I'm soooo excited that several of our friends through our adoption agency are now in the traveling stages!! Just recently there has been a swarm of court dates issued and several families will be visiting Ethiopia for the first time to meet their new children! Thrilled and excited for them!
Though I'm not a super traveler expert by far, but I did want to share my travel list for my recent travels to Haiti. During the trip and the ins and outs of the airports, I was constantly taking mental notes and thinking of what my next travels would be like when going to Ethiopia.
So for the sake of my traveling friends in hopes to give a few tips, I'm sharing this post with a detailed travel list, ideas, and tips for packing for international travel.
It all started out with this! A huge unloading of my closet where I have been collecting travel items for months! Slowly but surely I added items for travel, with helped spread out the costs too.
This is the stash of products for cleanliness:
Wet Ones (and lots of them)
Toilet paper
Face tissues
Baby wipes
Lysol wipes (used each and every one of them- packing more next time)
Germ-X (can never have enough!)
Cottonelle wipes or the like
Tampons/pads (you never know)
Make-up removing wipes/ or facial cleaners (didn't feel comfortable putting my face in the water in the showers since the water wasn't supposed to be in my mouth, so I washed my face with the wipes instead. Just me being weird, but that worked for me.)
Emergency Baggies (ok, so bit of explanation here. One never knows when the call of nature will need answered, and one never knows where the nearest restroom might be. More so, one never knows if the restrooms will have toilet paper or not! So, most restrooms in Haiti did not have toilet paper. I packed zip-lock baggies of a bit of toilet paper, a plastic bag, and a wet one/germ killer wipe. I kept one in my back pack with me at all times. Helpful! The bathrooms at the airport had zero toilet paper and no water at the sinks.)
For my personal bag for the air plane I took a standard sized back pack. It was loaded! I had two sets of clothes in there, some snacks for the plane and then this stuff that I'll list below. Only reason I put two sets of outfits in there were because my luggage was getting too full. Next trip I'll put more entertainment items in here for the longer plane ride to Ethiopia!
Personal Bag List:
Flashlight attached to a key fob so I could look inside my bag (helpful!)
Reading glasses
Gum
Snacks
Sleep mask
Neck pillow
tissues
benedryl chewable tablets
Wet Ones/ Germ-X wipes
Deodorant
Make-up
mini tooth brush and travel size tooth paste
Ear plugs
Cottonelle wipes
lap blanket (ended up taking this out at the last minute and just wore a hoodie instead. I figured that'd be fine if the a/c in the plane made me too cold)
Smart phone and charger
Ear buds
Camera and charger
Bug spray wipes (so glad to have those to wipe up when first landing)
Passport and wallet
Pen (handy for filling out forms on the plane)
Bible, reading materials, notepads, pens, and yes my scissors made it out of the country, but they didn't make it through security on the way back in! All these items are in my Thirty-One Organizer bag (seen in pic below)
Just sharing:
I have severe food allergies and a big concern of mine was having my epi-pens with me. I did get a note from my doctor stating my anaphylatic allergic reactions and that I was carrying epi-pens by her orders. I had absolutely no problems about taking the epi-pens in my carry-on and personal bags. I also wanted to have my liquid benedryl with me. Liquid is faster acting than chewables or pills, but the benedryl liquid containers are too big to put as one of your 3 oz. allowed in the carry-on bags. I did put some liquid in a travel size 'shampoo' 3 oz. bottle and then taped the top closed to prevent leaks. That worked. To have something right with me, I used these individual 'bubble' containers and put benedryl in them. No leaks and a perfect single dose size.
I packed all of my foods for a week due to my allergies. I packed a small saucepan with a lid and a stirring spoon. Even using the pots and utensils from another kitchen could cross-contaminate foods and cause a reaction to me. I felt better taking my own. I packed my own plastic-ware that was individually wrapped and I'm so glad I did! Doing dishes in Haiti was not the most thorough in my standards of cleanliness- especially with food allergies.
