See a diabetes professional or your physician before you travel, especially if you have been recently diagnosed or if you are an infrequent traveler. If you are insulin dependent, advise your travel consultant prior to departure so that they may request refrigeration services at hotels and on cruise ships.

The American Diabetes Association publishes an excellent guide for diabetic travelers (shown to the right). And travelers with diabetes will also find that there are a number of nutrition bars for diabetic travelers made specifically for their needs.

More Informational Resources

• Traveling with Diabetes Supplies. A very informative post by the American Diabetes Association, including advice on bringing your diabetes supplies through airport security.
• The Diabetic Traveler. A blog devoted to issues faced by travelers with diabetes.

If you carry a smart phone or PDA, consider using applications on your phone to store this information, too. Your phone’s calendar program is a good place to store flight times and numbers. It’s good to have a paper backup of this information, though, in case you forget to charge your battery.

There is some information you definitely don’t want to include, though. Social security numbers, copies of credit card and bank account numbers, or other information you wouldn’t want to misplace shouldn’t be carried on your person while traveling.

PHOTO CREDIT: CARD INDEX BOX BY MELANIE KUIPERS VIA STOCK.XCHNG.

Protect your home.

Take steps to protect your home

This is the first in a three-part series of posts on how to protect your home while you’re out of town. Most snowbirds will already be familiar with these security suggestions, but they apply equally if you’ll be out of town for more than a week.

The Basics

• Notify police and neighbors about when you are leaving and how long you will be gone.
• Suspend all deliveries: mail, newspapers, etc. Avoid ordering mail order merchandise that might arrive while you’re away.
• Put valuables in a bank safe deposit box.
• Leave a key with a neighbor in case of emergency.

Buy an automatic timer or two

• Set up automatic timers to turn your lights on and off and to play the radio at different times of the day.
• Use a programmable timer. Smart criminals may case a neighborhood days or weeks ahead of attempting a burglary. Programmable timers allow you to set up lights so that they don’t always turn on and off at the same time of day, making it much more difficult for criminals casing a neighborhood to tell that you’re away.
• Customers at Amazon.com gave good reviews to the two timer products shown to the right. Always check reviews on these products, as some of them are poorly designed and difficult to use.

Arrange for the care of your house, lawn and garden.

• Well-kept grounds give the impression that somebody’s home.
• Ask a friend or neighbor to make periodic checks of your house, or consider employing a house-sitting service.
• Have someone remove flyers or advertising circulars from your steps, entryway, and doorknob. When ad material piles up, it’s a dead giveaway that no one is home.

PHOTO CREDIT: HOUSE IN FLORIDA BY C. SPENCER VAN GULICK VIA STOCK.XCHNG.

The right hand page of this Thai passport shows an Indian visa.

Check whether you need to obtain a visa, which is required by some countries.

A visa is an endorsement made in a passport allowing entry into the country you’re visiting, testifying that your passport has been examined and found in order. It permits you to visit that country for a specified purpose and usually for a limited time.

While actual visa processing times vary from country to country, it is best to allow 120 days to ensure that you receive your visa for your trip. Vantage travelers automatically receive information and applications if the country they are visiting requires a visa.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to get your visa. While we Americans sometimes complain about the speed at which our government’s bureaucracy runs, many countries are considerably worse, and they don’t offer the option of paying an extra fee for rush processing as our State Department does.

For American citizens, the U.S. State Department maintains information on visa requirements for most foreign nations on its web site. Click here, then on the name of the country you’ll be visiting, for specific information on travel to that country. Visa information will be under the heading, “ENTRY/EXIT REQUIREMENTS.”

Finally, if you choose to get your visa through a private company that offers visa expediting services, caveat emptor (”Let the buyer beware”). Make sure you are dealing with a reputable company.

Important: Non-U.S. and Canadian citizens traveling with a U.S. tour operator like Vantage should always check with the embassy of the country or countries of destination for passport and visa requirements.

PHOTO CREDIT: INDIAN VISA BY JON RAWLINSON VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. THIS PHOTO IS LICENSED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 2.0 LICENSE.

Happy Eustachian tubes, happy traveler!

If you suffer from earaches while flying, try these tricks:

• A half hour to 45 minutes before takeoff, take an antihistamine or decongestant.
• Just before takeoff, “pop” your ears by holding your nose shut, closing your mouth, and attempting to blow air through your nostrils. This helps to clear your Eustachian tubes, which can become swollen and blocked when cabin pressure changes.
• While in flight you should swallow frequently, chew gum or candy, and “pop” your ears when the pressure builds.

It’s especially important to take these precautions if you feel a cold coming on — if the tubes are blocked, fluids can become trapped, causing painful ear infections.

PHOTO CREDIT: EAR BY HELMUT GEVERT VIA STOCK.XCHNG

Pat (via Facebook) loves reading John Grisham novels when traveling by air, and enthusiastically recommended the following Grisham titles:

• The Innocent Man
• The Partner
• A Painted House

Susan (via Facebook) suggested:

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
• The Girl Who Played with Fire, also by Stieg Larsson

Apparently Susan is a fan of Scandinavian crime novels, which have been a big favorite with whodunnit readers over the last few years. Fair warning, though: crime novels in this genre are not always a good choice for more sensitive readers.

@Scottiegirl (via Twitter) suggested an interesting mix of novels, including:

• Face of Betrayal (A Triple Threat Novel), by Lis Wiehl
• The Beach House: A Novel, by Jane Green
• The Glassblower of Murano, by Marina Fiorato

Linda (via Facebook) suggested a mystery:

• Smoke Screen: A Novel, by Sandra Brown

And Jim (via Twitter) suggested a recent World War II history:

• With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa, by E.B. Sledge

Do you have a favorite book you enjoyed on a long flight? If so, leave a comment to let us know about it!

