Passport
Money
Getting ReadyBy now you know where you want to go, when, and for about how long. You know where you want to go first and what your route will (probably) look like. And you have some idea of how much money you'll have to spend. It's time to start taking care of the business of traveling. You will need documents, inoculations, and probably air tickets. You should also organize your finances and your mail drops, not to mention packing your bag to last you for a long time!
What to Take? and packing your bag is covered in copious detail in a separate section, so we'll assume you'll be spending all your spare time in the final month or two before your trip on shopping forays and packing decisions. Meanwhile, you've got lots of other preparations to make!
Before you can take any international trip, you must have a valid passport. If you already have one, make sure it is valid and will continue to be valid for the length of your trip, and then some. Some countries will not issue you a visa unless your passport is valid for at least six more months. If your passport is too old, worn out, or full of old stamps, get a new one. The more you travel, the more pages you will need.
You may apply for a new passport at your government passport office. If you are an American in the U.S., this is the US Passport Agency. Check at your post office for the nearest one to you. Or you may apply by mail at any US Post Office; they have all the forms you will need. At the Passport Agency you can get a new passport in two days, or on the same day if you pay an extra fee. By mail, it may take as much as six weeks, go get started! If you will be going on a long trip, specifically ask in writing for the 48-page passport instead of the 24-page one It is twice as thick and it takes twice as many stamps. Some countries can end up using two to four pages, especially if you go for visa extensions, exit permits, and so on. (They now have a little 12-page job -- useless for serious travelers.)
Most countries have a Passport Office in major cities and you can get information about this at the post office.
If this is your first passport you will need to bring proof of your identity. This is usually a certified copy (not a simple photocopy) of your birth certificate and some other identification with a photo on it. If you don't have a certified copy of your birth certificate, you will have to telephone or write to the county seat or town hall in the town where you were born in order to get one! This also takes time; plan ahead. If you already have an old passport, this is proof enough of your identity. In either case you will need a recent set of two identical passport photos. You can get these at most any photo shop or studio in five minutes.
If you run out of pages in your passport, you can usually get some extra official pages added to your passport (accordion-style) at your country's embassy in another country. (Yes, I actually got this done twice, at the US embassies in Vientiane, Laos, and Tegucigalpa, Honduras.) If you are not in your home country, and you need to renew or replace your passport, you must apply at your country's embassy, or consular section. I have never done this, but I suspect it can take some time, so plan to be in town for awhile.
Write the number of your passport in as many places as you can find. It is best to memorize it as soon as possible; you will be asked for it hundreds of times, sometimes each time you check into a hotel. The sign of a fresh traveler is one who does not yet know his own passport number by heart.
You must protect your passport not only from loss and theft, but also from the elements and your own sweat. Visas that get wet and run their ink all over the place are no longer valid! The first line of protection is a thin plastic (sandwich) bag that keeps your passport dry without being too bulky in your money belt; take several along.
Your guide books and travel agent should tell you which countries you will need a visa for. In the section on Bureaucracy and Formalities, I give some in depth details about getting visas on the Road. Quite a bit of that information holds just as well for getting visas at home, and it includes discussions of the types of visas to get and whether to get your visas At Home or on the Road, so I refer you first to that discussion, called Getting Visas, without duplicating the information here.
If you decide to get lots of visas at home ahead of time, you will have to contact each foreign embassy separately. If you don't live in a city where all the embassies are -- like New York City, Washington D.C., or some other very major city in your country -- then you will have to mail your passport to each embassy, along with their visa application form. In this case, you may find a Visa Service very useful. For a fee (per visa), they can get all your visas in less time than you could do so yourself, and they can tell you ahead of time just how long it will take and how much each visa will cost. Ask any travel agent for a visa service in a nearby major city. It's not cheap, but it gets a lot of bureaucracy out of the way. If you're getting a new passport, you clearly must have that first before you start getting all those visas, so get started early!
In my section on Bureaucracy, I pointed out that it's often easier and cheaper to just get your visas as you go along, especially if your trip will be longer than just a few weeks. So you may just want to get your first visa or two (if needed) at home from your travel agent, and leave the rest for later. However, it is still quite useful to get the very latest visa requirements (length of stay, documents needed, etc.) for all countries you will be visiting from a travel agent or visa service, before you leave home. Even whether or not you need a visa at all to enter a particular country can change from one year to the next.
