Going Abroad for the First Time Ever--What Do I Need?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I’m a woman, too, but I pack light with ease.

I strongly recommend Ex Officio travelling clothes. They’ll simplify your packing immensely, because they’re easy to wash by hand in a sink and quick to dry. Not to mention that they’ll take lots of abuse. Oh, and they’re flattering, too. (Or, they’re flattering on me, at any rate.)

If you’ve got 2 of the Ex Officio travel T-shirts or other quick-dry T-shirts, a pair or two of quick-dry travel pants, and maybe a skirt or dress (wrinkle-resistant, and quick to dry–think nylon), you’re good to go. You could wash a shirt each night (it takes about 5 minutes) and have it ready to go in an hour or two. Same deal with the pants. This will save you time, in the form of not having to go to a laundry place when you could be looking at tulips or whatever. I would go with 2 solid color, neutral T-shirts, one or two solid color, neutral pair of pants, and a skirt or dress. Make sure everything color-coordinates, so that you can wear any item of clothing with any other item of clothing and have it look OK. If you’ll need a sweater or light jacket (I don’t know what summer’s like in Amsterdam), it’s good to make that sweater black or some other neutral color that could be worn with any other clothing you’ve brought with you.

If you’re going to wear comfortable hiking or walking shoes most of the time (which sounds like a good idea to me), you might want to pack a lightweight pair of dress shoes for when you want to dress up. Make them a neutral color that goes with all your other stuff. Go to Target or someplace like that and buy yourself a pack of underwear and socks and throw them in the suitcase or carry-on bag. If you want to wear stockings with your skirt or dress, pick up a pair.

It would make sense to wear one of your travel outfits on your flight from the US to the Netherlands. Then what you need to pack is reduced to one shirt, one pair of pants, the skirt or dress, underwear and socks, and maybe the shoes, along with your basic toiletries, any medications, your passport, and your wallet. You could do the whole trip with a carry-on.

The idea of packing an empty duffel bag is a good one, though. You’ll probably end up buying a bunch of stuff, but you won’t have anything to lug it all home in.

Have a great trip.

42

In the '80s I had a Visa card and my friend had an American Express card. I could go into virtually any bank to get a cash advance (I didn’t have a debit card at the time). My friend could only get cash by going to an Amex office and writing a check. And the Visa was universally accepted at places that accepted credit cards, whereas the Amex wasn’t. Things may have changed in the last 20 years, but that’s how it was then.

43

Be careful about the luggage rules and US Customs. You are supposed to leave all your suitcases unlocked, unless they are fitted with customs’ approved locks, to which they have a master key. Otherwise you might find that they have forced open you cases, especially when you return home.

44

Let’s clarify this, so you don’t fry your computer, your hair dryer, or yourself. First, check to make sure your computer is rated for 110/220 volts. If so, it will generally accept either without any need to flip a switch. But check your instruction book first! If it’s good to go, get yourself an adaptor plug kit that has all the different European plug variations.

The typical American hair dryer would require a transformer to work in Europe. However, some American manufacturers make dual voltage hair dryers. I’d suggest you buy one.

45

As an Australian (for whom overseas travel is impossible without a plane ticket (and a passport)) and a former trolley-dolly (aka flight attendant), I have a couple of extra points to add:

  1. Make photocopies of your passport and travel insurance policy and put copies in every single bag (suitcase, carry-on, handbag, etc.) as well as leaving a copy with your folks/SO.
  2. If you haven’t already bought your suitcase, DON’T buy a black one - every man and his dog has a black suitcase, and the chances of someone accidentally taking your bag off the conveyor belt will be reduced if yours is <insert bright, offensive colour of choice here>.
  3. Always carry a packet of tissues/kleenex and/or wet-wipes in your handbag (even in Europe, you may come across a toilet that doesn’t have toilet paper, so BYO is recommended)
  4. Wear comfortable shoes on the flight - your feet will swell, and if you kick them off in flight, you need to know you can fit them back on when you reach Amsterdam.
  5. Keep an emergency pack of toiletries in your carry-on, even for things you wouldn’t normally suffer (I always carry paracetamol, aspirin, ibuprofen, eye drops, ear drops and nasal spray, as well as imodium)

Takes loads of photos and have fun!

46

My grandfather, who travels a lot, plasters duct tape all over his bags. He says that it makes them easy to recognize and it also make them look old and busted, reducing the chances for theft.

