect you will lose your wallet or purse and/or get robbed!

Preparation, Preparation

Preparation for a trip can help relieve stress, help with recovery and just make you more confident.

It can also help you to survive those long transits whether on a plane, or an overnight bus or train or boat. Travelling is about the experiences and most are great but understanding things can go wrong and will, then preparing for these situations can be the differences between having an interesting story or wrecking you trip. So I’ve prepared Darby and Erin a list of things to consider before flying overseas.

Now let’s hope nothing goes wrong in either the Europe or Ecuador trips and Darby and Erin think this preparation wasn’t needed!