FINDING LOST PEOPLE
 

Has anyone thought of a brilliant way of reconnecting with lost or separated group travellers quickly? Anything is better than meeting at the hotel(which maybe hours away)

Cell phone?

walkie talkies or every hour have a different meeting place scheduled, and everyone has a good map with those locations.

Be aware that you must use walkie-talkies with European frequency, not those from the US. Otherwise, you risk a fine for interrupting their emergency frequency.

Our rule - which, luckily we've never had to resort to - is:
Go back to the last place you saw each other.

How about making sure everyone has a good map of the city, knows how to read it - and is paying attention.

Not all of us have/purchase cell phones that work overseas, so as a last resort we have a designated individual back home that we know is always available (i.e. someone who ALWAYS answers their cell phone). If any of us get seperated we phone back home to that person leaving a message where we will be to meet back up again. This is obviously not the cheapest method but it's better than many wasted hours looking for each other.

don't travel with people whose middle name is "oblivia"

This may not apply to your group or the geographic distance by which you find yourselves separated, but in our family we do this: each person carries a whistle. I keep five beautiful silver whistles on chains in our travel closet. They can be worn inconspicuously under one's clothing. I also have a few whistle/compass combinations from Boy Scout outings, that clip onto one's belt loop, backpack, etc. If we are separated in a crowd, a whistle leads us back to each other. :)

At the beginning of each 1/2 day time period, set a meeting point and time. For instance, while we are in xxx today, if we are separated everyone return to (pick a town square, fountain, monument, cafe) at Noon. Obviously this necessitates everyone having a map and being able to read it.

Repeat after lunch for your afternoon activities and location.

Last ditch I do think the hotel makes the most sense. But again, you need to make sure each person has a business card from the hotel and fare for a taxi back (or is comfortable with use of public transportation.

Hi Lost,

I would give each member of the group an itinerary with approximate times of arrival and departure (If it's 16:00 it must be the Ponte Vecchio).

Wherever one gets lost, there will always be a cab to take one to XXX.

((I))

We have used both walkie talkies and cell phones to stay in contact. It's nice because it gives you more freedom without worrying about staying in lockstep with the group. If this is important to you, it's worth the minor investment for the equipment.

We generally use the "last place we saw each other" if we get separated, otherwise the quadband phone which works all over Europe was the best wireless upgrade I ever made and fairly economical to use as well...but admittedly, not worth it for everyone.

Carta_Pisana, LOL.

lostinspace -- We're going to Paris with our parents (total of 6 of us), and I have yet to figure out how we'd reconnect if/when we lose each other, which is bound to happen somewhere in the Louvre. Given the fact that my siblings will never let me live it down if I lose my Mom...I think each day we'll designate a location that's near our sightseeing where we can meet on the hour if we get lost/lose somebody.

I love your choice of a board name, btw.

Jules

Hi Jules,

>..when we lose each other, which is bound to happen somewhere in the Louvre.<

DO NOT LEAVE THE BUILDING. We will meet at the same place we came in,

((I))

There must be someting here that I'm missing.

I've been to europe over 60 times - and have yet to lose anyone I'm traveling with. Nor do I know any of my firends who have misplaced a loved one - except deliberately.

Unless you're re-enacting the D-Day invasion with a cast of thousands - how hard is it really to organize a few people?

When we separate we simply say - we'll meet at where/when - and do.

Now, granted - I'm not talking about small children - but parents simply need to HANG ONTO them. (And we traveled with the beau's daughters from the time they were 12 and 14 - and no one ever got lost - they were never even more than about 15 miutes late at the meeting places - to me a great on-time record for teenagers.)

So unless you're dealing with small children, the mentally handicapped or the very elderly/easily confused - this all seems to be complete overkill.

"oblivia" LOL

We always made a rule that if we got seperated, go to the Entrance!
If it is outdoors, pick a building and meet there at a certain hour.
Fortunately, we have not had to use either of these methods for finding Lost ones..they just won't get lost!

Knowing my mother, I'll just find her at the nearest bar that serves a nice blush chablis. ;)

Jules

"There must be someting here that I'm missing."

A brain? A heart? The ability to respond to a question without being a pompous jacka$$? Clue us in, nyt.

nytraveler
Date: 06/30/2005, 07:53 pm
There must be someting here that I'm missing.

<i> LOL, that is the point nyt! If you have someone missing..:D</i>

nytraveler: stuff happens. And because it hasn't happened to you, that doesn't mean it can't or won't happen to someone else.

My husband and I were inadvertently separated in the Doge's Palace in
Venice and it was a tense hour until he found me sitting inside the entrance waiting for him to show up.

My brother took my grandmother to the ladies' and waited outside the door for her. She walked out a different door.

I don't wish to seem defensive, but I encountered an attitude similar to yours in today's (and many other days') letters to the editor in my local paper. Today's story was this: during a weekend concert at a large ball park, many people had difficulty entering the park, were caught in crushes, and suffered from the crowds and intense heat. There were several letters stating that the writers had been at the same concert and nothing of the kind had happened to them! Were they missing something?