47

If you’re taking expensive items abroad it may be worth getting the US equivalent of an export certificate, so you don’t get hit by import duty when you return.

48

Just remember: the root word of luggage is lug.

In the states you might be able to go from car to escalator to elevator to car again, but in Amsterdam it is quite likely you will be rolling/carrying your luggage farther than you would prefer, across rough cobblestones and up narrow staircases.

Before you leave, load up everything you plan to take, go out and walk five blocks and up a flight of stairs. if you can’t do that comfortably, go home and re-pack.

Pack only what you know you will need. Anything you might need you can buy there. Check ahead to see if your hotel provides hair dryers (most do, and you won’t need to worry about converters). If it gets chilly, go shopping and you will have fun pulling out your “Amsterdam jacket” on brisk days back in the states.

49

This might be Adrian Monk-ish, but I brought along some sanitizing purse-size handiwipes last time we flew, and wiped down all the handrests, meal tables, etc., as well as my hands. A year or two ago, I came down with a bug during my vacation a few days after the flight and I felt sure that I got it on the plane. I never want to wreck another holiday again, so I err on the side of looking like a germaphobe.

50

Also, if you have already bought your suitcase, and it’s black or navy blue, don’t make it “easier to recognize” by tying a red ribbon around the handle. Twenty other people on your flight had the same idea. Trust me.

Flights from the US to Europe are nearly always overnight flights. They serve supper on the flight, but by the time they get around to it, it’s 8 or 9 in the evening. Consider having supper at the airport after you check in, then you can relax, read/listen to music, and just generally get your mind ready for sleep while everyone else is eating. (Don’t lean the seat back, though, until the trays are collected - that’s bad manners.)

Don’t forget to drink water on the plane!

51

Backpacks are better than suitcases. Investing in a good backpack with chest and waist straps will help you move your belongings from place to place far easier.

If you’re okay with sharing a room with eight other people, youth hostels are a great place to spend the night. If you aren’t a youth this will be more difficult. Remember your earplugs.

Make some friends and talk to people. You’ll find it much easier to do this if you stay in a hostel, especially when in the kitchen.

Keep a close eye (or hand) on your valuables. Having your digital camera (with all of your pictures) stolen on the last day of your trip really, really sucks. :frowning:

You only really need a few sets of clothes.

Make sure to pack all necessary electronic equipment including chargers. Your cell phone will probably work over there, but not if it doesn’t have any juice.

Bring your towel, of course!

52

The best train goes every hour at .28 past the hour, from platform 2. That one will bring you from Amsterdam CS to Maastricht in exactly 2 hours and 35 minutes without a single train change. Price for a round trip 39 euros, so about 45 US dollars. If you’re lucky, part of that train will be a double-decker train. Sit in the upper compartment, and you’ll have a lovely view over the Netherlands. In fack, during that traintrip you will have seen most of the Netherlands.

There are several more trains to Maastricht every hour, but those have the drawbacks **Lisa-go-Blind ** mentioned.

53

OK, I just have to say that I consider myself pretty outdoor savvy (hey, I was a Boy Scout), but I didn’t know about this. It’s just too cool if it works.

54

Wear comfortable shoes. European cities aren’t as car-oriented as most American cities, so you’ll probably be walking at least as much, if not more, than you do at home.

I wouldn’t take a hair dryer with me- a lot of hotels have them. If the hotel I was staying at didn’t, I’d pick up a cheap one there. I’ve never gotten a hair dryer to work right with a converter/adapter.

A room with its own bathroom is sometimes called an “ensuite” room.

If you do stay in a hotel with shared bathrooms, know this- there is a time and a place for hour-long showers, and a shared hotel bathroom definitely isn’t one of them.

I’ve found that the hot water in European hotel showers tends to run out a lot faster than you might be used to in American home or hotel showers.

It’s unlikely that you will find a hotel room with a bathtub. In fact, it’s not unlikely that the shower will not be a separate stall, but just a shower head above a drain at a low point on the tiled bathroom floor. If that’s the case, make sure you leave your clothes or pajamas outside the bathroom, rather than just outside the shower curtain.

I wouldn’t bother with traveler’s checks- just take your credit cards and your ATM card. Get cash out of the ATM when you get to the airport- I’d be shocked to find an international airport serving a major European city that didn’t have an ATM.

