Useful tips to get you by. - x[posted anonymously]x
One tip I got was to scan your passport and other travel documents then email them to yourself in case you lose them. Useful. Anyone got any other tips? Could be anything, like what you took on a backpacking trip that you just didn't need, or something you wish you brought.
Reply to this Good topic: More Passport Tips;
1. When travelling keep a photocopy of your passport for minor
Bureaucracy - like buying bus tickets, registering in hotels.
2. Keep your real passport safe close to your skin, and in a airtight/water tight bag (gets sweaty close to the skin).
3. If your travelling with a partner - take a photocopy of each others passport and keep with your own.
(notes on 2) This will minimise the damage to your passport - I wish I done this during my early travels - I now get funny looks at border controls and have to convince the occasional official that the passport is fine and just went through the washing machine. "Yes - I will get a replacement as soon as possible".
Reply to this Banking online and travelling:
Many internet cafes are not really safe places to enter in sensitive personal information. There are little programs that capture keystrokes and then phone home to the mothership, to send in usernames and passwords. You don't want whatever meger balance might have been in your account being transferred to mystery virus writer so:
1) Avoid using online banking in internet cafes as much as possible.
2) Many online banks feature the use of drop downs - enter in letter 3 of your password etc - so that keystroke collectors can't get the whole thing.
3) If you do have to; Entering usernames and passwords; type a random sentence anywhere - like in notepad - "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is a good one - and use the copy and paste functions to build your username and password.
4) Make sure no one is looking over your shoulder and always, always LOG OUT.
Reply to this Pin Numbers for ATM etc.
Make sure you know PIN number in Numeric as well as Alpha characters. Some countries only have Numbers while others only use Alpha.
Reply to this in some countries pin numbers are only 4 characters long...so if it exceeds that, well,...you can say good bye to every atm opportunity....
if you're a girl, a skirt for bus traveling. it covers your bum better than anything else for side of the road toilet stops.
Reply to this I suppose a thread like this one will always be useful, even if it is old, so here is something I have learned from experience of travelling in the third world.
Ask your bank to give you their best and newest cash notes. One the most annoying aspects of travelling in the third world is the bank note snootiness. You hand over your 20 dollars US, and the bank teller or money changer looks down her/his nose at it, and announces something like 'that note is too old'. Then when I say something like 'it is not too old to use, in the US', they say something like 'it is not good enough for our customers(which for some reason I dont seem to be included as one of)'.
I generally bring new looking notes in small denominations these days, to avoid wasting my time arguing with third world bank employees.
I wonder if there are any tips for getting quickly past the third world border guards, without paying a bribe. One way I accidently found is to sit down, take out a book and be prepared to spend some time reading. Ironically, I have never had to spend time reading, since I resigned myself so much to the border guard thing, that I always have a good book at hand. As soon as I sit comfortably(if there is such a thing at a third world border), somebody magically sorts my problem within a minute. It is as if they just have to disagree with whatever I think is going to happen.
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