Yes, I think. The range of human experience is vast, and if something unpleasant hasn't happened to me (yet), I try to tell myself that this is only because I've been lucky so far, and not because I am smarter or more gifted than others.

Having lost a child in an accident, I know first hand that things can go terribly wrong in the blink of an eye.

I don't blame folks at all for wanted to be prepared for an accidental separation. Preparation will only increase our comfort level, I think.

I, like many on this forum, prepare for a trip in many, many ways. It makes me more comfortable to do so. I didn't prepare to get separated from my husband on our honeymoon, and don't you know, it happened. Stuff does.

Rockhopper -

I am certainly not missing a brain - since I'm not the one who is lost or losing people.

As for a heart - I don;t think sympathy is esp useful to people who are not organized - they just need to work harder and think things out better.

As for pompous - I wasn;t aware that basic, truthful advice fell into that category.

I recognize that there are people on this board who don;t travel much and who aren;t used to cities and may be overfaced by them.

But I don;t think encouraging unwarranted concerns is really a very helpful attitude- while perhaps putting thing in a more realistic perspective is.

Back to lostinspace (where are you?).

Not sure what situation you envision but from your comment about a hotel being hours away, I would think that you're talking about city-to-city travel in separate groups, right?

I would say one possibility is to designate a contact &quot;agent&quot; such as your destination hotel or a mutual friend whom you both can call to leave a message for the other person.

Failing that, a little planning would have you both agree ahead of time on some specific landmark that's your &quot;failsafe&quot; rendezvous point halfway from point A to point B -- e./g. town hall in X town or such-and-such a church in Y town.

But without more information about what you are trying to do, hard to be creative.

&quot;encouraging unwarranted concerns&quot;
Unwarranted to you, maybe,but it does not mean that the rest of the world ( or Fodorland) shares your ideas on this.
Sometimes, the best way for someone to go out in the world and be fearless, is to think they know exactly how to deal with everything that can go wrong..we cannot all be not overfaced or whatever you call it~

NYT -- &quot;encouraging unwarranted concerns&quot;? Come on...just because it happens to other people doesn't make them bad planners. It's a sht happens world, and a few of us know that despite the best planning, things can happen...so we try and find out ways to prevent and hope for the best. Slamming someone for asking a question is pompous at the very least, so get off your high horse. That's what this board is for -- answering even the &quot;dumb and dumber&quot; of questions.

In my case, I'm travelling with four older people, one of whom has a bad knee, but she's got the gumption to go anyway. My mom tends to wilt from heat stroke at the drop of a hat, but I plan to keep her cool and watered to the best of my ability. If I lost one of them, even for a moment, I would be deeply concerned about their well-being.

As a result, I plan for as many eventualities as I can, short of obsessing about it, but I sure looked at this post to look for tips on how to find lost people, not to see someone say that losing others is a matter of bad planning. fduh.

tuscanlifeedit: I'm sorry about the loss of your child. I have had a similar experience, and know the grief that goes with it well. ((HUGS)) to you and yours.

Jules

I agree that &quot;don't leave the building&quot; is ground rule #1. But if that doesn't apply, and someone gets seriously separated-- each traveler should have the business card of the hotel he or she is staying in. Then anyone of the group can call the hotel and leave a message to be retrieved by the lost person or vice versa. Saves the trouble of everyone trooping back to the hotel and wasting valuable vacation time.

I guess I am superstitious. I like to plan for events such as separation in a large museum and where to meet up. I then feel better because I know that if something does happen I can handle it and everyone knows what to do. I also like to think, that since we have a plan, nothing will go wrong. Better to be prepared for nothing than not.

STUFF really does happen. It just does, and often when you least expect it.

I once traipsed around London for a few days and, a week or so later, Paris for a couple more days with a group of 5 other people who represented a range of age groups, and one of whom was nearly deaf.

We used the Tube and the Metro extensively to get around.

I can't even tell you how many times the &quot;fast&quot; walker of the group (my sister) unthinkingly hurried to hop on a train about to leave the station. This caused the slowest one or two or three of the group to come within a hair's breadth of not making it onto the same train before the doors slammed shut for good. We did actually manage to keep the group together, but there were MANY close calls.

In such a case, what do you do if not all of the group makes the train? Who does what? Are you positive everyone heard everything and knows what station they're supposed to be headed for?

That was the trip we came up with our rule - the one I stated above:
&quot;Go back to the last place you saw each other&quot;.

Cumbersome and time-consuming, yes, but foolproof. Everybody knows exactly what to do, where to go to, when to stay put. It works even when you had no expectation of getting separated and hadn't thought to designate a specific meeting point.