Get a suitcase that you can handle while running through the airport, train station, or what have you. That might be a backpack, or it might be one of those roller bags.

When you board the plane, set your watch to the time it will be in Amsterdam (Central European time, which is 6 hours ahead of Eastern time- they do daylight saving time at roughly the same times as we do). Try to sleep and wake up at appropriate times for that time zone, not for your home time zone.

You’ll probably get there in the morning or early afternoon. By late afternoon, you’ll really be wanting a nap. Don’t take one. Try as hard as you can to stay awake until at least 9pm local time. You can crash after that (and probably will), and it’s likely you’ll wake up at a reasonable time the next morning.

I don’t know about the Netherlands, but I found that, in France and Italy, they tend to eat dinner much later than we do. Mr. Neville and I went to a restaurant in Italy at 9pm, and we were like the first ones there all evening- I felt like the old fogies who eat dinner at 4pm here must feel.

I found that service in restaurants in France and Italy was also slower than we were used to in the US. That’s not so bad (it’s all part of experiencing a different culture), unless you wait till you’re really hungry to start looking for a place to eat.

Your cell phone probably won’t work there, unless you have a GSM phone (most Americans don’t). I’ve heard it is possible to rent a cell phone there, but I’ve never felt the need to do that.

Taking over the counter medicines with you is a good idea- they might well be known by a totally different name there (even if the packaging does have English on it), which would make them hard to find.

Things will probably be expensive- the euro is at $1.25 now, and I’ve found things in Europe cost roughly the same in euros as they do in the US in dollars.

People are probably going to guess that you’re an American- from how you dress, how you handle your fork and knife, from how you speak (or don’t) the local language, or from any one of a million other little things. But that shouldn’t be a problem, unless you act obnoxious. I’ve found that they mostly don’t care how I dress (at least not to my face), though I’m not sure I would wear a T-shirt that advocated, say, nuking Iran, or saying how wonderful I think George W. Bush is. That kind of thing would probably get the kind of attention that you don’t want.

55

Ah ha! You reminded me of something. In Europe (generally speaking) the waiter is not going to bring you the check without you asking. In most places, they’re pretty cool with you sitting there all day just watching the foot traffic.

56

A lot of electronics, such as my camcorder power adapter/charger, will accept all common electrical voltages and frequencies. And mine onlly has a two-prong plug so I didn’t even need to worry about the grounding pin. I just got a bunch of plug adapters in a hole-in-the-wall store downtown before I left. Of those, I ended up only using two: the two-prong “European” one, and the the British one.

I cut my hair short. Now I don’t need a hair dryer. :smiley:

57

Yeah, I was really using “hair dryer” as a generic replacement for “cell phone charger, mp3 player charger, camera battery charger, and anything else I might want to plug in.” I’m too lazy to do my hair every day. And it turns out I’ll have no cell coverage, anyway. :smiley:

Again, thanks, everybody, for all the help!!

58

A “coffee shop” is a place to get pot. A “cafe” is a bar. A “koffiehuis” is a place to get coffee.

I’ve never been to the Netherlands, but these are true of restaurants in other places in Europe:

They usually won’t give you a glass of water unless you ask for it.

If you ask for water, be sure to ask for tap water- asking for water will probably get you bottled mineral water (It may be helpful to learn to say “tap water” in Dutch). This is not free, and it’s not to all Americans’ tastes (I personally think it tastes like bad LA tap water, but you should try it at least once). Bottled water in general is likely to be mineral water (which may be sparkling or still), not bottled water like you’re used to in the US. Bottles of sparkling mineral water can fizz up when you open them, like a bottle of soda that’s been shaken (I learned this the hard way).

Beer and wine prices in restaurants are usually more reasonable in Europe (and Australia) than they are in the US. I’m not into cocktails, so I don’t know how those prices compare. It’s also much more common to find a restaurant that offers beer or wines by the glass in Europe or Australia than it is in the US- restaurants that aren’t fast food places and don’t serve alcohol seem fairly rare in at least the places I’ve been in Europe.

Soda is much more expensive in Europe than in the US, and you generally don’t get free refills. The amount you get will probably be a lot less than you’re used to getting in the US, too.

People smoke a lot more in Europe than they do in the US. Restaurants and bars will probably have smoking sections, and may not have non-smoking sections. The maid may smoke in your hotel room while she’s cleaning it (this happened to us in Paris). If you’re allergic to cigarette smoke, take along lots of whatever you take for your allergies.

