Please Read This Section Carefully
GENERAL TRAVEL GUIDANCE
Your Practical Guide to Travelling Well Prepared
This may not be the most exciting part of planning your journey, but it may well be one of the most useful.
Modern international travel can sometimes feel like navigating a maze of passports, visas, ETAs, electronic forms, vaccination requirements, customs declarations, insurance policies, airline rules, baggage restrictions and government procedures.
Our role is to guide you through that maze, anticipate problems and help you prepare properly.
Some responsibilities, however, ultimately remain with you as the traveller.
Our philosophy is simple:
We help you prepare, we double-check whenever we reasonably can, and we support you throughout your journey — but you must make sure that you are personally ready and legally entitled to travel.
Please ask us whenever something is unclear.
1. BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE: CHECK YOUR TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS
Entry requirements change constantly.
A visa requirement may disappear and be replaced by an ETA. A health declaration may suddenly become compulsory. A customs declaration may move online. A country may introduce compulsory travel insurance. Transit rules may change between booking and departure.
For this reason, we strongly recommend that every international traveller checks their personal itinerary through both of the following resources shortly before travel:
- IATA Travel Centre: https://www.iatatravelcentre.com/
- TravelDoc: https://www.traveldoc.aero/
Make these two websites part of your pre-departure routine. They are among the closest things available to an up-to-date practical picture of passport, visa, transit and health-entry requirements.
The IATA Travel Centre uses the Timatic database relied upon by airlines worldwide when deciding whether a passenger has the documentation necessary to board. It draws information from more than 1,000 official sources.
They are excellent sources — but no information system can guarantee what an individual border, immigration, customs or health officer will decide. Where doubt exists, the competent embassy, consulate or government authority remains the ultimate reference.
We strongly suggest visiting these pages again during the final week before departure.
2. YOUR PASSPORT
Check your passport when you start planning the journey, not three days before departure.
Requirements can concern:
- passport expiry;
- minimum remaining validity;
- blank pages;
- date of issue;
- physical condition;
- biometric requirements;
- nationality;
- and passport type.
Six months' remaining validity is a common requirement, but it is not a universal rule. Never assume that because your passport remains technically valid until after your return date, every destination will accept it.
Your name matters! The name on airline tickets and reservations must correspond properly with the passport used for travel. Check particularly carefully:
- first and family names;
- multiple surnames;
- married and maiden names;
- hyphens;
- middle names;
- accents and spelling;
- and recently renewed passports.
A one-letter mistake can create a disproportionate amount of trouble.
3. SEND US YOUR PASSPORT DETAILS EARLY
We strongly encourage travellers to provide us with their passport details — and, where appropriate, a copy of the passport information page — early in the planning process.
We appreciate that modern data-protection advice frequently tells people not to share passport copies unnecessarily. Travel unfortunately does not always respect such theoretical simplicity.
Passport information may genuinely be required for:
- airline reservations;
- private flights;
- gorilla permits;
- national park permits;
- cruise manifests;
- border-crossing arrangements;
- train tickets;
- certain hotels;
- insurance;
- visa support documentation;
- and numerous other travel services.
Providing the information also allows us to perform an invaluable second check of:
- spelling;
- nationality;
- passport validity;
- passport number;
- date of birth;
- and obvious documentation issues.
Two pairs of eyes are better than one.
We handle personal information in accordance with our privacy obligations and only use it where reasonably necessary for organising your travel arrangements.
4. PAPER IS NOT DEAD — HAVE A PLAN B
We love technology! Unfortunately:
- phones get stolen;
- screens break;
- batteries die;
- roaming fails;
- passwords are forgotten;
- applications crash;
- Wi-Fi disappears;
- and internet access remains far from guaranteed in many of the places we visit.
For that reason:
ALWAYS CARRY PAPER COPIES OF IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS.
It may sound wonderfully old-fashioned. It also works. We recommend carrying printed copies of:
- passport information page;
- visas;
- ETA/eVisa approvals where printable;
- travel insurance;
- vaccination certificate;
- emergency contacts;
- airline itinerary;
- accommodation information;
- key vouchers;
- and important travel contacts.
Keep them somewhere different from your original documents. Also retain digital copies stored somewhere you can access from another device.
Think in three layers: Original document + digital copy + paper backup.
That little bit of “prehistoric technology” has rescued more than one traveller.
For the services for which we are operationally responsible, we normally provide the relevant travel documentation and, where appropriate, physical copies.
00. NEXT
For the services for which we are operationally responsible, we normally provide the relevant travel documentation and, where appropriate, physical copies.
00. NEXT
For the services for which we are operationally responsible, we normally provide the relevant travel documentation and, where appropriate, physical copies.
