2 comments to “What kind of documents should I copy before I travel to Europe?”

1. tonalc2 wrote:
   1. June 2006 at 10:43 am :

   It’s good to have a copy of your passport, credit cards, flight information and prescription medicines. It’s also good to leave a copy of all of those with someone back home, just in case everything gets lost.

2. kaisatsu wrote:
   4. June 2006 at 10:15 am :

   There is one thing you should definitely keep a copy of is the contact info for your credit card companies! If a credit card does get lost or stolen, you need to have the international collect calling number around so that you can contact them. Since it’s usually printed on the card, you’ll lose the phone number unless you have it written down somewhere else. (Also, don’t forget to call your credit card companies in advance and tell them where you’re going. Otherwise they have a tendency to put a security hold on your cards, and you’ll have to call them from Europe to get your cards re-enabled!)

   We also keep a copy of our passport when we travel. Just be sure to protect it to the same level that you would the original. It’s true that you don’t need a copy of your passport to apply for a new one, but trust me that it does help! I had my passport stolen when I was in China, and I was very glad to have a photocopy of it. It made it much easier to communicate with the authorities, and I had a much easier time getting into the embassy (since I could show the photocopy to the Chinese guards to get onto the embassy grounds).

   For the medicine, if you have a copy of (or even better the original) of the prescription, you might want to bring that along just in case (especially if your prescription is for a controlled substance like high-dosage pain meds).

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