Some general travel hints:

Don’t exchange money if you can help it. You’ll get a better rate from an ATM or a credit card, with less hassle.

You may not be able to use your ATM card to make purchases- their system of handling debit cards is somehow different from ours. Even if you can’t make purchases with your ATM card, you will still be able to use it in ATMs.

If you see one restaurant in a street with lots of them that’s much emptier than the rest, don’t eat there- the locals probably know something you don’t about that place.

I’d avoid taking expensive items with you, unless you’re sure you’re going to need them on your trip.

59

Hey Drae! Have fun on your trip, and I wanted to second this piece of advice. When we took the kids to Mexico, I took my backpack as my carry on. Way more useful than a carry on duffel or suitcase. I love that backpack.

60

I came in here to suggest just that! Being sick on vacation is horrid. Embrace your inner Germophobe! Buy a couple of the hand wipes as well as the waterless hand sanitizers.

And, to further give the heebie jeebies:

**1 **. The airlines recycle the air around you ( they are suppose to refresh it every 8-12 seconds - or whatever. But they don’t. cause they hate you. Don’t take it personally.) So, if someone near you is hocking up a lugy/lugi/lugie and another one is sniffing and blowing his nose, ask to be moved if there are any free seats. These are not your relatives, don’t worry about offending them.

By airline law, in cooperation with the pharmacuetical industry, there must be at least one sick person per flight. ( and one crying baby.) You may want to invest in sino-fresh for the flight. ( Bottom shelf in the nasal care products. About $11-13 dollars. Money well spent. )
2. Take your own pillow case that you can wrap around the airline pillow. They do not sanitize them between flights. So, just think of it this way, the pillow you grab could have been used as a butt cushion for some fat guy from Berlin for a 10 hour flight…and he farted in it…alot. better yet, bring your own neck pillow.

3. Inside your luggage ** Besides a copy of your passport** put in your home address as well as a list of where you will be on your trip at hotels, so that if your luggage goes walk about, it could possibly catch up to you somehow. I’ve never lost a bag, but I’ve always been prepared.

4. Take about 1 hour and make address labels with your friends and family addresses who you are going to send post cards home too. It will save you a hassle of filling out the address thing by hand.
5. In conjuction with #1, whatever is your cold medicine of choice, take along a pack of it. It weighs next to nothingand takes no space but will provide you with immeasurable comfort for a 2-4 day span in case you accidently stick a germ infested finger up your nose. I suffer alot from migraines and I take a gallon sized ziploc bag with my RX and OTC with me, everything clearly labeled and carried in my purse. It takes up a buttload of my purse, but man, but it is such a comfort.
6. The last day of your vaction, you can save alot of room in your luggage by tossing out the undies and shirts or even alot of your clothes. (You probably don’t shop at the Salvation Army like I do.) but the space that is suddenly available is fun!)

7 Pack some kind of rain jacket to guarantee a rain-free vacation. :slight_smile:

**8.**Their Coke is not the same as Our Coke. It’s flatter and not as sweet. Get use to it.
9. Benadryl before your flight so you can sleep. Better traveling thru pharmaceuticals!

10. If you check luggage, tie soemthing around the handles - like something really loud!. A big pink ribbon. Orange Duct Tape. Or, as we do, a Caution tape thingie that is used in construction. We can spot our stuff across the room.

11 Another packing tip is to use ziploc’s to pack everything in. Not only will it protect from some other schlub’s skunk perfume bottle that broke in his nylon bag from ruining all your stuff, the plastic really helps with wrinkles. Make sure your toiletries are double ziploc’d for your own protection. You may want to bring a couple feet of twine and five or six clothes pins to create a laundry line before a window ( rather the bathroom - that has no ventilation) to dry your stuff faster. All of which you can toss at the end of the trip (twine) or reuse ( bags for packing) and twine for tying things tighter.

12 Watch EuroTrip

13 Make sure you buy some music while on your trip. If you think you can get it online cheaper at home, you will never ever ever find it again. I learned this the hard way and a song that I adored on vacation two years ago in Germany can only be enjoyed in a very breif and teasing snippet on our home videos.
Relax. slow down. Savor and enjoy!
If you only read two of my hints, make it #1 and #13.