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The Backup Info Sheet
The sheet of backup information is the message in a bottle you send to yourself in case you get into trouble and lose all your important travel documents.
Make a photocopy collage that includes the following:
- The information page of your passport (not the front cover!)
- Your driver’s license
- Your student ID or teacher ID card
- Your health insurance card
Also write on this sheet the serial numbers of your traveler’s checks, your credit card numbers ("code" them somehow), and the phone numbers for the issuers of your ATM bank cards, credit cards, and traveler’s checks —if you lose any of them on the road, you’ll need to call it in immediately.
Note that most credit cards and such will have a local, non toll-free number that you can call collect from abroad (since you can't dial 800, 866, 877, or 888 numbers from overseas). Be sure this is the number you get before you leave. If it's not written on the back of the card or somewhere on the card issuer's web site, call the toll-free number that is on there, navigate the annoying "push 1 for..." system until you get a live person, and ask her.
Make two copies of this backup sheet of paper. Leave one with a friend at home (along with a copy of your itinerary) and carry the second with you in a safe place separate from the originals! (Tuck it away inside the lining of your bag or something.)
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This article was last updated in June 2006. All information was accurate at the time.
Copyright © 1998–2010 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.
