If you are lucky enough to be going on a long trip or extended vacation we’re excited for you. For a variety of reasons we’ve always been somewhat restricted from taking long trips. Limited work vacation windows, pets to get back to, or simply limited time or money have held us back.
We’ve often thought, especially on those far away trips, that after traveling 20 or more hours to get to a destination, you really only start to get a feel for the place after about a week. The jet lag has finally subsided and you are getting used to your surroundings and starting to feel normal and adjusted. You don’t want to come back home, you are just getting started—this is the time to explore. There is always one more exciting thing that could be a day trip around the corner… in the next country, or a short flight away.
How we would have loved to see Sri Lanka and the Maldives while in India… even Kerala ‘God’s own Country’ or Pondicherry which was just a short driving distance away, but we ran out of time. Now to get back it’s a 30-hour ordeal instead of a short day trip.
Having enough time to take things at a more leisurely pace gets you more tuned into the place you are visiting as well. You may even start to develop some habits like finding a favorite coffee spot or restaurant. People start to recognize you and you may even make some friends. Quite different from running like a mad tourist, map in one hand looking to convert money and buy souvenirs. You start to get more of an appreciation for what the locals must feel like and perhaps even start to ‘fit in’.
Here are some tips to think about and things to consider doing when going on a longer trip.
- Anything longer than a couple of weeks may require notifying your insurance company. Typical vacations are ok, but more than a month may require that they know and you may even need to pay a vacant property premium.
- Check out your health insurance, does your out of country coverage or trip coverage extend beyond 30 days?
- Tell your bank or your credit cards, they are particularly careful with fraud and even if you can sort it out with a phone call, it’s added stress when you are trying to get to your flight and credit cards are being declined for hotels or rental cars
- Set up auto-pay on your bills, remote banking may be difficult (and connections may be unsecure). You may also be having so much fun you don’t think about the local electric bill or pool company.
- Make sure to get a long enough supply of medications; you may need special approval from the insurance company for more than a 30-day supply so talk to your doctor or pharmacy and plan this in advance.
- Make arrangements for your pets, check these a week before leaving. Some of the services we have used have been suddenly unavailable and we’ve had to make other arrangements quickly.
- Setup some cameras so you can see for yourself. We sometimes set our motion detect cameras up by the front door to see if any packages are left. We’ve even left one by the cat bowl so we get a few live pics from our cat when traveling.
- Turn off the water if you can so if there is a leak you will only get what’s’ in the pipes. Of course if you do have pets and or sprinklers this may not be possible. In this case those water alarms may be a good way to get someone’s attention if they are doing a quick survey. We had these on hot water heater tanks and below sinks.
- Turn off the hot water heater circuit breaker; it won’t take long to warm up again once you are back.
- Draw blinds and sunshades to help with keeping the house cool in summer.
- Consider a service to check on the house once a week or so. Many services are insured and bonded; our pet sitter was a great resource for this and would go above and beyond with checking on other aspects of the house for us also. A neighbor or friend is another option.
- Keep one of those portable battery boosters in the trunk as well as a spare battery for your car remote in the glove box (or in your luggage). Nothing like coming back from a long flight only to find that your car won’t start in the airport parking lot.
We did hear another good tip recently from one of our readers (Juhan) about your freezer and how to know if you had a power failure that could affect your freezer contents. Put a cup of ice with a quarter on top of it in the freezer. If you come home and find the coin at the bottom of the cup, you know you had a freezer issue and your food is likely spoiled.
If you can think of other tips to add let us know in the comments.
Once you’re out the door… leave it at home… and enjoy your vacation!
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