“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang

All good things come to an end and so does your trip. Hopefully you have had a great time and some wonderful memories.

Here are a few small things to remember to get a good ending to your trip:

• Do not pack your home keys in the check-in baggage. If your bag gets lost you can get into trouble.
• Reconfirm your airline ticket a few days before going home. The flight time may have changed and sometimes you can get bumped from a flight if you do not reconfirm.
• Store clothes used on your trip separately from other stuff at home until you have washed them if you have been in places with loads of critters. You may have brought bugs with you which can spread all over your house.
• Do not forget to keep enough money (in the right currency) to pay for the transportation to the airport, extra charge for overweight luggage and any airport tax which is not included in your ticket price (which often has to be paid in cash in local currency).
• Keeping a journal or diary is a great way to preserve your memories. Sure you have your photos but the little things like the time your waiter messed up all your orders or that little girl dancing in the doorway in Havana are just as memorable and can bring back some great memories on that cold and rainy November day when you are home from work with the flu.
  

  • There are several on-line journals where you can store your writing and also upload pictures from your journey. Not only is this a great way to share your adventure with friends and family at home while you are on the road, it is also a good way to have a back-up in case your paper journal gets lost.

  • It is often possible for people to leave comments in your travelogue which is a fun way to keep in touch with people at home. The comments that some of your friends leave in your virtual journal may not always the kind that you want your co-workers and family to read about You can handle this by dividing your contacts into two categories, registering two journals with different distribution lists and uploading everything twice (just copy and paste between them).

  • If you keep a physical journal you can also put aside some space for collecting peoples e-mail addresses. Ask people you meet to write a small greeting beside their e-mail.

Happy travels!