fotofugitive

photo by (nutmeg)

So, your flights are booked, bags packed and you have your passport at the ready. You’re all set. But what happens if your passport, tickets or other important travel documents are stolen or lost? Do you have a backup plan? Most Embassies/Consulates will issue you with a temporary travel document in lieu of your missing passport but you will still need to prove your identity, and if your other ID is also missing, then you’re in a bit of a bind. The process will go a lot smoother if you have a scanned copy of your passport with you. It’s always a good idea to travel with a printed copy of this on your person, and have access to the original file. Now, I realise this will be old hat to many of you but here are some ways to store your important travel documents while on the road. Who knows, maybe even the seasoned travelers among you will pick up an idea here or there.

Gmail

This is the first solution I heard of, quite some time back. It simply involves emailing your travel documents to your gmail account for retrieval at a later date. But what if you get a lot of mail in that account? Sifting through months of emails to find what you’re looking for is nobody’s idea of fun. Heres how to set up gmail so you always have instant access without having to search:

1. Create a label. Go to Settings and click on the Labels tab. At the bottom of the page, create a new label (I called mine ‘Travel Docs’).

2. Create a filter. Go to the Filters tab and click on ‘Create a new filter’. Choose a keyword/s and enter it/them in the Subject line. Be sure to choose something specific or include symbols. You don’t want it catching random emails that have nothing to do with your travel plans. I use [traveldocs]. Click Next Step. Tick the checkbox marked ‘Apply the label’ and select the label you created in Step 1. Click Create Filter.

3. In your email client, create a new email. In the Subject field, make sure your the keyword you selected in Step 2 is included, [traveldocs] in my case. Attach your travel documents and send! Be sure to send from a different email address than your gmail one to avoid the email showing up twice in your filter and looking messy (it will grab it from your inbox AND your sent box). Check your gmail account. Your filter/label should be in the left-hand menu and your travel document email/s should be in it.

I choose to send separate emails for passports, frequent flyer details, and individual trip documents to make things easier to find.

Evernote

Save your travel documents as notes in Evernote. You can access your evernote account from the application on your computer, via the web or using your iPhone or equivalent, and it is all synced across the board. I’ll let you explore this  one for yourself as it’s pretty straight forward. The one thing to be aware of though is that you can only export as Evernote XML (.enex) or HTML. If you want to directly acces the original jpeg or pdf you put into evernote, you need to export as HTML. Your original file will be in the .resources folder of the exported HTML folder. It’s pretty straightforward once you know this, but until you do it can be confusing.

Evernote comes in free and paid accounts, but the free option gives you ore than enough storage space for our purposes here.

Dropbox

First, download Dropbox and sign up for a free account. Once you have it set up, simply copy/paste the folders containing your travel documents into your dropbox. You can then access your files from your computer or via the web. Dropbox comes with 2GB of free storage.

accessMyID

If you’re willing to pay to ensure your documents stay secure, accessMyID looks like a great option, and is probably the way I will go in the future. From their site:

AccessMyID.com allows you to upload and securely store your vital travel documents, Personal and Medical Profiles online. Stored documents provide indisputable Consulate or bank ID.
Be organized. Travel prepared.

This looks like a much more secure option than those listed above IMHO as it uses 2048 bit SSL security. Prices are $19.95/1year, $34.95/3years, $49.95/3years

And there you have it. I’m currently using Gmail, Evernote and Dropbox to ensure redundant backup while on the road, as some services such as Gmail can be blocked in certain parts of the world.

Have any other solutions that have worked for you? Please share them in the comments.

Over the next two months I will be taking no less than 9 flights, one of which is BNE-BKK. Now, every time I take that flight to Bangkok, I wake the next day with cold-like symptoms. The cause could be a variety of things, from picking up a bug on the plane to the air-conditioning in the hotel. I am going to test whether it may be the former by trying this nifty little travel tip I picked up from Daniel Pink:

Note from Daniel’s site:
(Warning: This video might gross out some of you. Viewer discretion is advised.)

I believe the antibiotic ointment he mentions is spelt Bacitracin, in case you didn’t quite catch it.

Have other travel tips that have worked for you? We’d love to hear ‘em. Please share them in the comments.