I found it much easier to take food items that were already in containers that you just add boiling water to it. For example, individual oatmeal cups that you pour in boiling water to the container then put the lid back on and wait for a couple minutes before it's ready to eat. No mess, no cleaning the pot even. For Ethiopia I plan on taking an electric water boiling kettle so I can boil the water in my room and not interrupt in the kitchen there. I'm also assuming not to have access to a microwave, so just 'food for thought!'
Food items I packed:
Individual Oatmeal Cups
Individual Cup O' Soups
Bags of Rice/Boil a bag
Black beans (yes a can made it through security. They checked it, but gave it back to me)
Rice-a-roni (bit messy, won't do again because I had to wash the pan out)
Hungry Jack Potatoes
Crackers
Peanut butter
Dried Fruits and Nuts
Cookies
Tuna (but it was too hot to eat tuna)
Powdered flavored drink packets
Tea bags and sugar
Salt packets
You can pack any foods that are not meats, no seeds, and doesn't sprout. Call TSA and ask questions if you want to know more. They were very helpful to me.
Everything else on the list looks like packing for any other trip. Remember your socks, toothbrush, you know, the usual things. Remember your daily medicines if you take any of those, and to take a prescription of Cipro or other strong anti-diarrea meds just in case. Plug/outlet adapters will be important for many foreign countries. Haiti uses the same fixtures as the US so I didn't have that issue there but I will in Ethiopia.
Tips:
Bubble wrap. I plan to pack bubble wrap in hopes to better protect some souveniers when traveling back home.
Test your luggge! I highly recommend the four wheeled 360 degrees turning luggage. I had 2 checked bags, my personal bag, and a carry-on bag. Each checked bag was 50 lbs. and the luggage was the 'lean and roll' 2 wheeled bags. It was very difficult for me to manage them even with my carry-on in tow on top of one of the checked bags. All I could think of was how would I do this with children by my side too. The next day after arriving home from Haiti, we went to the store to purchase new luggage. The light-weight, 4 wheels that turn 360 degrees with no leaning to roll it. It just wheels beside you like a smooth shopping cart. We also tested all our carry-ons to be sure we would be able to securely attach it to the checked bags. All is well and I think the next trip of wheeling bags will be much more smooth!
Keep comfortable. Now is not the time to try out a new skirt, pants, or shirts. Be sure your clothes are comfortable and a cool material. One of my long skirts that I took was flowy but way to hot. Seemed like cotton materials were the coolest. Buff headbands wick away the sweat and help keep you cool. I liked having that and mine also was one with insect repellent in the material.
Load up on Probiotics. Two weeks before traveling I started taking Acidophilus and other probiotics to build up my immune system and build up the good bacteria in the digestive system. It really helped!
Essential Oils to think about. I packed some essential oils and so did my traveling friend. We used lavender spray in our room to settle the mood and get ready for sleep. We had thieves oil too and used that when coming home from being in close contact to many who were ill. Thieves oils act as an antibacterial.
Grapefruit oil was another one that we used. To smell it perks you up and motivates you for the day. I used the peppermint as an oil that calms. I also applied some to my temples when I felt a headache coming on. I'm looking into Cinnamon oil to use as a bug repellent to bed bugs (read that somewhere) to take on other trips.
Pray for travel mercies and God's protection. He will guide us, give us wisdom, and make our paths straight!
So for all my traveling friends: Have a wonderful trip of a lifetime!! Prayers for you and don't forget to post pictures!!
Prayers that we will get our news soon for our adoption process and we will be traveling right behind you!
Erin
Though I'm not a super traveler expert by far, but I did want to share my travel list for my recent travels to Haiti. During the trip and the ins and outs of the airports, I was constantly taking mental notes and thinking of what my next travels would be like when going to Ethiopia.
So for the sake of my traveling friends in hopes to give a few tips, I'm sharing this post with a detailed travel list, ideas, and tips for packing for international travel.
It all started out with this! A huge unloading of my closet where I have been collecting travel items for months! Slowly but surely I added items for travel, with helped spread out the costs too.
The medicine pack: I used this LL Bean bag to stock any medicines and first aid items that I hoped not to use, but would have just in case I needed them. Turned out that some items I used, like Pepto tabs, and other items I didn't use, but I was able to share with others who needed some medicines.