Another important chore that must be taken care of -- and the sooner, the better -- is inoculations. These are required by many countries, and you will not be admitted unless you have them. Sometimes you may be inoculated on the spot at the border station, not a very pleasant -- or safe -- procedure. For customs officials, it is just as important that you do not bring diseases into their country, and this definitely includes getting back into your home country! They must be shown that you were already inoculated long before you entered another country which may be known to have certain diseases. If not, it might already too late! For example, if you come from Africa and attempt to enter Greece without a Yellow Fever certificate, you may be turned away as a health threat; or they may just wave you through.
All of your vaccinations must be recorded on an International Certificate of Vaccination, it's usually sort of big and yellow. You can have more than one of these, but one is the most convenient. When you go for booster shots or additional vaccinations in other countries along the way, take this Certificate with you and make sure they fill it out and stamp it with an official seal.
The easiest way to get your vaccinations is to go to your local "public health department"; it is their job to do this. Your personal doctor may be able to give you some shots -- and maybe even a few malaria pills -- but may not be able to give you everything you need for a really interesting trip. At the public health department, you tell them where you are going (including those places you "just might" go to), and they tell you what shots you need, and which are optional. They will provide you with the International Certificate of Vaccination, or update your old one.
Depending on where you live, the vaccinations may be free, or you may end up paying quite a bit if you have half a dozen of them (good trip!). Some are more expensive than others. The health department can give you many of your shots on the spot but there are several cases that take more time, so again, be sure to start early! (You don't need a passport or visas to get vaccinated.) The two cases that take more time are vaccination series, and scheduled vaccinations, discussed below.
Several types of inoculations require more than one shot, weeks apart. An example is your first cholera shot which requires a second shot about two weeks later. You should get this taken care of before you leave and not try to "arrange" the second shot "somewhere" along the way. As it is, cholera shots are only good for about six months and must be renewed -- but only one booster shot is required. Typhoid and tetanus also require multiple injections several weeks apart, but only if you've never had one before.
Some vaccines are special and are only available at certain times. The yellow fever inoculation uses a live virus that must be incubated in an egg (and last I heard was still kept in an egg for some time); most health departments provide yellow fever shots only one to four times a month because once the egg is opened, all of the serum must be used. The same goes for meningitis vaccine (although it's not kept in an egg). When I wanted one of these, I was told that they gave that shot on the first Tuesday of each month. If I wanted one at another time, I would have to buy an entire bottle full! That's why you need to start early.
Hepatitis is usually an "optional" shot; it is not required by any countries that I know of, but it could prevent you from getting the disease. It is not really a vaccine, but a preventative shot of Gamaglobulin. There are some drawbacks, however: the hepatitis inoculation is only good for six months, it is only 60% to 80% effective at prevention, and the shots reported leave painful welts. Some people get 'em, some do not. I got vaccinated the old fashioned way (I got hepatitis) so I've never had to bother with the shots. There is now some new type of hepatitis "A" inoculation that is much better than the old vaccines; it may last for a number of years.
If you are headed directly into Malaria country, you should try to get at least a two to four week supply of malaria tablets from your doctor or the public health service. You take these pills orally on a weekly basis, two weeks before and four to six weeks after exposure to malaria. These tablets are surprisingly hard to find in the First World, and sold everywhere like candy in the Third World.
Please check out the 
CDC's Traveler's Health Page
(that's the Center for Disease Control),
for lots of current information and advice on innoculations, etc.
Travel Health Online, by Shoreland
is another comprehensive web site with information on a variety of
travel-related health issues; give it a look!
Inoculations On the Road
If you travel for very long, you may need to update your inoculations, either for the formality of customs agents, or to keep you healthy. Cholera, typhoid, and hepatitis are the more common ones that last a year or less. Or you may end up waiting until you get near a "dangerous" area to get a vaccination, especially if it only lasts six months.
Every major city has a vaccination center in some hospital, health center or clinic; you should be able to get directions from any tourism office, or maybe even a guide book. Otherwise, drop in to any doctor's office and ask them where you can get vaccinations; someone should speak enough English to understand.
But these vaccination centers can be out of the way, hard to find out about, and difficult to communicate with. You may need to phone in for a reservation -- or at least to find out what hours they give vaccinations -- and you'd need someone to help you do this in a foreign language. Sometimes, you can just show up with your yellow card and wait a little while to get jabbed by someone. The main danger in less developed counties is the re-use of needles, which may be more dangerous than the disease you want to avoid. You can bring your own plastic syringe and ask if they will use it instead.
