When traveling, you try to make sure you have everything you need for a particular trip. One of the worst things that can happen on a trip is to get to your destination and realize that you’ve forgotten something, so to prevent that from happening, people will make a checklist to make sure they don’t forget anything. Making a checklist is perfectly fine, but when it comes to traveling, we do so much to be careful that we end up making careless mistakes that are easily avoidable.
If you’re not a seasoned traveler, then it’s very common to make traveling mistakes. You never intentionally make those mistakes, but they just happen sometimes. If you want to avoid these common mistakes, take a look at these tips on how to prevent yourself from making these mistakes in the future.
Not Notifying Your Bank of Travel
Having a hold placed on your bank account can be very frustrating, but that’s what can happen when you don’t let your bank know that you will be traveling. If you live in Oregon, but then your bank starts to see charges being made in Florida that will throw up red flags to your bank, making them put a hold on your account, trying to protect your money. This is especially important if you’re traveling out of the country.
In those cases, banks see that as fraudulent charges that were not made by you. That’s why you have to let your bank know about your traveling arrangements. It saves you the hassle and embarrassment of appearing as though your card was declined due to insufficient funds.
Overpacking
Overpacking is a problem most common among women, but it still affects everyone. Everyone tends to overpack having the mindset of “it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it!” If there was some a universal packing guideline according to your trip’s purpose, everyone would probably do well with packing!
Overpacking also has its own set of consequences. Depending on which airline you’re flying with, they have their own set of luggage weight restrictions you must follow. Some airlines allow you to check one to two pieces of luggage for free, while others charge a luggage fee.
Whether your luggage is free or not, it still has to meet a weight requirement, and if it goes over the weight limit, be prepared to pay an additional fee. So to avoid any additional luggage weight fees, just pack what you need, or at least weigh your luggage at home on your scale.
Traveling Without Insurance
Whether you’re flying or going on a road trip, you need to make sure your trip is covered for any type of emergency. With air travel, you could have flight delays and the most common problem… lost luggage. With road trips, you could run into having a flat tire, running out of gas, needing to be towed, or a full-on car accident. Driving on an extensive trip like that without insurance isn’t smart, but most importantly, it’s not safe.
Playing With Unknown Dogs
There are so many pet lovers in the world that they often times think that every pet loves them just as much as they love pets… that’s not always the case. There are definitely friendly pets out there, but then there are not so nice pets out there as well, and those are the ones you have to be careful of.
It’s so common to be in the airport, and see a service dog and want to go up to it and pet it. Typically, most service dogs are friendly and mild-mannered; rarely do you hear about a service dog attacking anyone, but you don’t need to test out that theory. As cute and as cuddly as the dog might be, refrain from petting it. You just never know; dogs are animals and have animal instincts.
What if you reach to pet the dog and it thinks you’re a threat to its owner. That dog could easily attack you leaving you wide range of injuries. Depending on how severe your injuries turn out, someone will need to be held responsible for your personal damages, so you definitely want to make sure you have someone in your corner in a situation like that, but avoiding it altogether is key.
Packing “No Fly” Items in Your Carry-On Bag
This is one of the most common mistakes travelers make. You go into the airport with items in your carry-on bag, but once you get to security check (the area where you have to almost get undressed!), you quickly find out that half of the items in your carry-on bag have to be discarded. To prevent that from happening, do your research by checking what items can and cannot be brought onto a plane.
