How To Prepare For Your Trip Abroad

I can’t believe that I leave for my study abroad trip in less than a week! I am so excited but also quite nervous trying to make sure I have everything together so that the trip runs smoothly. Here is how I have been preparing.

Update Your Vaccinations

Italy requires a booster shot if you got your COVID-19 vaccine more than nine months ago. Unfortunately this means that I had to go get mine.

Upload Your Health Information To The Airlines

Delta has the opportunity to upload your vaccination records and review the requirements to travel internationally so that you can be fully informed and prepared for your trip.

Refill Your Prescriptions

This may seem like a no brainer but I once forgot to check how many pills I had left in my bottle before heading to Mexico and had a nightmare of a time trying to contact my doctor to refill it. Since then, I have been hyper aware of making sure I have more than enough of my medications.

Call Your Bank

Give you bank a call to let them know which card you will be using abroad so that they do not flag it for fraud. They can give you helpful information about conversion fees as well. It is also smart to go ahead and have your bank convert cash into the local currency that you can bring along with you.

Switch Your Phone Plan

Make sure to switch your plan so that you are not getting charged ridiculous amounts of money for calls and messaging while abroad.

Create An Itinerary

I used Excel to organize an itinerary of my trip (or what I know about it so far). My study abroad program sent us a schedule for our orientation week when we get there so I made sure to make note of everything. I also have my flight information, class schedule, and excursions all recorded so I can easily glance at each week.

Write Out Important Information

When you study abroad, the company will flood your email with important information. To stay organized, I created an important document with names of our trip leaders, their numbers, emergency numbers, addresses, and more.

Make Copies of Important Documents

I have scanned my passport, drivers license, insurance and vaccination card. I will bring the original document and one copy with me and leave one copy at home in case anything gets lost or stolen.

Clear Your Phone Storage

You will be wanting to take lots of pictures and there is nothing worse than your phone saying you can’t because of lack of storage. I am going to go through and delete podcasts and unnecessary data before my trip.