Travel Tips

Safety is always a priority when traveling, especially while abroad, and especially in a student-based group. Large groups of loud, American travelers a can usually be a target for pit pockets or worse, so when in public try not to draw so much attention to yourself. I especially noticed this when our group would go out on the weekends all together and be rather loud in the streets, and seeing the people staring/following always made us uneasy about what their intentions were. Of course it is important to make sure you know where you r passport is, and this can get difficult if you are bringing it with you every day to different places and excursions. A tip that our professor from the University of Navarra gave us was to take a picture of your passport on your phone, so you always have the information handy but don’t have to carry the actual document with you. This was useful in stores that sometimes request identification with purchases or just general safety.

Luckily, I didn’t have any serious mishaps while in Spain, other than losing my wallet for a day. When I realized I didn’t have my wallet, I was horrified at first but then realized that there could be worse things and I had prepared myself for this problem. I only carried one credit card, 40 Euro, and my license in my wallet so that if I lost it, then I would still be able to carry on through the trip without a major meltdown. Thankfully I went back to the restaurant I had dinner at and they had my wallet, but if not since I had only carried the minimum it would have been easy to replace everything. The second travel advice I have is to take out or exchange a good amount of Euros in the U.S. before your trip. The exchange rate the companies at the airport use is usually marked up, and it was very hard for my friends to find an ATM that does not charge you a fee (on top of the usual $5 fee your bank charges per transaction). Bringing a substantial sum of Euros over with me made it easy to buy food and shop at cash-only places, and I only had to go to the ATM one time at the end of my trip! I had not thought about this before my trip as I was previously advised only to bring a few Euros with me, but my parents advice of bringing over more was definitely worthwhile.
Fortunately I do not have any good allergies, but a few people on the trip did including my roommate. Thankfully she has a command of the Spanish language and knew how to say she has an allergy to almonds (alemendras), but this made me think about other people going to countries where they don’t know the language. My advice would be to look up how to say the sentence “I am allergic to…” in the country’s language, or at the very least just the noun you are allergic to. If your allergy s severe and you want to me extremely carful, it might be helpful to write it down with a picture of the food on a little card your carry in your wallet, jut to be safe. These tips are meant to make your traveling easier and even though they usually concern the “small stuff”, sometimes having all those things taken care of can make a huge difference in the outcome of your trip.