Imbolc                                                                   Maiden Moon

I’m in pre-big trip mode. My sibs, Mary and Mark, have made international travel something like grabbing the Greyhound from Chicago to New York City, but I’ve done far less, so each time I go there seems to be a lot to consider. Here are a few.

What to pack? Always, less is more, but still even the less has content. Less of what should I take? Solved one problem by having Seoah find me a place to rent a tux or a suit. Still. The plan right now is to take what can fit in the big red suitcase and one carryon. The big red suitcase we bought for the Latin America cruise. There are some packing tips that I have saved and a checklist of necessities I made several years ago and update from time to time.

How to get money? In olden days cash or traveler’s checks. Now there are options. A debit card for a cash draw each day gets a good exchange rate and eliminates the need for protecting a large stash. A credit card is useful for bigger expenses: hotel bills, fancy meals, tuxedo rentals. One site I read recommended keeping one one-hundred dollar bill somewhere apart from everything else. Think I will.

(the wedding will be in Gwangju, near the southern tip of Korea.)

Jet lag. Easier going east to west than the reverse, but still a factor. Melanin. Change sleep patterns in advance. Get sunlight as soon as possible in Korea. Helps the inner clock reset.

Illness, even death. Aging adds another frisson to international travel. Have to get up and walk during the long flight to avoid deep vein thrombosis, not to mention oiling up the creaky joints both of us have. A supply of medications. Travel insurance. In the past I would avoid this, but repatriation of a corpse is expensive and, well, death happens.

Emergency preparedness for home. We live in a fire-prone habitat, so it’s not impossible that our home could burn down while we’re gone. Unlikely, yes, but not impossible. So, we need to gather the documents necessary for modern life, including photos of all of our stuff. Once they’re in one portable file holder we’ll ask Holly and Eduardo to keep them for us.

The car. I know about the park and ride services in the Twin Cities, but not here yet. We have, once again, positioned ourselves in the furthest point away from the airport while still nominally in the broad Denver metro. Far cheaper to park near the airport, but those sites have to be found.

And of course, as Donald Rumsfeld famously said, there is, too, the unknown unknown.