My husband and I became separated in Amsterdam almost immediately upon arrival. We approached a crowded tram to board it - I got on, husband was right behind me (I thought). Tram took off - I looked behind me thru all the people, no husband. I got off about 3 stops later, wondering whether to stay there or go back. I crossed over to start walking back to where we boarded -met husband who started walking along the tram's route.

Since that experience, we discuss a meeting plan. Also, I carry my GSM phone - so he could at least find <i>me</i>.

I too think there is a bit of overcontrol being put forth here if we are talking about adults. But I do appreciate the necessity to look out for the elderly in our families.

I don't think cell phones are that useful, considering that one or more parties may not know where they are, and you can't get here from there.

The obvious solution if dealing with an adult who probably should not be out on her own would be to hold hands.

Some of the solutions offered are likely to fail. Meeting at the last place you saw each other presupposes that you agree on where that was, and know how to get there. Getting on a return tram works only if the person you have lost didn't get on the next tram. Setting hourly rendevouzs would kill any spontenaity for the whole trip.

My wife and I have a few rules that have served us well. First is that we agree to not panic if separated, enjoy our day, and meet at our lodgings before going to dinner. Another is that if only one of us gets on a train or bus, one gets off at the next stop, and waits for the laggard, who will take the next train or bus one stop. If that doesn't work, then we are on our own until dinner.

If my mother were still with us and was frail, I would watch her like a hawk, since I think elaborate plans to meet at x, y, or z would be a test for her. I think we owe this to their parents.

GreenEyedCatWoman, it would never work for us, because we'd never agree on where the last place we saw each other was. (I'm not kidding.)

We learned early in our relationship that despite all we have in common, we don't seem to use the same logic in figuring out how to find each other when we're accidentally separated. After a series of frustrating missed meetings and horrendous fights afterwards in which we each blamed the other, we got in the habit of having a back up plan. This was all pre-cell phones.

Walkie talkies and cell phones have eliminated the problem, I'm happy to say.

What Marilyn said.

Nikki, LOL! Don't you love it when you can throw a little money at something and make an entire category of marital arguments go away?

I wish I had a plan in action before Mom and I went to Europe. Could have saved a lot of time and worry on my part. We hadn't plan on being apart, but it happened.

Dear jules4je7

Thank you and the very same to you. Kind words go a very long way, don't they?

I appreciate yours. This coming weekend is the anniversary of my son's death, so your kindness is especially welcome tonight.

Bless you, Debbie

My son and I got separated somehow in the Vatican last November. He's 13, so I wasn't frantic, but I was concerned and annoyed that we had to miss the final leg of our guided tour. He had gone on ahead, something that had not occured to me to address. (Lagging behind, yes.)

Nothing, however, prepared me for the feeling of utter terror when we were on a jam-packed rush hour train in Tokyo, and I got off but HE STAYED ON. As the doors were closing, I told him to get off at the next stop and WAIT.

We had no cell phones, no Japanese language, and about two miles and a few million people between us. I almost threw up on the platform waiting for the next train.

Being an eminently sensible boy, he did just as I asked--- although he had not heard me correctly, but he divined that this was the right course of action from the panic stricken look on my face, probably. The relief I felt when I saw him standing on the platform waiting at the next stop was simply indescribable. We went on our way for dinner, and THEN decided to come up with a contingency plan for EVERY situation we could dream up.

From my perspective, you CANNOT be overprepared.

Well isn't the Boy Scout motto &quot;Be Prepared&quot;? Or something like that. Obviously I was never a Boy Scout, LOL.

But being prepared is always a good idea. Living in CA, earthquake country, our entire family knows to call our family in Portland OR if we here in CA cannot reach each other. And this was done when the 1989 SF earthquake hit. Had a family member in the Marina and another one in Santa Clara. Being prepared is always good.

Cell phone are great. Also like the idea of everyone having a business card from the hotel. Like Marilyn, I think in my family having everyone meet at the &quot;last place&quot; would probably entail two days of arguements as to where the &quot;last place&quot; was.

BTW, last summer I went to an outdoor concert with my neighbor, her son &amp; DIL and her little grandson. It got dark, we were all together listening to the music while standing by the bandstand and enjoying a glass of wine when suddenly my neighbor asked where her little grandson was. Total horror, he was no longer with us! And there were about 4,000 people at the concert. Total panic to the point noone could even remember what outfit he was wearing.

Long story short, he had wandered off, evidently just a few feet, but people got between him and our group so he couldn't find us again. The little fellow found his way back to where our seats were all by himself. And that is where we found him. We almost passed out with relief. He explained to us that he went back to where our seats were because it just made sense to him. A Boy Scout to be I guess. So yes, bad stuff happens. And having plans sure can be a good thing.

Dear Tuscanlifeedit, I am so sorry about the loss of your son. I had no idea. My prayers and thoughts are with all of you during this anniversary weekend. I hope you have a lot of people around you to give you hugs, love and lots of care. Take good care of yourself. Peace.

Tuscanlifeedit, my thoughts are with you this weekend. ((HUGS)) Jules