Foreign Transaction Fees

The small print is where they get you. You’re likely already familiar with the Interbank Exchange Rate. If not, allow me to break it down for you. The Interbank Exchange Rate is the exact reason you want to use a credit card while traveling internationally. It garners you a better rate for things like hotels and dining. It’s a much better exchange rate than if you were exchanging cash.

So, what’s the problem? Well, this is where the small print comes in. The card may be garnering you a better exchange rate, but it may also be charging a foreign transaction fee – something many people don’t realize they’re being charged. According to financial expert, David Seaman, this fee is typically 3% – 4% of what you’ve spent. This may not seem like a lot, but according to Seaman, “if you spend $200 or $300 in a weekend, that added fee begins to pile up rapidly.”

The Right Card Makes All the Difference

So, how can international travelers protect themselves? It’s essential to have peace of mind while traveling abroad, but if you’re constantly worried about hidden fees, it’s nearly impossible. The secret is traveling with the right credit card, one that’s designed for international travel and one that doesn’t have any hidden fees.

So, how can one locate the perfect card for the trip? Theta Tau, a co-ed engineering fraternity and a philanthropic sponsor of NerdWallet, offers a solution to this problem. Users can visit the site and use the comprehensive tool to search a database of quality credit cards.

Nerdwallet’s tool will only populate the cards you want: cards based on rewards, with cash back options, best interest rates, and so much more. That way, you only get credit cards that are relevant to your situation. You can read through a card’s information, deciding if it’s the right card for foreign travel or not. Look for cards that are specifically designed for travel and it’s likely you’ll be treated to the best rates.

Travel Perks

So, you’ve found some cards that don’t feature those annoying foreign transaction fees. Now, it’s time to narrow down your selection to the absolute right card. This all depends on your preferences. For instance, if you love to dine out on vacation, you’ll want a card that rewards you for eating out. If you prefer cash back bonuses, go with the card with the highest cash back percentage.

Other options include:

• Bonus airline miles
• Sign-up bonuses
• Low APR or no annual fees
• Affinity programs (typically used for business travel)
• Store-specific cash back cards

Preparing Your Card for Travel

When you’ve finally narrowed down your selection, applied, and been approved for a credit card, you’ll want to contact your credit card company and prepare the card for travel. Let your credit card company know where you’ll be traveling and using the card. This will ensure they don’t freeze the card due to fraud suspicion.

If you’re planning on backpacking your way through a few countries, let your credit card company know which countries the card will be used in. This is going to ensure your vacation is all fun and no fuss over fees.

Extra caution: If you are traveling solo, make sure you have an extra backup card in case of a damaged card or if it does not work for any other reason. We have experienced it several times, certain card not working in certain places while working excellent in others.

Lifecruiser Love Trip Preparations
 

Here are some useful tips towards enjoying yourself and leaving all your worries where they belong, on the street curb:

Exercise and Stay Fit When You’re Away

Since you are on vacation (whether or not you actually leave home) it is pretty easy to forget about working out and keeping a fit body, but this is the time when you need it most! Try to exercise every other day, no long hours in the gym are needed either. Just get a cardio workout outside while enjoying the weather or, better, find a local trail or hike! Jog or speed walk around your hotel property, in the hotel gym or even more enjoyable: at a gorgeous beach!

Of course, you aren’t looking forward to exercising on your vacation so much as you are looking forward to eating. If you’re in a new city or country, by all means–sample the local fare in abundance. But try to keep it on the health side. Yes, you are going to eat out and yes you are probably going to give into temptation, but make healthy food choices for your body and wallet’s benefit.

You are wise if you look up different restaurants and their menu’s before leaving home, to make sure you minimize the risk of being tempted to eat unhealthy food. Sometimes it can be difficult to find a good restaurant abroad while out sightseeing, at least if you are like us; we tend to walk on the wrong streets all the time…

Healthier foods are anything on the menu that have been roasted or steamed. Or even try a diet that is not only healthy but disease combative.