Hi folks, here is the wallpaper for March. Yes, I do realise we’re already halfway to April. I’m not off with the fairies that much … yet :-) Our laptop hard dive finally gave up the ghost at the beginning of the month, so I’ve been playing catch up for the last couple of weeks. This one’s for Jack from gotpassport (@DrGotpassport on twitter) who contacted me specifically to enquire about the wallpaper. Thanks mate!

A snapshot of life on the street in Vientiane, Laos for March. I like the diagonal line created by the motorbikes/scooters. As usual, there are a number of sizes available.

March Wallpaper 1280 x 800 (or click on the image above)
March Wallpaper 1440 x 900
March Wallpaper 1920 x 1200

Enjoy the rest of the month. I’m off to Papua New Guinea for almost 3 weeks next Wednesday, so I might have a wallpaper from PNG for you in the coming months.

Calling all graphic designers!

As many of you know, the International Guild of Visual Peacemakers (IGVP) is in the process of building a new website and, more importantly, a community of like minded people committed to the ideals of promoting peace through visual imagery.

Mario Mattei, founder of IGVP has asked that I announce and hold a competition to design icons that represent core values of IGVP. These will be an integral part of the new website and will be used to designate or ‘award’ images and photographers as upholding or representing these values. The 5 awards are as follows:

“This image embodies/ captures/ displays…”

1. Common Humanity – Showing connection, building bridges of peace through images
2. Dignity & Beauty – The inherent quality & value of a human being
3. Local Context – Life among locals, a feeling of “place”
4. Hope for Humanity – Images that show relationships, human resolve, and acts that inspire
5. Mysteriously Emotive – Visual poetry that emotes something unspeakable about the mysterious human experience

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to design graphical representations or interpretations (icons) of these 5 themes, either contained in a square shape, or unbound objects/shapes -not too flat, not too glossy or embossed, but polished looking. Similar to the IGVP leaf.

Icon Specs

Icon submission should be transparent 24bit .pngs (winner provides .psd or .ai);

Icon sizes: 225×225 300dpi, 100×100 72dpi, 40×40 72dpi (submit only the 100×100 72dpi)
Colors: Icons will sit on Grey background hex#1b191a. Cornerstone color options to use for icons are: Green hex#89a843; Orange hex#d48642; Blue hex#4684a9. White and black are suitable in design as well.

Prize

You will receive a free standard membership to visualpeacemakers.org for one year when the new site launches, which will include your own gallery and peacemaker profile page, $150 USD in cash, and your choice of one of David duChemin’s books; Within the Frame, or his newest release, Visionmongers.

Eligibility

To be in the running:

1. Submissions must be received by March 10th, 2010
2. You must be following @IGVP on twitter
3. You must be a fan of IGVP on facebook

Submit

Please use the following form to submit icon designs

Belated though it may be, here is the monthly wallpaper for February. Just a simple one this month. The green background is a verdant rice-field in Xiengkhouang Province, Laos. This province was one of the most heavily bombed during the Vietnam war, and you often see fences and houses made from bomb shells as well as many craters in the surrounding landscape. It is estimated that more than 1.3 million tonnes of ordnance was dropped on Laos between 1964 and 1973, making it the most bombed country in the world per capita. MAG (Mines Advisory Group) is one of the fantastic organisations working on UXO (unexploded ordnance) clearance in Laos. From their website:

“Up to 30 per cent of some types of ordnance did not detonate. Unexploded ordnance (UXO) still contaminates the ground, affecting a quarter of all villages. There were at least 50,000 UXO casualties between 1964 and mid-2008. Accident records for 2008 are not yet complete, but extrapolating the data already available indicates that there may have been a doubling of casualties from 2007, to about 600.

UXO contamination also keeps people poor by preventing them from using land. It is therefore one of the prime factors limiting long-term development in Lao PDR. It diminishes food security and denies access to basic services, resulting in widespread poverty amongst rural populations.”

- MAG Lao

Be sure to check out the MAG website to find out more about the lifesaving work MAG is doing in Laos and around the world.

As usual, the wallpaper is available in a few different sizes:

January Wallpaper: 1280 x 800 (or click on the image above)
January Wallpaper: 1440 x 900
January Wallpaper: 1920 x 1200