Preparing to Travel

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International Travel Preparation, Safety, & Wellness

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Johns Hopkins University

International Travel Preparation, Safety, & Wellness

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Whether you've traveled before or not, living and working overseas can be challenging. Learn how best to prepare and make the most of your time internationally. This course will prepare you to work and live overseas. It explores the epidemiology of common morbidity and mortality among travelers and examines key prevention, safety, and travel medicine principles and services to contextualize risks and maintain wellness. The course reviews applicable interventions, appropriate vaccines, and personal protection methods to prepare you to respond to expected and unexpected situations and will challenge you to examine travel health and safety priorities through case studies and discussions. The Honors Lesson will assist you with personal preparations for travel through the creation of a country-specific profile.

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Nuts and Bolts of Travel Preparation

In this module, we'll go over the basics of preparation, planning, documentation, and insurance. Thinking ahead about all of the elements you'll need is an essential part of the process.

Preparing to Travel19:55

Travel Advisories4:14

Rencontrer les enseignants

Anna Kalbarczyk
Research Associate
International Health

[MUSIC]

Hi everyone, welcome to the lecture on travel documentation and responsibilities.

My name is Anna Kalbarczyk and I'll be teaching this lecture today.

I know that a lot of this might seem very straightforward like things that you

should know especially if you've traveled before.

But when you're traveling as part of a program and traveling internationally,

there are just so many things that you need to keep in mind.

And so we're trying to make sure that you have all of that information upfront, so

you're not scrambling last minute.

So the key messages that you want to take away from this lecture is,

you are responsible for your preparation.

And we're going to give you some tips about things to think about that you

really want to handle everything as early as possible.

Because absolutely everything that can go wrong might go wrong, so

the earlier the better.

And that you want to be thinking about your health and

your safety well in advance of even when you arrive.

And that you want to research where you're going to be going, working and living.

And have a good understanding of how to behave while you're there.

So why don't we start with preparing to travel?

The most important thing is that you do your research well in advance.

And as much as I would love to able to provide you with all of the information

you need per country.

Really everything that you're going to be talking about here, safety issues,

health issues, these change constantly.

So you want to do your research on your own and

rely on other people to give advice where they can.

So we're going to have all of these sites posted on the lecture page, so

you can visit them as you prepare.

And these are also really good resources for your course assignments.

You want to look at the State Department websites for travel warnings and

travel alerts, we'll talk more about those later.

The CDC has excellent resources on travel health so that you can be prepared to

talk to your travel doctors about the things that you've learned there and

to know what might be required or recommended.

And then you also want to utilize the resources that are here.

Faculty who have gone to the countries before, and

especially students who have travelled to the specific location where you're going.

Because they're going to have a lot of information about how to prepare and

what to do while you're there.

So many programs have different requirements, and you might be repeating

requirements multiple times, submitting multiple sets of documents.

One for your department and one for your program, and while this might be a hassle.

It's important to make sure that you keep up with all this,

especially if you're receiving funding.

Making sure that you have copies, that you read carefully,

follow deadlines and complete all of your paperwork.

And this is true for requirements here at the school.

But also requirements for

travel documentation which we'll now get into more detail about.

So travel documents.

A brief overview is that you want to ensure that your passport is up

to date and isn't going to expire within six months.

There's also a requirement for most countries that you have at least two blank

pages in your passport while you're travelling.

You really don't want to push this.

So if you're nervous about it, you can either get a new passport or you can get

additional pages, and you can find requirements for how to do that online.

Now the visa, this is such a big hang up for students and even for faculty, and

those of us who are seasoned travelers.

Because visas are a pain, and the requirements are changing constantly.

But truthfully unless you're the dean of the school or

the head of a department, the visa is your responsibility.

And no one's going to be able to get it for you, or

research all of their requirements for you.

International students might need to do a little bit of extra work with their home

embassy in order to determine what extra requirements they have in order to travel

to certain countries.

And I really encourage international students to have those conversations early

so you don't get in trouble.

We've even had Canadian students who have extra difficulty getting visas to

certain countries.

So it's important if you're an international student to look into

what requirements you have.

And then finally, make copies to bring with you and

copies to leave behind with friends, family and the program.

And this might seem really silly, especially in such a digital age.

But there are some key reasons why you might want to do this.

One is having a copy of your passport and a visa to show

to your embassy in case something happens to your documentation will drastically

improve any process that you need to go through in order to get travel documents.

I've even had experiences where someone's passport has gone through the wash and

it was unreadable.

And because they had copies, they were actually able to expedite the process of

getting a new passport, whereas otherwise they might have been stuck in country.

So it seems really silly to carry around a paper copy

of a travel document you have with you anyway, but it's really, really useful.

And then also many airports can require that you have

printed copies of your itinerary to even let you in.

So this is important when you're leaving the country that you're traveling to,

especially if you don't have access to a printer while you're there.

So just remember that it's good to always keep a copy of your itinerary so

that you can even get into the airport.

You may also want to keep copies of addresses and phone numbers for

the places where you are staying.

While you might have already arranged transportation,

you can't always rely on this arrangement.

And you don't want to show up at a country at 2 in the morning and

you don't have a driver there.