Save While on Vacation

Vacation means your own personal time to get away from the worries and stress of modern life, but it does not mean you must spend your life savings in order to achieve a memorable vacation experience. Use your investigative skills to find deals from travel companies on certain essentials like rental cars, discounted hotels or even stay at the more budget-friendly hostels.

Register with airlines and travel companies. Check online for airline deals that are partnered with travel companies and submit your email to mailing lists so that you will stay up to date with their coupons and monthly offers.

Packing light will help save on costs. Most airlines tend to charge for every bag that you check and those fees can add up quickly. Check the airlines baggage policy before booking your flight and make sure that you are considering these fees when you are buying your ticket and more importantly, packing your bags. For many airlines you can carry-on two bags, keep that in mind when packing as well.

See What the Others are Saying

Things may not always be as they appear. Before you plan to do anything, do your research. Most vacationers already know where they are about to go, so after your trip is booked get to know the stories of others who have been to your destination. Check out Yelp and other review sites, even social bookmarking sites like Reddit. Users of these sites often drop hints on the best places to eat, or the best events they attended while on vacation. Benefit from the experiences of others.

Secure Your Home Life so You can Enjoy the Time Away

Don’t allow your worries at home to affect your beautiful get-away, so secure your home life to better enjoy your vacation. Call your friends, family, and neighbors just to let them know you will be out of town, give them the date and the time you will be departing and when you will be returning. By doing this they know it may be tough to contact you during your time away.

Don’t worry about your home either, as long as you have a good security system to keep your house under watch. If your home isn’t protected, take a look at www.securitychoice.com for security options that match your price point and neighborhood.

Capture Memories with Great Vacation Photos

Bring a digital camera along and go trigger happy. Take all the pictures you would like, from the clear beaches to the city skyline, anything that will capture not only the trip’s memories, but the feel of the experience.

Be sure to take a look at 10 Steps towards taking better Travel Photographs. You probably want to show your friends or family back home so bring your camera out and literally snap until the battery dies.

Ideally, it’s best to construct a life for yourself that you don’t need to escape from. But the reality is, people need vacations in order to unwind and explore new experiences and places. Maximize your time away from home.

Lifecruiser Love Vacation Tips

Other Vacation Tips posts at Lifecruiser:

All inclusive holidays ways pays
Travel and Credit Card Use
Why getting organised for your holiday will save you money
8 Essentials for Any Trip Through Europe
How to get cheap holiday deals
Top 5 Travel Tips When Visiting Foreign Countries
Where to find late holiday deals
38 Accessible travel links for disabled travelers
 

#1: Define Your Goals
Before you move forward and do anything, make sure you write down your goals – both long term and short term. When you put your objectives in writing, it helps you take the next step because you are able to visualize things more clearly. For example, let’s say your goal is to find a good Christian college in Michigan to pursue your Master’s Degree. Cornerstone University offers a great education – take note of that and write it somewhere you will see often. Simply having this goal in your mind won’t push you to take action – you need to put it down on paper to get results.

#2: Network with the Right People
When you’re in college you meet other students and learn how to network. However, the real world is different where you not only need to network, but you need to do it with the right people. Once you know what your goals are, you need to connect with all those people who can help you accomplish these goals. So whether it is attending conferences or interning for free, do everything you can to network effectively.

#3: Don’t Wait for the Perfect Job
Finding a dream job is one thing and getting hold of a good job is something else. In the quest to secure your dream job, you shouldn’t let go of any other job opportunities that come your way. If you are lucky enough to receive a job offer, and you know it’s good enough, then go for it. Why? Because the economy these days is tough – and if you don’t take the job, someone else will. So a wise thing to do is to create financial stability with this job while keep looking for your dream job.

#4: Be Optimistic
While technical skills are really important to get a job, they’re not the only thing to consider. There are many top companies that have hired people just because of their highly positive attitude. So be optimistic in your approach and display a sense of positivity. Be confident about your positive side and bring out the goodness in you. Since you are a newbie in the competitive business realm, you will have a limited number of skills to showcase. This clearly means being personable/positive in everything you do becomes even more important.