Here's what's in the medicine bag:
Band-aids various sizes
Super-glue (for mending cuts)
Latex gloves
Sterile pads
Q-tips
Halls/cough drops
Aloe Vera Gel (for sunburn)
Pepto-Bismol chewable tablets
Antihistamine/allergy pills
Imodium (chewable tablets)
Mucinex/cough meds (kids melt-away tabs so no liquid weight)
Motrin/Tylenol
Matches (I have no idea why!)
Laundry soap powder (for a quick rinse in the sink)
RID lice kit
Bio freeze (for sore muscles)
Eye drops
Nail clippers
Needle and thread
Tweezers
Plastic market bags (came in very handy for several uses!)
Gold bond powder (used for heat rash)
Spare tooth brush
Cortizone cream
Triple Antibiotic cream
Anti-fungal cream
Bug spray! LOTS of bug spray! Well, I'll actually recommend bug repellent wipes. They are less weight w/o the liquid, you can really know where it is getting on your body, and you don't inhale all the spray.
This is the stash of products for cleanliness:
Wet Ones (and lots of them)
Toilet paper
Face tissues
Baby wipes
Lysol wipes (used each and every one of them- packing more next time)
Germ-X (can never have enough!)
Cottonelle wipes or the like
Tampons/pads (you never know)
Make-up removing wipes/ or facial cleaners (didn't feel comfortable putting my face in the water in the showers since the water wasn't supposed to be in my mouth, so I washed my face with the wipes instead. Just me being weird, but that worked for me.)
Emergency Baggies (ok, so bit of explanation here. One never knows when the call of nature will need answered, and one never knows where the nearest restroom might be. More so, one never knows if the restrooms will have toilet paper or not! So, most restrooms in Haiti did not have toilet paper. I packed zip-lock baggies of a bit of toilet paper, a plastic bag, and a wet one/germ killer wipe. I kept one in my back pack with me at all times. Helpful! The bathrooms at the airport had zero toilet paper and no water at the sinks.)
Items just in case:
Flash lights (totally needed when the power went out)
Head lamps
Poncho
Key fobs and hooks
Inflatable pillow (used this a gazillion times in my room, on the plane too)
Hangers (were great for hanging up towels and clothes)
For my personal bag for the air plane I took a standard sized back pack. It was loaded! I had two sets of clothes in there, some snacks for the plane and then this stuff that I'll list below. Only reason I put two sets of outfits in there were because my luggage was getting too full. Next trip I'll put more entertainment items in here for the longer plane ride to Ethiopia!
Flashlight attached to a key fob so I could look inside my bag (helpful!)
Reading glasses
Gum
Snacks
Sleep mask
Neck pillow
tissues
benedryl chewable tablets
Wet Ones/ Germ-X wipes
Deodorant
Make-up
mini tooth brush and travel size tooth paste
Ear plugs
Cottonelle wipes
lap blanket (ended up taking this out at the last minute and just wore a hoodie instead. I figured that'd be fine if the a/c in the plane made me too cold)
Smart phone and charger
Ear buds
Camera and charger
Bug spray wipes (so glad to have those to wipe up when first landing)
Passport and wallet
Pen (handy for filling out forms on the plane)
Bible, reading materials, notepads, pens, and yes my scissors made it out of the country, but they didn't make it through security on the way back in! All these items are in my Thirty-One Organizer bag (seen in pic below)
I have severe food allergies and a big concern of mine was having my epi-pens with me. I did get a note from my doctor stating my anaphylatic allergic reactions and that I was carrying epi-pens by her orders. I had absolutely no problems about taking the epi-pens in my carry-on and personal bags. I also wanted to have my liquid benedryl with me. Liquid is faster acting than chewables or pills, but the benedryl liquid containers are too big to put as one of your 3 oz. allowed in the carry-on bags. I did put some liquid in a travel size 'shampoo' 3 oz. bottle and then taped the top closed to prevent leaks. That worked. To have something right with me, I used these individual 'bubble' containers and put benedryl in them. No leaks and a perfect single dose size.
