For first-time travelers heading out of the country, I have a few tips to share because I was just in your spot a few months ago and I learned all types of things you need to do before traveling out of the country.
These things I’ll share in a few came from talking to family and friends who have traveled internationally and watching online content. These were great resources for when my girlfriend and I didn’t go to Scotland County, North Carolina, as some teased me, but to the more worldly-traveled Scotland, United Kingdom (UK).
Some of the tips and information I’ll discuss will include passports, spending money in other countries, using a phone internationally, and electrical plugs.
Passport Stuff
Of course, I know you need a passport to leave the US and get into other countries.
So simple! If you don’t have a passport, you’ll need to apply for one before you can travel internationally. There are several ways to apply for a passport. I’m not going to go over that, but a simple Google search on how to will get you started.
I had a passport, but it had expired. An expired passport renewal can be completed online if it was a 10-year passport (not a limited-validity or child’s passport), and you are within 5 years of its expiration date. Mine was over 15 years expired, so I couldn’t renew it online and had to go in person.
Don’t wait until the last minute to renew your expired passport. The standard processing time is 4-6 weeks.
I waited until two months before leaving for Scotland to take care of mine. I planned to go to the UPS, but they didn’t have any appointments available until later in the summer (after my trip) and weren’t taking any walk-ins at the time, which put me in a panic.
I recently discovered that my County Register of Deeds office serves as a Passport Application Acceptance Facility, with walk-in hours. I’m not sure if every County’s Register of Deeds is like this, but I highly recommend checking where you live, as my experience with them was great. But if you do, bring a check because you’ll need one to pay for the passport.
The takeaway is to renew your passport before it expires, and I believe the Register of Deeds saved my hide.
Banking Stuff, two things to do and know about international spending
If you need to exchange US dollars for foreign currency, then check with your local bank to see if they can handle this for you. The pound is the unit of currency used in Scotland and throughout the UK. We wanted to take some paper money on the trip, so I requested a few hundred pounds from my bank. They had to send the order to their pound guy, and the whole transaction took a few business days.
Notify your bank and credit card company that you’re using credit cards overseas if they require it. Doing this should prevent your card from getting blocked due to suspicious activity. I told my bank the dates of my international travel so I could use them there.
We mainly used cards over in Scotland and never had a problem. Hopefully you won’t either, wherever you’re going.
Since we mostly used cards, we had some pounds left over. I’ll be able to exchange the pounds for US dollars with my bank. I recommend checking with whoever you got foreign currency from to see if you can exchange any leftover money with them back on arrival.
Using your phone outside the US
International rates weren’t on my radar until a week or two before my trip. A coworker suggested that I contact my cell phone provider about what I needed to do to avoid crazy costs for using my phone internationally. Sure, plenty of places have WiFi available, but I knew I’d need my phone most of the time. Or at least the ability to use my phone most of the time without it resulting in an astronomical phone bill.
Verizon offers several international plan options, like the TravelPass, which you can use your plan to talk, text, and use data for a daily fee ($12 in most countries, $6 in Canada and Mexico) in over 210 countries only on the days you use your phone abroad.
So I would contact your provider to see which of their international usage solutions works best for you.
International Electrical Outlet
Mexico, Japan, and Canada apparently use the same socket type as the US. However, I recommend adopting the mindset that all countries outside the US use a different type of electrical outlet, so you’ll need to check what type of adaptor you’ll need.
Scotland and the UK use a Type G outlet type, so my girlfriend ordered us some UK special adaptors to charge and use our devices. She ordered them online. A pack of two UK adaptors costs $25-30.
You should also be able to order any adaptor you need from the internet.
Some more travel tips before wrapping up are to bring a portable power bank/pack because phones like to unalive themselves, watch and read Rick Steve’s shows and books, and please learn the difference between the United Kingdom and Great Britain if traveling there:
Great Britain = the island that comprises England, Scotland, and Wales
United Kingdom = Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Now I believe that’s it. Hopefully, some of the tips and information discussed were beneficial to you. Planning a trip is enjoyable, but the numerous tasks that require completion before traveling out of the US can make it feel endless.
I want to end this with the Mark Twain quote that Joseph Rosendo says at the end of each Travelscope episode, which is another dope PBS travel show.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
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