Mar
30
If your heading overseas, your going to need some cash in the national currency shortly after stepping off the plane.
You can either use your bank or currency exchange business, but these attract fees. Getting your currency exchanged is fee free at the Post Office.
If purchased before 12am, this can usually be turned around by the next day.
I wanted around US$300 for the first couple of day things like tipping the airport to accommodation taxi driver. This cost A$341.06 for US$305.
Mar
26
With perfect timing prior to my US Trip in a weeks time, the latest WordPress iPhone app update 2.3.1 adds geotagging.
Mar
18
One of the most important things you need to remember when travelling overseas is to call your carrier (Tesltra, Optus, Vodafone etc) and ask them to turn on international roaming.
This will allow your phone to connect to US cell towers. If you forget to do this prior to your trip, you phone will be useless.
Charges
When calling, texting or using data overseas that traffic is charged ata different rate to when you use it in Australia. Behind the scenes the US carrier charges your Australian carriers for use of their network. Your carrier passes this cost onto you, hence the higher rates.
Head over to your carrier’s website to check these fees.
Some countries have different methods of charging where the person receiving the call / text pays, rather than the person who initiates it. A strange approach I know. I’ll certainly be letting my friends and family know to use free online methods to contact me.
Wi-Fi
Don’t forget most phones these days have Wi-Fi built in, if you can find a free hotspot, or pay for internet access in your motel, your best to use it where you can. This avoids data travelling over the mobile phone network which is charged at a much higher rate.
Mar
02
First time out of the country ? your going to need a passport. A good place to start is https://www.passports.gov.au
The thing is, to get a passport, you need identification, starting with a birth certificate. Not an extract, but an original. For that you need to head to your states Birth Deaths and Marriages site. I’m Victorian so for me it was http://online.justice.vic.gov.au.
After completing the form online and paying A$26.60, you also need to verify you are who you say you are. For that you’ll need a photocopy of your divers licence, bank card and Medicare care, signed and verified by a member of the police. Some states allow a Justice of the peace, some don’t, so check the site for details.
When signed by your local cop, the evidence needs to be sent to the Births Deaths and Marriages office to accompany your online application. If all goes well (mine did), about a week later you’ll receive your birth certificate, or first piece of the puzzle.
Being a proponent of all things digital, I headed to the passport site and began the online application. It was only when I reached the end that I realised it would still need to be printed out. Do people really have printers anymore ? I sure don’t.
With that I resorted to the paper based form. It’s also important to know you need to make an appointment with your local Post Office to verify your Passport application.
After having my passport interview and handing over A$208 and waiting a week and a half I had my passport.
Mar
01
This trip essentially started 6 months ago, with planning. An important element in organising a trip this size. I started with the goal of going to the US, that’s all I knew to start.
You may ask why I chose the US, the answer is simple. I love technology, as you can tell by my site – techAU.tv and the US, particularly the west coast. has some of the most innovative tech companies in the world.
Companies like Facebook, Digg, Twitter and more all started there, add to that the podcasting hero Leo Laporte with his TWiT Network. Then there’s the fact I had a mate travel there last year. After seeing some of his photos, it made me more motivated than ever to get my stuff together and make it happen.
At the time of writing this, I’m 28 and still single. This is important to when it comes to the next stage of planning, go it alone, with a friend or on a tour ?
I received some advice that because it was my first time over there, it’s best to go on a tour. Coming from a sound source, I took that on board. After visiting a local travel agent and flicking through a Contiki brochure I settled on a 10 day tour called LA to the Bay.
Next decision was to go it alone or with friends. Sharing the experience with someone else was very inviting, so I asked around. Both my cousin Matt and friend Bethany were interested. Unfortunately work commitments meant that the timeframe wouldn’t work for Bethany.
So my cousin Matt, who’s been overseas a few times before became my perfect travel buddy. A top block he’s a couple years older than me and from QLD, so we’ll meet in Sydney and fly 18 hours to LA on the 3rd of April 2010.
As the months rolled on there was numbers things to organise, some of them will require their own post. The most complex being – the Passport.
Mar
01
Today I’m very happy to be posting for the first time on a brand new site. Called travelAU the blog aims to cover all the trips, and adventures I take over the years.
The motivation for the site comes from my upcoming trip to the United States. It’ll be my first time out of Australia and as many of you international travellers, there’s a lot to prepare before you go.
I’ll post about these in the upcoming days and weeks in the hope that others heading OS will learn from my experiences being shared.
As you’d expect I’ll be shooting plenty of photos over the course of my trip, using my new Canon 500D. They’ll be posted here, or at least linked to from here. Flickr or Facebook could be the actual host.
Enjoy the site, look fwd to your comments.