#5: Read A lot
While you may lack when it comes to skills and experience, it doesn’t mean you can’t gather the targeted knowledge that will help you survive in the business realm. Gaining more knowledge by reading more will give you an edge over the competition. It will push you a few notches up and put you ahead of others who are lacking in the knowledge area. A good way to improve your approach to reading is to keep an eye on what business leaders within your niche/industry are reading. And then simply mimic them.

Actually, the advices above can be adapted on almost anything, even if you want to travel as we do, but in that case I advice you to concentrate at getting a job where you can telecommute, working on a distance easily. Second option would be a job within the tourism niche, but I must tell you; it can be tough and might kill your enthusiasm for travel…

Lifecruiser Love After Graduating Life
 

X2K Train Malmö-Copenhagen. Photo by Hugh Llewelyn

The main train booking site in Sweden is sj.se. To get the cheapest ticket you can, a great advice is to book in low traffic days like Mondays and too book early, because last minute deals are only for retires and youngster under 26. Last minute can be bought the last 24 hours before departure.

Another alternative is to buy the tickets at Tradera.se where SJ is placing their unsold train tickets on auction with the outgoing price as 1 SEK. Book your train ticket on the internet or in the ticket automat at the station to get the lowest booking fee. Also check the different train types, very often the speed train X200 is more expensive.

Personally (and many others with me) I find SJ’s new system to buy tickets more complicated, I like the way it were before when there were normal ticket prices and last minute prices.

There are also the alternative to book with veolia-transport.se, for example between Malmö – Stockholm or Malmö – Berlin. Their ticket system is with fixed ticket rates.

Both the Resrobot at reseplanerare.resrobot.se (mobile app too) and resplus.se are very useful travel tools if you decide to take a train trip.

You can find a list with all the tracks in Sweden at www.jarnvag.net, (info in Swedish) and lots of other information. Especially interesting if you’re a train enthusiast, since they also keep a list of Museum railways (even some steam trains).

If going from Stockholm Arlanda Airport in to Stockholm City I recommend taking the express train arlandaexpress.se to/from Arlanda since the traffic is sometimes not so reliable, with the train you’re always in time. They also use to have a journey time guarantee, so if you’re not in time, check if they pay you back the ticket price.

To travel locally within Stockholm County you can go by the subway. Timetables for the Stockholm subway can be found at sl.se and it goes rather far out in the suburbs. Make sure you get the right ticket card to lower your subway ticket fee’s, because buying only one ticket at the moment, is going to be expensive for you.

There are available SL cards I recommend that’s valid from 24h up to 7 days (and beyond if you plan to stay for long), but if you’re going to do sightseeing which includes a lot of museums and other attractions, I do recommend to get the Stockholm Card from the tourist office. It’s worth it and makes things a lot easier.

©Lifecruiser Love Train Rides

Other train travel related posts at Lifecruiser:

Travel News: Arctic Circle Pass by SJ
Where to go by train from Madrid
How to find cheap holiday deals from Sweden
 

Main rule: Always, always keep several backup copies of your photos on different places. Never ever only have them in one place!

Places or ways to store backup copies:

• On several memory cards for your camera
• Flickr account/similar internet photo storage option
• Extern harddrive (Even small ones store much)
• Different harddrives on your laptop/computer
• Different fresh USB Memory Sticks
• Burn backup CD’s or DVD’s copies

The advantage of a Flickr account is that you often can upload your mobile photos directly from within your mobile camera apps during your trip. I’ve done that a lot during our trips and it’s very appreciated by our followers since they felt like they were with us on the trip.

Warning! Only upload pictures if you’re on Wifi or the hotels internet, do NOT upload if using data roaming since it could cost you BIG!

It’s easy to download your photos from Flickr and other online storage solutions, whenever you need them again. I don’t even keep them on my working computer any more – I get them from Flickr or the extern harddrive when or if I need them.

I even consider NOT burning any backup DVD’s any longer, at least not of all our photos. Maybe just the exceptional good ones.

