Passport Guide Travel Tips for the Savvy Traveller for Paris, France

My Passport Guide Travel Tips have come from travelling to different countries over many years, some on a shoestring budget, others in much more comfort - all experience gained by lots of lessons from Paris, France to Iceland, USA, the Caribbean, Asia, and New Zealand to Haiti.

When I first started travelling, you could use a credit card and it might take MONTHS before the amount appeared on your statement, which was fantastic from a budgetting point of view. :-)

These days transactions are instant - before the ink dries on your signature your account has been charged with your purchase or payment. Although this sounds bad, it does have a benefit - you can easily check your bank account online and make sure you have been correctly charged - the same day as the transaction.

Scroll down to read my tips on:

• email
• passports
• travellers' cheques / travelers' checks
• credit cards
• I.D. cards
• online banking
• medical & prescriptions
• eye glasses
• cellphones / mobile phones
• house & car keys.

Are you a Computer Savvy Traveller?

These tips assume you know how to use a computer and email, and how to use a scanner or digital camera.

They are so simple you will wish you'd thought of them first :-)

Paris Passport Guide Travel Tips : Email

Can you access your email while you're travelling? Not sure? Contact your ISP [internet service provider] to ask them if they provide 'webmail' - a page where you can access your email while you're travelling.

If not, you should consider getting a free email account at Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc, so you can send some of the following items to yourself.

Paris Passport Guide Travel Tips : Passport Guide

Before you leave home:

• make sure your passport is up-to-date
• you will need at least 3 months of validity, before your passport expires
• don't leave it until the last minute - renew it well in advance - trust me on this - I ended up paying a fortune to get mine renewed at the last minute, so I can be the voice of experience here :-)
• Scan your passport
• save it as .gif or .jpg
• attach it to an email
• if you don't have access to a scanner, take a PHOTO of the main pages with your digital camera, save as .jpg
• send yourself the email just before you leave home for the airport

When you get to your destination, you will have a COPY of your passport [and any additional pages you also scanned], in case you need it.

Paris Passport Guide Travel Tips : Travellers Cheques / Checks

Make a note of the first number and the last number in the series, email yourself the numbers, so you will have them when you arrive at your destination.

Paris Passport Guide Travel Tips : Credit Cards

You might consider paying extra cash onto your credit card before you leave home, to be used as spending money. This means you may not be charged the same fee for withdrawals if your balance is in 'credit', as you'll be using your own money. Contact your bank to make sure if they will allow you to do this; this will differ from country to country.

Paris Passport Guide Travel Tips : Identity Cards

Scan or take a digital photo of your credit cards, I.D. cards, frequent flyer cards etc. Send these to yourself in case you need them for any reason on your travels.

Paris Passport Guide Travel Tips : Online Banking

Our world is so technologically advanced compared to five years ago. We now have the ability to login to our online banking from anywhere in the world, and in doing so, I'd like to mention that:

• you should keep all credit card receipts and automatic cash machine receipts
• you should check your account every couple of days to make sure there are no unusual transactions - double check against your receipts, make sure the figures are the SAME
• if you are checking your account in an internet cafe or in someone's home, EXIT or QUIT the browser software for best security.

Paris Passport Guide Travel Tips : Medical & Prescriptions

Do you need to take medication while travelling? Scan your prescription and ... yes, you guessed it ... email it to yourself before you leave :-)

Do you wear glasses?

If they were lost or broken while you're travelling, how important would it be to have your prescription with you? That's right - scan and email.

TIP! Buy a couple of pairs of inexpensive magnifier glasses, in case your misplace yours. If you wear magnifiers and don't need a prescription, buy an extra pair with STRONGER magnification - most tourist maps are in TINY PRINT. I discovered this the hard way, so for $5 or so get yourself an extra pair and take the guesswork out of ready maps and brochures :-)

Paris Passport Guide Travel Tips : Cellphone / Mobile Phone

1. Phone Charger

If you're changing countries to come to France, and you are planning on bringing your cellphone with you, remember to bring the phone charger with you. If the 220v is higher than where you normally live, you will need [1] a voltage converter, and [2] a plug to turn your 2 prong plug into a 3 prong plug. You can buy these easily in most towns and cities wherever tourists visit.

2. Coverage

Contact your cellphone company 3 times before you leave to ensure Global Roaming is switched 'ON'. Then ask them to EMAIL you to confirm this. Why? Because I just spent 3 months overseas and was assured several times before departure that roaming was ON. On arrival, it WASN'T, so I spent the next 3 weeks emailing and calling SUPPORT who discovered that (a) it had not been switched on, and (b) they didn't know why I couldn't 'see' or 'get' connected to the French system.

Did it get solved? No. And I was pretty annoyed about it.

Ask for DETAILED instructions to be emailed to you on HOW TO GET CONNECTED TO THE FOREIGN SYSTEM before you leave home, with clear instructions for YOUR cellphone brand and model. I kept getting sent links to the provider's website, which kept me in a loop and never actually provided me with any step-by-steps details. Infuriating, frustrating, and totally inconvenient.

Make sure this doesn't happen to you.

Paris Passport Guide Travel Tips : Your House & Car Keys

Consider making an extra set of keys and leaving them with a family member or friend before you take off on your travels. Imagine losing one carry-on bag somewhere in some airport, and discovering your house and car keys were in that one bag.

My travel tip for you?

Plan ahead :-) List all your documents, travel paperwork etc, and mark them off your list as you scan them.

You may end up being soooo glad you did!

Were these tips helpful?

If 'yes!', then you might like to click here to sign up for my newsletter which I send out when I have new tips and suggestions, and up-and-coming things happening in Paris.

Fly Paris with cheap flights from 100+ sites, with one click!

Whether you want to fly to Paris or fly from Paris, you'll be amazed at the number of suggested flights you can find with this search engine dedicated to the best cheap flights on the internet - Kayak.com. You'll find cheap flights from 100+ sites with one click. 

Low Fares Paris Flights - Tips & Tricks

I've written some tips on getting the best low fares Paris has to offer, from the season start and end dates to flying to other cities first - check them out.

Click here to find about a great book I just bought to help me save costs on airfares, hotels, rental cars worldwide. I'll be writing my full review and posting it on my site.