Tips

Your fellow pilgrims are weighing in with ideas to help us all get ready!

Gary reports that:

I was at Bed Bath and Beyond (Crossroads) today and noticed that they have an excellent selection of travel items including toiletries and the "travel adapters for electric outlets" that were mentioned at the meeting.   The adapters cost about $20.
(Note: BB&B always has coupons in the mail, don't forget to use them!)

And Don has checked out AAA:

I checked into purchasing Euros at AAA since we are members, and there is no fee if fellow travelers are AAA members.  AAA also has passport and credit card safety holders for purchase – so our information cannot be detected by someone directing an electronic device toward us and scanning them.

In case you aren't sure about the 'scanning' part, new passports and some credit cards now have chips in them that could be scanned within a few feet, if someone with bad intention and the right equipment passes near you.  Have you ever stayed in a hotel with card entry and your door key stopped working? It was probably because you stored it in your wallet next to one of those credit cards with a smart chip and it messed up the code (I get the concept; I don't know all the technical words... oh: "RFID readers"). Anyway, there are now safety wallets that block those signals from being read. AAA, Bed Bath and Beyond, travel catalogs like Magellan's or TravelSmith have them, and I'm sure many other places!

A necessity? No. Just for your information.

While looking at the Magellan's website, I found this page on safe travel tips. Now, there is no need to get paranoid and uber-cautious, but a read-through wouldn't hurt, either!