Traveling internationally can be one of the best experiences of your life. But it can also be a little bit of a pain in the neck. Between booking the trip, going through the actual travel day, figuring out currency and language issues, and keeping track of your things and your plans, there’s a lot to do whenever you leave your home country! Nevertheless, it can still be one of the best experiences you ever have, so rather than despair about how many things there are to keep track of, you should try to find ways to simplify the process and dig right into Traveling abroad checklist.

These might help get you started.

Traveling abroad checklist

Stay On Top Of Your Passport

One of the worst possible things that can happen to a traveler is to get close to the date of departure and only then realize that a passport is expiring, or is out of blank pages. It seems like the sort of thing you might be able to fix with a few long phone calls, but that’s not usually the case.

Fortunately, there’s a simple fix: as soon as you start considering an international trip, dig up your passport and make sure it’ll do the job. Generally speaking, it needs to be valid for about six months following your departure date just to be safe, though you can read up on the specifics as far as when to renew in order to avoid problems. Really, checking on all of this should be your very first step in planning the trip.

Talk To Your Credit Card Company

This is a fairly common tip, so hopefully, you’ve heard it before. But just in case you haven’t, it’s important! You want to notify your bank or credit card company of your destination and the dates of your trip before you go. Otherwise, if you suddenly use a credit card overseas, it may set off some warning signals to the bank. They may believe someone stole your card information and is using it overseas.

We’ll get into some more specifics about paying for things abroad in the next section, but you should always notify your card company, even if you don’t plan on using cards. You never know when you might need to unexpectedly.

Look Into Bitcoin Options

Part of what can turn international travel into a headache is the process of exchanging currency. It’s manageable of course, but it’s not much fun to immediately have to go to a counter with a long line, or find a trustworthy ATM and exchange your own currency for that of a foreign nation. Sometimes it’s the only real option you have.

But these days, you would do well to look into Bitcoin options before you go anywhere. It has become easier to find Bitcoin-accepting merchants around the world, and if you happen to be visiting a country where Bitcoin is widely used, you can stock up before you leave home and simply use this digital currency once you reach your destination. Bitcoin can be a little complex when you’re just starting out, but it saves you the exchange (and re-exchange) a headache.

Find Some Packing Tips

If you’ve never thought about looking into packing tips, you might be shocked at how many different ways there are to put clothing, accessories, and other objects into a bag.

Buzzfeed put together a handy list of packing tips including everything from packaging daily outfits in small bags to using Q-tips to avoid tangled jewelry. But don’t just look at this one list. There are seriously more demonstrations, images, and written tips than you can count littered across the internet, and many of them can help you save packing space for your international trips.

Trust Guidebooks

Finally, I’ll address what may seem like an obvious idea: trust in guidebooks. These days it can be tempting to simply do online research or download an app for travel recommendations. These are fine, but you don’t always know where the information is coming from, and you also never know when you may not have access to technology. Perhaps you’ll want to conserve phone battery, or you’ll be unable to connect an app.

Go ahead and spend some time looking through the latest guidebooks concerning your destination or its surrounding region, and if possible pick up a small one to carry with you. It may very well lead you to some of the best experiences you have abroad!