There are very well-organized and sanitary Vaccination Centers in Singapore and Hong Kong. I've had vaccinations in both places. I've also gotten vaccinations, with varying degrees of confidence, in Malaysia, Japan, Cyprus, and Ecuador.
Drivers License
If you might ever be driving a vehicle on your trip, you should bring your driving license. You never know when you may have an interesting opportunity to hire a car for a day or two to get somewhere really interesting. For most countries, you will want to get an International Driver's Permit from your national automobile association. In the US, you can get this on the spot at any AAA (Automobile Association) office, it costs about $10, and they will take the photo for you. Technically, this is only a Permit, and you still must have, and carry, a valid Driver's License from home. The Permit lasts for one year only, after that, you're on your own.
Many countries will accept your driving license from home, but others may not recognize it at all. In any case, the International Driving Permit is handy to show to the police in case they want to confiscate it (to keep you from leaving) -- you can still get away legally using your regular license. In a couple of places where a bicycle rental wanted to hold my driver's license as 'collateral', I gave them my International Driver's Permit for a week.
Youth Hostel Card
If you will be traveling to moderately modern countries with real Youth Hostels, you will often need a real Youth Hostel Card in order to use them, or at least to get a cheaper price. You can get one at the local Youth Hostel Association (YHA) office in the country -- if you can find it -- but it's best to just get one at home. Try the student union of any university. They usually last one year, and you can get update stickers from YHA offices around the world.
The U.S., Japan, Europe, New Zealand, and to some extent Australia have plenty of Youth Hostels. Australia and New Zealand have a larger number of travelers' hostels which are not associated with the YHA, and are very popular -- fewer rules and no card. In most real Third World countries, you will find quite cheap accommodation without resorting to hostels. You can occasionally get a discount on something or other (especially in more modern countries) with a YHA card. There is no age limit for the YHA.
Student Card
The main reason to have an International Student Identity Card is to get some serious discounts, mainly on transportation, in some countries. Aside from Europe, Egypt and China are places where you may get good discounts on train and air fares with such a card. If you don't already have one, bona fide students can get one at their local university, and anyone can buy a fake one from the Medical University of Cairo, Egypt, and several other shyster locations from Hong Kong to Nairobi. Some are better than others but, as a result, the true value of these cards has devalued. Yes, I've actually bought fake student ID cards in Hong Kong (I'm a "student" at Taipei University), and Cairo. And they saved me a reasonable amount of money, with not a few heated arguments in between.
Birth Certificate
If you ever lose your passport, you will need plenty of identification to get a new one (from your embassy), and the best -- next to the photo copy of your original passport -- is a birth certificate. Most places should accept just a photo copy of your birth certificate, along with a photo drivers license -- but you should also know your original passport number.
Photos
Bring lots and lots of "passport" photos. Although most embassies specify "passport" photos when applying for visas, permits, and extensions, they will usually take any photos from a photo machine. If you travel much, you will use up dozens of these on visas. Whenever you find a photo machine in a modern airport, replenish your supply, because it can be difficult and expensive to get "passport" photos taken in many Third World countries. But a few photo processing shops in some larger cities now have the portable instant passport photo cameras.
Also bring some personal photos from home, showing your family, parents, dog, car, appartment, friends at the beach, etc. Like the post cards mentioned below, they show people that you are a real person, with actual friends and family, and a real life back home. Since photos of your sailing yacht and personal tennis court may just re-inforce stereotypes of rich imperialists, stick mostly to people, pets, and nature.
Post Cards
Bring a bunch of post cards from your home town, home state, or some interesting places not too far from where you live. Hang on to these and show them to local people you get acquainted with along the way. They give people something to identify you with, and help them appreciate the type of place you come from. Extra cards can be given away as cheap and small but unique gifts.
Address Book
Don't bring your big address book from home. Write down the names and addresses of all the people you just might write to while you're on the road; it can probably fit on one (or maybe two) sheets of paper. Fold this up and keep it in a plastic bag to keep it safe. Make an extra copy of it to carry with you. I even keep a small extra list of really important addresses I would not want to be without and put it in with my money. As you pick up the addresses of new friends along the way, add them to the end of the letters you send home, so they will not get lost.
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