Thoughts On “Crisis Abroad: Tips for International Travelers”
As someone who was stuck in Japan after the earthquake, we were ‘shocked’ to find the US Dept. of State’s advice on the crisis was to ‘call the airlines’.
Oh, okay. Never mind that working landlines were hard to come by and it was impossible to get through to them anyway. (Not that I ever expected help from the feds) What I have done for years is to send copies of flight itinerary and hotel numbers to a couple of family members, and to leave copies of our passports as well. This time it came in handy, but although you could not call Continental to change flights, I could (remarkably) text my sister who had all that information. SHE called Continental, and because she had all my info and it was an emergency, they let HER rebook us out of Osaka on the last 4 seats of the plane. Everyone on that plane was also a refugee from Tokyo, and when we were wheels, up, it was like a scene from Stephen King’s ‘The Langoliers’.
My kids will never again accuse me of being OCD where dfat travel advice ‘arrangements’ are concerned. Bottom line: CYA first, depend on the State Dept. last. And if you suspect something is about to hit the fan, start thinking about alternative ways to get out. Before I stupidly thought I did not need
to register with the State Dept. unless we were going to somewhere like Egypt or Morocco, now I know better. Natural disasters do not confine themselves to underdeveloped countries, and in the future I will know better.
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