There you are, in unfamiliar territory (US or abroad), frustrated by the fact that the credit or debit card you had planned on using isn’t going through at a local restaurant or hotel. Now what do you do?

The one thing you do NOT want to have trouble with while traveling, especially out of the country, is money. You’ve probably worked hard to save money for your vacation and put in a lot of time planning it — travel arrangements, getting the right gear, making sure you have enough hormones (oh, that was me:-), etc. — and not being able to function because something has shackled your finances is almost as bad as getting sick when you’re traveling.

Luckily there are a lot of things you can do to prepare for a financially flawless vacation and since those things are fresh on my To-Do list from having been away for a few weeks, I thought it was a perfect subject for today’s blog.

You’ll find that I have included things to do that are both personal and business related, as well as some additional little tips my boyfriend and I have learned this trip:).

OK, here you go…

Vacation Budget

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t go on vacation without having a pretty good idea of how much money you should be taking with you for transportation, lodging, food and other expenses. Great budgets require great research so if you really want to make sure you have enough money to enjoy your trip to the fullest, do enough research and planning (including reservations) to know how much money you’ll need.

I call this Prior Proper Planning and without it, you’re simply asking for a rotten vacation.

Hint: Research and budget before doing anything else.

Personal and Business Expenses

We all have expenses that incur monthly or semi-regularly whether we are home or traveling. Somehow mortgage companies and landlords don’t have a sense of humor when it comes to our travel plans getting in the way of receiving their payments! Making sure your bills are paid on time is easy with a little planning. Here’s what you do:

First, make a spreadsheet (on paper or on your computer) of your personal and business expenses (if you have a business), when the bills are due, how you will pay them and who will pay them. You have several options for making sure the bills get paid:

• Put the bills on automatic payments through the company itself. This is very easy with utility bills like electricity, gas, phone, cable.
• Set up the payments to be done in the future with your bank’s Bill Pay program.
• Leave pre-written checks (sign and date) already in addressed envelopes with stamps with a trusted friend with the date on a sticky note of when it should be mailed.
• Simply prepay the bills (if they are the same amount each month) for the length of time you are scheduled to be gone.
• If you own a small business with an employee or two, you need to make plans for how those employees will pay for general and emergency expenses that come up while you’re away. The easiest way to do this is to simply leave some signed checks with one trusted employee with strict instructions on what they can purchase and how much they can spend on those purchases. Another way to do it is to set up accounts with local vendors when possible so your employees can simply order what they need to keep your business running smoothly while you’re away.

Hint: think about bills you have that aren’t monthly, for instance, car and rental insurance, car registration renewals, etc. Many people pay a year in advance for things like this so know when these expenses show up in your mail box so you can prepare for them.

Vacation Expenses – paying for your experiences

OK…this is where detailed planning is critical because as we all know, if you get into a situation where you can’t access your money, you can be in BIG trouble, depending on where you’re traveling.

In the United States, there are lots of options because making phone calls is easy, but if you’re out of the country, don’t have internet access to look up phone numbers, etc., you can be in a world of financial hurt trying to figure your way out of a situation.

The following are things you must do to make sure that spending your hard earned money is easy (but not THAT easy:-).

• Call every bank with a debit or credit card you plan to use and let them know when and where you will be traveling. They put this information into your file so when out-of-the-country charges come through, your card isn’t flagged so you can’t use it anymore.
• It’s a good idea to even call the banks you don’t plan on using as well…just in case.
• Call every credit card company you have and give them the same information. Note: even when you do this, sometimes they don’t get the information to the right people and you have to call again while you’re traveling (ask me how I know this!).
• Leave the credit cards, debit cards, store cards, library cards, discount cards, local restaurant point cards home. They just take up space in your wallet and you don’t need them.
• Make sure there is enough money in your personal accounts to handle the expenses at home and away. It’s a great idea to use a totally separate account for your traveling money just to make sure nothing happens to ALL of your money if someone gets a hold of one of your cards.

Cash vs. Credit vs. Debit vs. Traveler’s Checks

The question always arrises about how much cash to take on a vacation. The answer will be based on the research you do about the country or countries you’ll be traveling through. Many countries take US dollars but now all.

Find out as much as you can before hand if you’ll need to exchange money at a local back when you get in and before you do, KNOW the exchange rate and carry a reliable calculator. Know that if you don’t have the local currency you will often pay more for things because the locals don’t always have a way to make the right change back to you (ask me how I know this, too:).

Traveler’s checks can be another option but they have a lot more cons than benefits for most people.

Here’s an article with a lot more of the pros and cons of using different types of currencies on your trip.

Running Out Of Money

This has happened to the best of us for a variety of reasons: money is stolen, we spend more than we allocated, things are more expensive than we anticipated, we find that rare antique we just have to have shipped back to the states:-).

