Jolly Holidays & Travel Tips

The sun is shining and it’s coming to that time of year again where everyone is booking their holidays or dieting in preparation for holidays and the shops are full of glorious summer clothes that we are tempted to buy.

Now as you can imagine (given my OCD tendancies) one of the first things on my list is family travel insurance.  Did you know that airlines can stop you flying if you don’t have comprehensive enough travel insurance?    Only once have I gone abroad without insurance, to America of all places and can you guess what happened?  Chick got so sick that we ended up at the hospital with her and all the while I was on the phone frantically trying to get my insurance sorted out so that we were covered and not millions of pounds poorer!  The story ended ok though as we managed to get insured and Chick was absolutely fine!!!

Some other OCD things that I do before going away:

-          Leave spare keys with a neighbour and a friend along with emergency telephone numbers.

-          Make sure that the family has a list of our schedule and hotel names in case they desperately need to contact us (only in dire emergency though!!)

-          Take copies of plane tickets, passports and insurance policies and leave them with someone at home.  If you get into trouble/lost etc and end up at the British Embassy at least you will be able to provide passport number etc.

-          Label everything.  On a flight from Amsterdam my bag once ended up in the Middle East but I got it back because it was so clearly labelled.

-          Split up your cash into several places/bags and then if something is lost or stolen at least you haven’t lost everything.

-          Make sure I have enough to keep Chick entertained on the plane.  DS, iPod, books, crayons.....in a bag just for her with some inexpensive new treats in so that it take her longer to get bored!!!!

As I’m sure most of you will remember we’ve already had our main holiday this year and spent some of December and most of January in the land Down Under, so our Summer holiday will mainly be spent in Norfolk.  We had such a great time there last year that Chick is desperate to return again this year and we may even push the boat out and hire one of these:

It is my dream to own one of these but I’m still nowhere near able to afford one!  We’ll be taking lots of games, books and a bucket and spade and enjoying the high life in our little hut!!!

So what about you guys?  Do you have any great tips for things that you do to prepare for holiday?  Are you off somewhere exotic this year and want to make us all jealous, or will I be seeing you at your Norfolk holiday homes!???!  Feel free to tell me in the comment box as I love hearing about everyone’s travels!

Edited to add: Hello and a big thank you to everyone stopping by today from SITS!  I am away on holiday at the moment but promise to come and visit you all when I return!  Please bear with me as it may take me a few days xx

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