You have no clue of where you're going, you don't know how to contact them.

Usually people at airports are helpful, but

they might not know exactly where you're staying.

So if you have phone numbers and you don't have a phone, people will help.

So just make sure you have as much information as possible,

printed when you're there.

All right, so let's talk about visas.

You want to use your faculty member or

a primary investigator as your first resource.

But keep in mind that they're not always right.

The most up to date information about the type of visa that you need and

how to apply for them is going to be on the consulate website for

the country that you're traveling to.

So please research the country's requirements and

then follow them to the letter.

This may seem really straightforward,

but each year students struggle with visa requirements.

And this can be especially true for those of you who are looking for

business visas, research visas or longer term visas.

For those countries that have less that ideal relationships with the US or

the country where you're from or the country from which you hold a passport,

processes can take even longer.

So I would recommend taking the consulate's maximum processing time and

adding at least a week or two to that,

especially if you intend to purchase your plane ticket prior to receiving your visa.

So let me tell you a personal story to sort of solidify some of these

things that I've been talking about and put them into perspective.

On a recent trip to Pakistan, I had to acquire a business visa.

And the consulate very clearly says what documents you need to submit and

you need to submit six to seven weeks prior to when you're going to go.

And one of the requirements, at least at the time when I was getting the visa,

was that you had to have proof of plane tickets and purchase your round trip.

So all of this was fine, I did it in advance.

I made sure I had at least that seven week window.

And I'm waiting, I'm waiting, I'm waiting to get my visa.

I call them, I'm not hearing anything.

And so finally, I am just a couple days away from having to depart and

it's very important that you have your visa.

Because no one's going to let you go anywhere without it.

And I get this call and unfortunately it's a message, I missed the call.

And it says you're missing such and such document and it was a letter and

that they needed.

And I'm thinking, my God, I'm not missing this.

I know I sent it, of course it's there.

And just given the communication, right, well I just wasn't having any luck.

I decide to drive down to DC to check out the situation.

So I go and I bring a copy of the document they say that I'm missing.

And I finally get to speak with someone and they open up my folder and

the document is there, it's in the folder, nothing was missing at all.

But now unfortunately, because of the rules for acquiring a visa for Pakistan,

I have to wait at least another week before I can get an approval.

So I really should have submitted far in advance, and

it didn't matter what I did, pleaded, tried to intimidate.

None of it worked at all and so I ended up having to rebook my tickets,

change my work plan with my colleagues, which was really unfortunate.

And then eventually, I was able to get the visa.

But it did really require some finagling and quite a bit of time.

So just be aware that even though timing requirements are posted on there,

anything that can go wrong could go wrong, so just be prepared for that.

Now I mentioned that there are some countries that request

that airfare be purchased before you submit your visa.

If you can get flexible dates or tickets with nominal change fees,

you should aim to do that.

It's definitely a good priority to have.

But that's not available for every airline and

sometimes flexible date tickets can get really expensive.

So sometimes what you can do is ask a travel agent to

print an itinerary for you.

You can call the consulate and ask if that's enough

to just have a planned itinerary rather than purchasing a flight.

If you have to purchase the flight,

then you really should give quite a bit of lead time when applying for your visa.

If you have country specific questions about visas,

make sure you talk to faculty members and your consulate services.

You can also use the discussion forum here in the course to share any tips and

stories like my Pakistan story.

But beware and take all the stories with a grain of salt and

remember that requirements change all the time.

So one person's experience may not be yours.

As you're preparing to travel, think carefully about your health status and

medications.

And this doesn't even relate to travel-related medications that

you'll need.

We'll talk much more in-depth about that later in the course.

But this is thinking about those medications that you use all the time, and

that can really range from anything.

But you want to make sure that you have an adequate supply of medications,

if you're going to be gone for a long time.

Keep them in original containers and always take them in your carry-on bags.

Now having adequate supply can be a challenge if you're going to be gone for

six months.

Often you can have a battle with insurance companies about having six months worth

of medications on hand.

So you'll want to start having these conversations with your insurance very

early on to make sure that you can take everything that you need to take.

Because you can't always rely on getting it in county.

And I'll also add that often times depending on where you go,

medications may be counterfeit.

So even if it seems like you can get a medication in country, and

you might even be able to get it for cheaper.

It really might not be what you're purchasing at all.

So be very careful about this, and

try to take medications from here that you use all the time.

And then like I said, you should be keeping these in your carry-on bags and

not checking them.

You never know what's going to happen with luggage, and it's always

good to have medications that you need on hand along with a pair of extra underwear.

Glasses and

contacts, I think this is something that people forget about all the time.

But if you're going overseas,

the likelihood is you can't get new prescription glasses.

So if you can bring extra, you should, or

at least make sure you're very careful with cases.

With contacts, you should also be careful in not only bringing enough supply.

But remembering that you can't always rinse them with the water that's available

to you in country.

And we'll talk more about the harms and potential risks of rinsing contacts later.

But just be aware that you might need to bring extra and

have a good supply if you use them.

In the course website, we've provided a personal health checklist for

you to think about all of these things.

