Ten Pieces of Traveller's Advice from your Passport—and Did We Follow Them.

1. Check the latest travel advice for your destination. No. Didn't. It's America, what could possibly go wrong. It's New York—zero tolerance—it'll be safer than Melbourne.
2. Take out comprehensive travel insurance. Yep. After all those years as a travel agent, and the even larger number of years as a paranoid, I always take travel insurance. I figure it stops people worrying about what I am doing. A bit.
3. Register your travel plans with smarttraveller.com or the local Embassy. I am not giving the government more ways of tracking me. They have this, my i-Google page with preferences, my ASIO file, my internet purchases paper-less paper trail and my library card. That'll be a no.
4. Obey the laws of the country you are visiting even if you regard them as harsh and unfair. For the most part, yes. There were a couple of dodgy u-turns when lost, and the time we didn't pay to use the safe.
5. Make sure you have the right visa for the country you are visiting. Yes. Easy, the name of the visa is the same as the name of my workplace. Wouldn't forget that, even if I tried.
6. Make copies of your passport, insurance documents, travellers cheques and credit card numbers. Yes (against my will, I never have before, maybe it would be bad luck, stored with passports anyway!), yes and it's online anyway, not applicable, no.
7. Check on recommended vaccinations for the place you are travelling to. Don't like injections.
8. Make sure your passport has at least six months validity and carry extra passport photos in case something happens to your passport. Yes on the former. No on the latter but that is a good idea although I don't like to carry such ugly looking things around. That would durely scare a security person who had to search my bag, but may cause a thief to drop my stuff and run away. Mmm, I will consider that for the furture.
9. Keep in contact with friends back home and leave them an itinerary so they know where you are. V— did, he is good. My folks, I assume, go for the no-news philosophy. I write the 'go' and 'back' dates on a calender at B—'s request (although I am sure that is just so she knows when to start wearing clothes again), and anyone who hasn't been listening to the plan as I waffled on about it for the six months prior, have only themselves to blame for not knowing the itinerary.
10. Check to see if you are a national of the country that you plan to visit. No, I am fairly sure I am not. Don't think I will get drafted to Iraq.