ileen, You're welcome. Have a great trip! Saige

instead of telling police that you will be away, tell Neighborhood watch people, if you have one in your neighborhood.

Arrange for shuttle to and from home/airport.

Make up list of phone numbers, including vet's, for pet sitter, and leave feeding/care instructions in pertinent places - eg. fish info taped to fish tank. Buy enough pet food to last the whole time and a few extra days for pet sitter to use, and leave in prominent place.

Robes, what if you lose, or break the pocket pc?

Thursdaysd

Thanks for all your contributions thus far. Two followup questions for you, please:

1- Above, you mentioned medevac insurance. Whose did you purchase?

2- In your April trip report about Nice you mentioned purchasing a bus pass at the airport. Can you give me more details about that? What areas does it cover? Can you get off and on in Monaco too? I assume you can get a weeklong pass.

1. tenweb.com

2. Am traveling with minimal net access - google Nice transport.

thursdaysd,

The police in my town in Georgia will cruise by and even check doors and windows when we are out of town--part of the small town, high service environment we pay taxes for. One time the day before a trip I was sitting in my family room eating a bowl of cereal, watching the morning news when I looked over and saw a man peering in the glass beside the front door! I saw the uniform and my heart slowed to normal. He said the clerk must have written down the wrong date of departure and he was doing the first day gone check of my doors and garage to make sure they were closed and locked. He thought if I was a burglar, that I was certainly making myself at home.

As for the list, I now try to clean the house, do laundry, and put some food in the house that will be easy to heat/eat upon return (I am rarely gone more than 2 weeks). It makes the return home tired with suitcase of dirty clothes much more pleasant knowing I don't have to stop at the grocery or immediately do laundry.

You mentioned that you put your netfix membership on hold. I didn't know that you could do this. Can you provide more info on that like can it be done for only a one month time frame?

Netflix - don't remember off-hand - go to the account section and look around. Mine's currently on hold for at least two months.

We always input all of our hotel addresses into our GPS before we leave.

The Police Dept. in our little town will do a daily drive by at various times if you notify them you will be on vacation.

We notify the company that monitors our alarm system that we will be away.

Make sure you have enough of any prescription medications to last the duration of your trip or contact your doctor or pharmacy for a new prescription or refill.

Be sure to reset your AC/heater thermostat to an appropriate temperature if your house will be empty.

Run garbage disposal and deoderize.

Actually, if you can, make sure you have prescriptions to last a little longer than your trip. What happens if you're delayed a couple days? I know some insurance companies only give a particular amount per month - which has messed with my dad in the past. We went on a three week trip to Scotland last summer, and he was unable to get enough of his heart medicine to last the trip, as he was in the middle of a 'month' cycle, and the next time he was able to get more was in the middle of the vacation - when we would be up on the Orkney Islands, with no Walgreens :P However, we were able to work something out with the doctor before we left.

Lovely thread!
As soon as I have returned from a trip, I immediately launder and top up any items which I store in my suitcase, in readiness for an emergency or preferably a next trip. Includes a spare nylon lightweight foldable suitcase, a featherweight raincoat, one week's supply underwear, 5 t-shirts, travel plug adaptor, wash bag and contact lenses, a book, Euros for trips and Pounds for my return (taxi, parking, buying milk etc), travel diary. I have handy at home an open box of items such as camera chargers, spare mobiles/chargers, which may be needed at home or away (in readiness for a local weekend away). I create my personal Google maps with all details for museums (admission times, costs), restaurants, shops and other to-dos on my trip. Either I print what I need for that journey or log in at my destination.

In my desk I have two sealed packages: one to be opened in the event of a manageable emergency and one to be opened in the event of my death. The first one contains money, bank instructions and utility account details should my return be delayed. In the second one, as before and is also a full list of my investments and policy document details and whom to contact for the management of my affairs. We have three adult children who could benefit from knowing whom to contact and whom to trust in either emergency or death. I have had a package on the go since I married (26 years ago) and review it regularly.

I aim to never pack more than 4.5 kilos (plus luggage weight) so that I have spare space in my 10kgs overall allowance to bring home a tiny souvenir. I wear my heaviest items and use a smart backpack instead of a handbag.

These are all pretty extensive and great tips to add to a travel checklist. One of the things I do is I have an Excel spreadsheet with what I need to pack and what I need to accomplish before going on a trip. It has grown over the year as my travel experiences have added to the maturity. Being that it is a spreadsheet, it is always able to be expended upon. I leave enough blanks to allow for trip specific items or tasks. My spreadsheet also includes spaces for quantity of packed items so I can plan out the pending trip and what to pack.

One thing I would take off your list is turning off the water coming into the house... if you have an automated sprinkler system, if I turned my water off my grass would suffer

Greendragon, a lot of insurance companies have a one time per year vacation refill that will give you an extra 30 days of meds for the trip.

jmeyer43, that is why we don't turn off our water. I also will set some of my bigger plants around the backyard so they can get watered by the sprinkler system.

The smaller plants are arranged on the patio and my husband has a watering system set up on a timer that we put together from tubing, watering heads, etc., we purchased at Home Depot. The plants always seem to thrive while we are away!

If you are like us and can't turn off the water to the house, then do turn off the faucets connected to your washing machine.

We leave the water into the house turned on because the cat-sitter needs it, but we do turn off the water line to the washing machine. It failed one time (fortunately I was in the next room), and the quantity of water was amazing.

I don't have a sprinkler system, so don't need the water for that. Plus, although the pipes inside my house were replaced under a class action law suit, the pipe from the city's meter to the house was not, and is liable to fail...

Angeline - it may now, but at the time (2 years ago), they didn't, or at least the plan my dad was on. It was worrisome, because he has VERY high blood pressure, has already had one heart attack, and going without his heart meds was a scary thought...

hair cut/colored, legs waxed, and nails done.

We got an Asus Eee PC, which we took to Belize, and loved it! Downloaded all important trip info, and set up remote email access - husband has gmail, I have through ISP. Remote access is great since we could easily access all trip info that we emailed. The eee is too small to be an everyday computer, but is a great travel toy, and back up.

U.S. citizen going out of the country: Inform the State Department so they know you are overseas.

Instructions for the house/pet sitter re: pets, garbage, etc.

If you are going out of the country, check on medical services/providers - International Association for Medical Assistance to Travelers (IAMAT)

Buy international calling card, especially if you are not using a cell phone with international service.

You're really going to tell the U.S. government you're headed to Italy? I did think about registering while I was in Lebanon, but the site was down for maintainance! Haven't bothered for Syria. Only reason is in case emergency requires evacuation.