But there are a number of checklists that are available all over the web,

on travel websites, on the CDC.

So take a look at all of them to make sure that you're thinking about everything.

If you have prescription medicines,

it's a good idea to bring a copy of your prescription,

since some medications can have different legal statuses in different countries.

So some people may be quick suspect if you're bringing medications in for

a long period of time, but don't have a personal prescription.

And then we'll talk about emergency services later.

But research or

check with local collaborators about the types of emergency services that

are available to you, and that are nearest to where you're going to be located.

So the best place to go to look for travel health-specific information,

country-specific information is the CDC, Centers for

Disease Control Traveler's Health website.

And we'll have a link to this on the lecture page.

There will be information on country-specific

vaccinations that you need.

Travel medications, tips on staying safe and

healthy and any health warnings that might exist.

So for example, Liberia might have an ebola warning and

that'll be listed on the CDC website.

Often times there will be regionally specific information too.

So depending on where you're going in country,

you can get information that's specific to that.

So for example in Peru, there are some areas that are high altitude and

others that aren't.

Which means that the risks that are present are going to be different

depending on where you travel.

Now let's talk about communication issues.

You're going to want to think about a number of things including how to

communicate with your family back home, how to communicate with people in country.

And again, I think some of this can seem very straightforward.

But the challenges really vary from country to country and

person to person and what resources you have.

So you'll want to think about phones,

are you going to carry your personal cell phone and maybe buy an international plan?

Do you have a global unlocked phone?

Do you know what a global unlocked phone is?

These are things to consider when you realize that you have to go overseas and

the charges may add up, you'd like to be able to call home or call your colleagues.

Some people choose to purchase a new phone when they get in country.

And this is a perfectly fine option,

you can get cheap phones that aren't smartphones.

And you can get SIM cards that work locally.

You can also purchase a globally unlocked phone here,

while you're in the states or overseas and get SIM cards once you arrive.

Please realize that SIM card requirements vary greatly from country to country.

So while it can be quite simple, for example in Uganda, to acquire a SIM card.

And to be able to upload minutes and use a phone,

it can be really challenging in other countries.

So India, right now, has a application requirement.

So even for a SIM card, you have to submit this whole application which has to be

approved and it can be challenging to navigate that.

So talk to any faculty or students who have traveled to this country before and

get their insights.

If you have a smart phone, you should consider downloading apps like WhatsApp,

Viber or even Skype to help you communicate.

Viber and WhatsApp are free texting applications that you can use if you're

connected to Wi-Fi.

So it's a nice way to stay in touch with people at the work place or

at home if you have Internet available to you.

You want to have a communication plan with your family, and with faculty members and

with in country partners to make sure that everyone's on the same page.

People generally know where you are and

know how frequently they should check in if you are not checking in.

And then also ask questions about the Internet and

whether you're even going to be able to get any or what it's like.

Because that might effect any plans that you have for perhaps taking online courses

or doing work where you're going to need the Internet.

If you're choosing to blog or use social media at all,

you should think very critically about the content that you're using and

how it will be perceived by your colleagues.

Okay, money, this is a tricky subject.

Because how much you need varies greatly from country to country.

And it also varies by the type of person that you are and

the type of spending that you plan to do.

You want to talk early with people, if you're going with an organization or

with a faculty member, about who is paying for what.

And really outline that early on, so

you don't have any nasty surprises when you get in country and have to pay for

your housing and you weren't expecting it, and all of a sudden you have a big bill.

You want to think about how you're going to maintain a cash flow.

In most countries, you can't use credit cards, but ATMs aren't

everywhere either and even when they're present, they can be unreliable.

They can eat your card and they can be expensive because ATM fees can add up.

So you want to ask questions about where you can find ATMs.

What types of cards to use and whether or

not you're going to have any sort of credit card locations available to you.

Be aware of exchange rates before you go, so that you know what a decent exchange

rate is if you're trying to change money from dollars to the local currency.

And then also ask your banks for information about charges for

withdrawals internationally.

Register your travel with your banks and with your credit cards so that you don't

have a nasty surprise when you arrive and all of the sudden none of your cards work.

Most of your banks and

credit cards allow you to do this just a few days before you travel.

But its a good idea to do it far in advance if possible.

It can be really smart to bring US dollars with you for a number of reasons.

For exchanging, you might have better exchange rates.

But you want to be careful when you're bringing US dollars to make sure they

are clean, new bills, fairly recent because oftentimes older bills or

bills that even look a little bit distressed can be rejected.

And so it can be a little nerve wracking if you're carrying around a couple

hundreds that no one will take, but you have them on your person all the time.

So in this lecture so far and throughout this course,

we're talking about priorities.

Right, health priorities, priorities in documentation, responsibility priorities,

making sure you have safe housing.

Even I mentioned that you have flexible airfare, that you have medicine on hand

that you get vaccinated, maybe even that you have travel insurance.

But there's also an understanding that you're students and

that you can't pay for everything and afford everything.

So you need to think critically about what is a priority for you,

what is a priority for your project, what will keep you safe and healthy?

Let's take a break now and when we come back, we'll talk about travel warnings.

And staying on top of all of the information you need for country safety.

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