Klaus Franz*, one of Vantage's many program managers in South America, brings deep knowledge and a great sense of humor to his job. Careful with that snake, Klaus!

Find out who will be leading your trip. One of the most important features of any vacation is the staff who will accompany you. Are they experienced? Knowledgeable? Caring? Professional?

A good escort, or Program Manager (PM), plays an integral role in the success of a tour. He or she works behind the scenes to make sure everything runs smoothly, skillfully turning complications into valuable adventures. Your Program Manager should be a seasoned professional, and it helps if the same escort stays with you for the length of your trip.

You’ll benefit if your Program Manager lives in the region you’re visiting. This assures that you’ll get an insider’s perspective. (Vantage’s top-notch Program Managers operate from satellite offices around the globe).

Most tour operators will not allow you to request specific PMs, so choose a tour operator that receives good all-around reviews on its program managers.

*The link above is to Klaus’s personal web site; Vantage Travel is not responsible for the contents.

Suggested itinerary for a day tour of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

This morning, 151 Tips tried out Google City Tours, a new tool from Google Labs. While it’s still in beta (meaning Google is still working out some bugs), City Tours shows real promise as a new way to plan your activities in a city you’re visiting. In this short review, we present some suggestions for using it.

Vantage Travel and many other tour operators offer trip extensions, affording you the opportunity for a few nights’ extra stay in major destinations like Amsterdam, Budapest, or Jerusalem. In many cases these extensions are programmed just like the main itinerary of a trip, but you’ll also have opportunities for afternoons, mornings, or sometimes even whole days “at leisure.” If you’ve got some time on your hands during a trip extension, or if you’re just traveling on your own and want to plan your visit to a city, what’s the best approach? Guidebooks are an excellent source of detailed information on sights to see, but planning a day’s activities from a guidebook can take a bit of work. Google City Tours offers a new way to shorten that process.

Here’s how it works:

1. Visit http://citytours.googlelabs.com/ (you don’t need a Google account to use this service).
2. At the top of the screen is a field labeled, Enter a starting address for your tour. Type in the city and country you want to explore.
3. City Tours returns a map of the city in question with a proposed itinerary. It will try to find a cluster of sights and attractions that it thinks are realistic to visit within one day, mostly within walking distance of one another. (If you’ve used Google Maps before, this should look pretty familiar).
4. Too much for one day? No problem. Click on the “Add/Remove Sights” link toward the top of the screen. The map will change to show all of the sights as round, red buttons. Click on one, and a mini-window pops up. Click the “Remove” link, and the sight is taken out of your tour.
5. Best of all, City Tours lets you specify dates, and it tries to find attractions that will be open on the dates you specify. Use the “Change Dates” link (also toward the top of the screen) to modify your options here. (Warning: Because this service is still in beta, we strongly recommend checking your results against a good guidebook to make sure attractions are actually open on the dates you choose).

The "Change Dates" screen lets you search for sights that will be available during your tour.

The Verdict

City tours has a ways to go before it’s a perfect application. For some cities, such as Jerusalem and Bucharest, we found that it shows you a map, a list of attractions… but no street names! Still, the addresses for the attractions are there, so you can easily compare to a city map from a guidebook. For other cities, such as Amsterdam, Mumbai, and Chicago, it worked like a charm. At this stage, City Tours looks great for getting a suggested itinerary — but again, we do recommend checking the results you get against a guidebook. Google will no doubt work on improving this service over time, but despite the bugs, we’re already pretty impressed. Give it a try!

No offense, but the spots look better on him than you.

Be aware that many items made from endangered wildlife are not permitted in the U.S. Some of these, such as ivory and furs from big cats, are well known, but others may be suprising:

• Furs from spotted cats
• Furs from marine animals
• All products made from sea turtles and tortoise shells
• Products containing dog fur
• All ivory, both Asian and African, including that from elephants, whale, rhinoceroses, and seals
• Feathers and feather products from wild birds
• All live and stuffed birds from Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Venezuela, and some Caribbean countries
• Most crocodile and caiman leather
• Most coral
• Any meat product
• Any part or product made from any of the above, including skins, tusks, bones, feathers, or eggs

The United States Customs & Border Patrol, a section of Homeland Security, maintains a complete list of all prohibited & restricted items. Check it before you go!

PHOTO CREDIT: LEOPARD BY GIL ROS VIA STOCK.XCHNG

If you pack your pants like this, you're doing it wrong.

Americans tend to stand out when traveling. Part of it is our love of baseball caps, blue jeans, and other casual clothing. At Vantage Travel we always recommend you wear what’s most comfortable while on your trip. With these helpful tips on avoiding wrinkles when packing, you might still stand out — but you’ll look neat and wrinkle-free while doing it!

• Pack items with the buttons buttoned.
• Fold clothes as little as possible.
• Fold items as close to the waist and seamsas you can.
• Plastic dry cleaner’s or laundry bags between layers minimize wrinkling — just keep each layer flat and even.
• Suits, jackets, and other hard-to-iron items can be given some extra protection from wrinkling by carefully rolling them top to bottom in a towel instead of folding.
• Unpack as soon as possible after you arrive aboard ship.
• Instead of bringing a bulky travel iron, try hanging your clothes in the bathroom when taking a shower. Often, the humidity is enough to de-wrinkle them.

Happy wrinkle-free traveling!

PHOTO CREDIT: PANT WITH STRIPE POCKET BY EMILY LUCIMA VIA STOCK.XCHNG