I found it much easier to take food items that were already in containers that you just add boiling water to it. For example, individual oatmeal cups that you pour in boiling water to the container then put the lid back on and wait for a couple minutes before it's ready to eat. No mess, no cleaning the pot even. For Ethiopia I plan on taking an electric water boiling kettle so I can boil the water in my room and not interrupt in the kitchen there. I'm also assuming not to have access to a microwave, so just 'food for thought!'
Food items I packed:
Individual Oatmeal Cups
Individual Cup O' Soups
Bags of Rice/Boil a bag
Black beans (yes a can made it through security. They checked it, but gave it back to me)
Rice-a-roni (bit messy, won't do again because I had to wash the pan out)
Hungry Jack Potatoes
Crackers
Peanut butter
Dried Fruits and Nuts
Cookies
Tuna (but it was too hot to eat tuna)
Powdered flavored drink packets
Tea bags and sugar
Salt packets
You can pack any foods that are not meats, no seeds, and doesn't sprout. Call TSA and ask questions if you want to know more. They were very helpful to me.
Travel items that I found useful were the travel pouch for knowing where my money was and the "secret stash" money clip for a bra. I tucked money in several places in my luggage too just so it wouldn't be all lost in one place if I misplaced a bag or something was stolen.
The black bag/over-sized wallet (pic below) was a last minute thing I picked up for carrying my ID and passport. With your hands full of rolling luggage and all it was easy to just keep this 'oversized wallet' around your neck and then your passport was easy to get to for the gazillion times you have to show your passport and have it handy. It worked well for stashing my boarding pass as well and then I could quickly access that and not wonder where I put it somewhere in my backpack.
Everything else on the list looks like packing for any other trip. Remember your socks, toothbrush, you know, the usual things. Remember your daily medicines if you take any of those, and to take a prescription of Cipro or other strong anti-diarrea meds just in case. Plug/outlet adapters will be important for many foreign countries. Haiti uses the same fixtures as the US so I didn't have that issue there but I will in Ethiopia.
Tips:
Bubble wrap. I plan to pack bubble wrap in hopes to better protect some souveniers when traveling back home.
Test your luggge! I highly recommend the four wheeled 360 degrees turning luggage. I had 2 checked bags, my personal bag, and a carry-on bag. Each checked bag was 50 lbs. and the luggage was the 'lean and roll' 2 wheeled bags. It was very difficult for me to manage them even with my carry-on in tow on top of one of the checked bags. All I could think of was how would I do this with children by my side too. The next day after arriving home from Haiti, we went to the store to purchase new luggage. The light-weight, 4 wheels that turn 360 degrees with no leaning to roll it. It just wheels beside you like a smooth shopping cart. We also tested all our carry-ons to be sure we would be able to securely attach it to the checked bags. All is well and I think the next trip of wheeling bags will be much more smooth!
Keep comfortable. Now is not the time to try out a new skirt, pants, or shirts. Be sure your clothes are comfortable and a cool material. One of my long skirts that I took was flowy but way to hot. Seemed like cotton materials were the coolest. Buff headbands wick away the sweat and help keep you cool. I liked having that and mine also was one with insect repellent in the material.
Load up on Probiotics. Two weeks before traveling I started taking Acidophilus and other probiotics to build up my immune system and build up the good bacteria in the digestive system. It really helped!
Essential Oils to think about. I packed some essential oils and so did my traveling friend. We used lavender spray in our room to settle the mood and get ready for sleep. We had thieves oil too and used that when coming home from being in close contact to many who were ill. Thieves oils act as an antibacterial.
Grapefruit oil was another one that we used. To smell it perks you up and motivates you for the day. I used the peppermint as an oil that calms. I also applied some to my temples when I felt a headache coming on. I'm looking into Cinnamon oil to use as a bug repellent to bed bugs (read that somewhere) to take on other trips.
Pray for travel mercies and God's protection. He will guide us, give us wisdom, and make our paths straight!
Lamentations 3:22-24
"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
So for all my traveling friends: Have a wonderful trip of a lifetime!! Prayers for you and don't forget to post pictures!!
Prayers that we will get our news soon for our adoption process and we will be traveling right behind you!
Erin
Comments
Post a Comment