There are lots of travel gadgets available to help travelers, but nothing is more reliable than a good guide book.
In Parts I and II of “A ‘To Do’ List To Get To Paris,” you:
- Determined your bottom line for your trip.
- Determined when you want to go – busy season vs. slow season.
- Applied for your passport.
- Determined whether you want to live like royalty or like a commoner while travelling.
- Investigated airfare prices for one or two airlines and read the fine print of each airline’s website regarding luggage allowance and their rules of carriage (your rights as a traveler).
- Determined whether you need travel insurance.
- Bought Rick Steves’ Paris 2015 guide book or another if you prefer.
- Determined where you want to stay.
- Made a list of travel gear to buy.
- Strategized your food spending plan.
- Using your guide book, you made a list of the top activities you want to do while in Paris, being mindful of which arrondissement they are in.
- Planned your transportation costs.
- Notified your bank (and credit card companies) of your travel plans and got it in writing (that you notified them). You inquired as to whether you will be assessed fees for cash withdrawals and debit/credit card transactions and included these in your spending plan.
- Verified your cell phone includes international calling and how much it is per minute. You considered getting a SIM card in France.
- After your research, you developed your spending plan for your trip.
Part III
16. Get travel apps but don’t rely solely on them. As previously stated, it is good travel sense to have a contingency plan. A smartphone can be lost, stolen, dropped in water, or you could have my experience and not be able to access the internet due to a lack of information provided by the cell provider. Take a travel guide unless your contingency plan is to “wing it.”
New apps become available almost every day. Although I plan to highlight some of them on my blog in the future, it is impossible to keep up with the proliferation of technological gadgets unless that is your sole focus. Here are a few that have caught my attention recently. Don’t be surprised they’ve been around for a while. Note: Most of the descriptions are the official app descriptions, and all are available for Android and iOS phones.
Travel Apps
TripAdvisor. This app includes photos, descriptions and reviews of hotels, flights, restaurants and attractions for locales around the world. You could conceivably plan your entire trip using this app. Note: I am a reviewer on TripAdvisor, and I am not being paid to endorse their app.
TripAdvisor City Guide Catalogue; Paris City Guide. Download the TripAdvisor City Guide Catalogue for a multi-country trip or the Paris City Guide for information on restaurants, attractions, hotels and more, all available offline. Both are free.
Travel App Box. Fifteen tools, including tip calculator, currency and unit converter, phrase and pictography dictionary, and country calling codes. $1.99
Tripit. Organizes all of your reservations – plane, hotel, restaurant, etc. – into one itinerary. Free.
Rail Europe. Check schedules, book tickets and reserve seats on 35 European railroads in 32 countries. Free.
Flight Aware. Tracks flight information, including status of arriving and departing planes, gate/terminal changes, delays, cancellations and connections. Free.
Google Translate. Translates written and spoken words and phrases (64 and 17, respectively), and speaks the translations of 24 languages aloud. Provides phonetic spellings for non-Latin-based languages. Free.
Jetsetter. Alerts members to daily sales and exclusive iPhone deals on high-end hotels, weekend trips, safaris, and other excursions. Booking capabilities plus reviews and photos. Free.
Easy Currency Converter. Live exchange rates for 180+ world currencies, favorites, graphs, available offline. Set up your personal currency list and have them at first glance. Free. (Note: I’ve used this and found it to be accurate.)
Since I don’t have field experience with all of these apps, please feel free to leave a comment about any of them if you have already used one, or use one in the future. Also, if you have travel app suggestions, don’t hesitate to share that with me in the comments section. I would like to give my readers that kind of feedback. Please leave me a comment at the end of this post or click here.
17. Notify your email provider and Facebook (or other social media) of your travel plans.
I put this here as a joke. The fact is, you can’t do this (that I am aware of), but should be able to. Why? My Outlook and Facebook accounts were both frozen shortly after I arrived in Paris. The beauty of these types of accounts is that they are supposed to be world-wide accessible. Yet no matter how many questions I answered to verify my identity, neither account could be satisfied: I was using a computer in a foreign country. I kept getting messages that stated both accounts wanted me to sign in from a computer I had previously used. After I arrived back in the U.S., both accounts unfroze themselves, as if by magic. Outlook, Facebook and other such social media need to have a system in place so their users won’t be frozen out of their accounts that are touted as world-wide accessible. If I am unaware that you can notify social media of your travel plans please leave me a comment at the end of this post or click here.
While I opened a Gmail account when in Paris, I needed access to previous emails to get a resume from my Outlook account.
18. Make sure you have enough medication to take with you if you need it. Some people still recommend that you get a written prescription for any medications you take with you. I wrapped a prescription (from my doctor’s prescription pad) around my prescription bottle with a rubber band and packed it in my carryon. I wasn’t asked about it, but how else would a Border Patrol Agent or Customs Agent know the prescription is mine, and that what I have in the prescription bottle is what it says in the bottle? You can’t be too careful.
19. Write down (or program into your smartphone) the number 17: the number to call in France for 
English-speaking police. I’m not trying to scare you, but I had a frightening moment in a deserted section of Pere La Chaise Cemetery during my last trip. (See future post “Paris Trip Day 10.”) Rick Steves had this emergency number in his 2014 guide book on Paris but unfortunately, I didn’t notice it. If your first language is something other than English, ask for an emergency number when you arrive at your lodging and program it into your phone right away.
20. Make arrangements for pets and/or plants to be taken care of.
21. Cancel newspaper and other publications/services as applicable.
22. Tell a relative or neighbor of your travel plans, and give them your contact information while in Paris. Suppose something happens to your cell phone and a family member needs to get in touch with you? It is always good to let someone back home know where you will be in a foreign country.
Meeting new people is one of the joys of travelling. May you be mindful that you are an ambassador for your country while in a foreign country.
23. Take an attitude of a helpful traveler with you on your trip. No matter how long you stay for, whether for a weekend or a month or year, try to have a willingness to try to see things from another’s point of view. Be mindful that you are a guest in a foreign country, and that foreigners don’t often view situations the same way as Americans. And enjoy yourself.
Salut.