….and if worst comes to worst and you discover that your traveling laptop has crashed, your holiday photos are still not completely gone until you have tried to rescue them with a Data Recovery Service.
(I’ve only needed to do that once time earlier at work, a recovery for exchange server data).

There are so many different reasons for why your photos (or other files) can be destroyed, not only a hard drive failure, but also because of program failures, virus, theft, Champagne spraying (yes, happened once!) – or simply by you being clumsy and deleting them by mistake…

So our final advice is: always be prepared for the worst – with proper life jacket’s on and the lifeboat located – and within reach!

©Lifecruiser Love Photo Recovery
 

Photo of my camera above taken with my iPhone, it is a Canon DSLR. A Canon EOS 600D with a Sigma AF 70-300/4-5.6 DG OS lens, a new UV-filter (to protect), new lens cap with a holder (I lost the original almost at once *sigh*) plus a new extra battery too.

I almost always end up buying my camera gears at cyberphoto.se. No, I’m not paid to say that, it’s just how it is. They always have everything I’m searching for plus that I love their honest test reviews and ratings.

My camera equipment fits in a smaller Golla Generation Mobile camera bag. As little as possible to carry is my photo philosophy, because I get severe neck pain otherwise.

No extra memory card? No, because we will have our Canon Powershot S5 IS plus Canon Ixus 80 IS with several memory cards with us too – and we also have our mobile cameras, an iPhone 4S (which camera I’m very pleased with!) and a HTC Incredible S.

On top of that we plan to backup our photos to both Flickr and Lifecruiser’s new Travel Notebook PC.

If we lose any photos anyway: then we have to do this trip all over again, won’t we? Ha ha…

©Lifecruiser Love Europe Trip Preparations

Earlier post about Lifecruiser Europe Trip 2012:

Europe Trip Preparations: New Notebook PC
Another meetup for the Europe road trip
Europe Trip Preparations: Champagne Coolbox Snacks
New car for the Europe trip
Europe Trip 2012 Summery
Europe Trip Accommodations
Mapped Europe Roadtrip Route 2012 by Lifecruiser
Routes and stays booked for our Europe trip 2012
Planning our Europe trip 2012
 

We went with a Samsung NP305U1A-A02 at the reasonable cost of 3990 SEK (approx $570 or €444), mainly because it’s slim (1" thick), light-weighted (1.21 kg) and still has 500 GB harddrive to store all our travel photos along the way. I’m planning to both save the photos on the hard drive and upload them to Flickr as a backup along the way too.

The graphic is not for a serious game player, but we won’t be playing, we will be out sightseeing…

Not the fastest processor; AMD Dual Core E-450 1.65GHz, but fast enough for checking email, blogging, editing a few photos. 4 GB Memory, with the possibility to exchange it for an 8 MB instead. LCD – 11.6″ HD LED Display (1366 x 768), which we find fully satisfying for our use of it.

High speed Bluetooth, Wireless LAN – 802.11bg/n, Wired Ethernet LAN – 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN, 3 USB-ports, 1.3 megapixel HD Webcam to use together with Skype to keep in contact with family and friends.

We also got a slim case for it and an extern small mouse (see the photo). Yes, we like to have a mouse and not use the touchpad. We both get tensions in our shoulders and neck if not using a mouse. Old fashioned perhaps, but that’s the truth.

©Lifecruiser Love Europe Trip Preparations

Earlier post about Lifecruiser Europe Trip 2012:

Another meetup for the Europe road trip
Europe Trip Preparations: Champagne Coolbox Snacks
New car for the Europe trip
Europe Trip 2012 Summery
Europe Trip Accommodations
Mapped Europe Roadtrip Route 2012 by Lifecruiser
Routes and stays booked for our Europe trip 2012
Planning our Europe trip 2012
 

The Stockholm archipelago is worth a visit even if you visit in the winter time – if you want a secluded place to relax.

You can find the Stockholm archipelago radio channel at radio frequency 90,2 or by their website Skargardsradion.se.

Click on the link up in the right corner that says: “Lyssna på WEBRADION” to listen to the player for Skärgårdsradion.