Have a plan for getting more money into your accounts. Whether through an investment account, CD, money market, stock account, or even a trusty relative with money (ask before you leave!), make sure the accounts are set up to wire money or direct deposit more funds into the bank account(s) you’re using for your travel expenses.

Email Accounts and Passwords

So there you are at a local internet cafe, after searching and asking several locals, ready to check on your email and see what’s going on back at home. You try to access your Hotmail account but, for whatever reason, the password you’ve always used doesn’t work so you click, “Get Password.” The system wants to send the password recovery or reset email to your Yahoo account which you haven’t used in a long time and can’t access either because you don’t remember that password.

You then try another option but the system needs to send you a confirmation code via a ‘text’ to a phone number you don’t have anymore or doesn’t have texting turned on and there’s no way to change the number because you can’t get into your email!

Don’t laugh. This exact thing happened to my partner during our last trip to the Caribbean. Luckily, he was able to use his business Gmail account but the entire vacation he felt like he might be missing important emails.

I’m convinced the answer is using Gmail for all of your email needs…at least while you travel. Gmail gives you the option of pulling in all of your other email addresses and even allows you to send emails out of Gmail ‘as if’ you were sending from your other emails.

Hint: always carry your important passwords with you in a little black book or on a simple computer program or phone app or even in a Google Doc you can access from anywhere.

Hint: make sure all of accounts and web tools you use have the correct backup/emergency numbers tied tied to them (bank, investment, utility, online email systems).

Car Rental Deposits

If you’re planning on renting a car, be aware that the car rental company can require a fairly hefty deposit on the car. They’ll require a credit or debit card for the deposit and if you don’t have enough money in that account, or enough credit available, it may tie up a large percentage of the money you were going to spend on other things, like hotels, foods, and excursions.

When you return the car, assuming it’s fine, know that it can take a couple of days for the deposit hold on your card to be removed so you still won’t have access to that money.

Travel Plans

Itemize your travel plans in detail, including hotel names, addresses, phone numbers, confirmation numbers, airline flights, times, etc. Give a copy of this list to each member of your party and give a copy to at least one other person you trust back home.

Prescription Drugs

If you use prescription drugs and are going to be gone for more than your normal prescription covers (i.e., a month), and you want your insurance company to pay for it like they normally do, you need to call them ahead of time to let them know that you will be traveling for a period of time and need to purchase enough supply to carry you through. Give your regular pharmacy plenty of notice to get these prescriptions ready for you.

When you pack, make sure you keep all needed prescriptions with you at all times. It’s easy to replace clothing but not so easy replacing the drugs that may be keeping you healthy.

Phones and Internet Access

With our current reliance on the internet and cell phones, we often feel disconnected and helpless if we can’t get in touch with someone we need to back home or at the office.

Depending on where you’re going and how long you’ll be there, some foreign phone companies now offer unlimited calling to the US and Canada for reasonable fees. In the BVI, I was able to get a cheap phone and pay $99 a month for unlimited calling and it was great to feel like I could reach out at any point and connect with Jan in my office and my family and friends.

Make sure to do your research and know what is available where you’re going in terms of internet access and phone calling plans. Skype is often a great solution for phone calls and communication with others as you can make calls from anywhere with your own computer and smart phone with a good connection and a pair of headphones specifically designed for internet calls.

Hint: make sure you put enough credit on your Skype account BEFORE you leave home because doing it while you’re away is a hassle.

Hint: even though you might have all of your important contacts in a smart phone or other electronic device, it’s important to have them in written form in a wallet or backpack or your luggage as well. If you run out of juice on your device or heaven forbid, you lose it or it gets stolen, you might be hard pressed to figure out how to contact important people. Better yet? Memorize important numbers like we used to!

Taking Care of Business

We’d all like to be able to leave our businesses for a period of time and not worry about them but for most of us, we still need to be reachable because, ultimately, the business and our employees livelihood, are still 100% our responsibilty.

If you’re business is dependent on one or two employees, make backup plans just in case one of them gets sick, quits, has an accident, or otherwise can’t fulfill his/her job responsibilities. Having to cancel your vacation because your business is about to fall apart is no fun at all but it’s happened to people with the best laid plans.

Summary

Bottom line, you need to think through the problems that COULD present themselves and prepare for those problems the best that you can. In the limited traveling I have done both in and out of the United States, my experience has been that if something goes wrong, there are plenty of people who line up to help you solve the problem.

It is my theory that most human beings have great hearts and find purpose and satisfaction helping others. My experience has always backed up this theory. Thinking about this in terms of the belief systems that we talk about in all of our financial camps, you generally experience that which you believe in your core.

So, to make your next vacation a financial success, plan, plan, plan. And then let it go and have a great time!