Egypt’s President, Hosni Mubarak has pulled the plug on the Internet and on most wireless and SMS service. This is a pretty drastic step for a government to take and luckily, fairly rare. However, it made me think that we should point out the dangers of being over-reliant on services that may not be available.
There are lots of pieces of information that might be important to you while traveling far from home – personal health information (allergies, prescription medications), identification documents, emergency numbers, itinerary details, etc. The always-on aspect of the Internet has lulled us into believing that we can always rely on it. While you may not be in a country trying to suppress political views or protest event details, you may often find yourself away from a reliable connection to the Internet or phone service. Make a point to capture the important information you need in a format that doesn’t need a connection – type it in as a note on your smartphone, download an app that helps to organize this information and stores it locally, or, God forbid, write it all down on a piece of paper (remember that option?).
For apps that might help in these situations see 15 Best Note Applications for iPhone or The Best Note-Taking Apps (includes Android apps).
What else can you think of that you might want to have at your fingertips on a trip? Let us know.
Photo by Frame Maker
Packing for a trip used to be easy. I would wake up the morning of the trip, grab a suitcase, throw in more clothes than I needed, dump all of the things on my bathroom sink into my Dopp kit*, sign a stack of traveler’s checks and, of course, write all of their serial numbers in that small, separate booklet just in case and last, but not least, make sure I had my itinerary or at least a semblance of one.