They even have apps for your mobile phone, which probably is the best alternative, to really get updated about everything related to the archipelago.

If you understand Swedish: don’t miss to check what my favorite actionreporters Jesse & Loogna are up too at the moment, lots of fun going on there!

©Lifecruiser Love Stockholm Archipelago Radio
 

As travelers we have used it on several occasions, but could have used it many more times if remembering it. Like one time when we wanted to book in a rather late minute (because we were having some problems in the schedule) for a special occasion, but still be really sure that we would have that room at a Marriott Hotel. They had a 0800-number (a toll-free phone number) which we could call and re-assure that our booking went through properly.

Or another time when we wanted to ask for very special arrangements upon arrival… It turned out very well. Very convenient. Marriott had a whole page full of Worldwide Telephone Reservations toll-free numbers, so be sure to check out if it exists with the ones you’re booking with too.

Freephone services appeared in the United Kingdom already in the sixties and a toll-free service was originated in the United States in 1967, while in Sweden we were really late to adopting to this with 020-number instead (can’t be reached from abroad though). 08 is used for the Stockholm area, which might be the hindering factor for Sweden to use the 0800-series?

If you want to know the right toll-free number series for the country you’re in, check in this Toll-free number list in Wikipedia (scroll down on that page).

Also be sure to check the hotel site (or flight, train or whatever it is you’re booking) if they have a toll-free number to call or make your reservations at.

Don’t use other numbers when you don’t have to! Remember: Every little amount builds up to a pile of money…

Important advice for all travel related businesses: be sure to get a toll-free number for your customers and you get an advantage before your competitors!

©Lifecruiser Love Free Customer Services
 

A wonderful sunny place to visit is Portugal, with heaps of culture and things to do. Some of the best Portugal villas are situated on or near the Algarve. Steeped in history, you can choose to sunbathe on its many beautiful beaches, enjoy a family day out at a waterpark or hire a car and explore the stunning landscape along the beautiful coastline.

Vilamoura is a popular area with many sports and leisure activities on offer for the whole family, such as the Vilamouraténis Center which offers lawn bowling, swimming, golf, riding, squash and shooting. Indulge in a spot of retail therapy at the Marina Shopping Centre and try your hand at the area’s very own casino for a fun, glamorous night out.

Albufeira is another great location whether for a fun-filled stag weekend or a quiet family holiday – the area can accommodate both. There’s the Old Town with pretty white-washed houses, and narrow cobbled streets, with restaurants and coffee houses offering a picturesque view of the sea.

Then there’s the famous ‘Strip’, brimming with bars and clubs where you can party into the small hours. Other popular areas include the Duoro Valley – classified as a World Heritage Site where visitors can enjoy the area’s famous Port Wine, or cruise up the famous Duoro River by taking one of the many boat trips available throughout the day.

Or if you fancy roving further afield why not make Florida your holiday destination this year? Florida villas are some of the most beautiful in the States. The perfect place if you’re planning a family trip to Disney World Resort, you can opt for a villa just a short 30 minute drive from the park itself, where the kids can explore the Magic Kingdom as well as the Animal Kingdom Park, to name just two of the six on offer. Enjoy a number of attractions, restaurants, sights and sounds.

Orlando itself is bursting with things to see and do, with copious shopping malls and golf courses galore! Or why not admire some wildlife at Gatorland or SeaWorld’s Discovery Cove? In the evening you can be dazzled by the world-famous Cirque de Soleil or the quirky Blue Man Group, otherwise you can check out one of Orlando’s special dinner theatres for a fun-filled night of food and entertainment.

Another area worth exploring is the gorgeous Gulf Coast with numerous lakes and rivers for plenty of fishing opportunities, or you can opt for a cruise and take in the picturesque sights. There are also many fantastic fish restaurants to choose from. You can also go croc-spotting and admire many other types of wildlife at Everglades National Park. And if you want some brief down time, you can relax in a luxury villa, catch some rays by the pool and enjoy a cosy family night in, away from the demands of everyday life.

Lifecruiser Love Holiday Villas