We have made it to the last list! The Before Leaving list page is now under the Packing List menu item.
I think the list is pretty self explanatory. I am going to tell just a few stories.
It is always a good idea to phone your credit card issuers and let them know where you will be and the dates, especially if you are traveling to a far off country. Since we do not use my credit cards on trips except in emergencies, I have never done this. Murray does contact them if we will be using his credit card. Last year I decided to phone Mastercard and let them know I would be in China. The woman’s comment was “If a charge gets declined, just phone us and we will approve it”. And I thought to myself “I don’t carry a cell phone on holidays and what Chinese vendor is going to let me use their phone?” I thought the comment was rather useless.
We are leaving the copies of important documents with Murray’s parents and my son. Two people in case we can’t get a hold of one of them.
Most house insurance policies state that if a house is empty, it needs to be checked every 72 hours (3 days). It is best to arrange to have someone come in and do a walk around to make sure there is nothing wrong.
Last winter, our nephew was told by his mother (who was in Hawaii) to turn down the thermostat when he went to the mountains skiing. He turned it down alright. Unfortunately, he turned it down too low to keep the water in the pipes in a liquid state. There were several frozen and broken pipes in the house when he got home. What a mess. The moral of the story is to turn down the thermostat but still keep the house warm enough to keep the water from freezing!
We are now working away at clearing some of the items off this list. Most of the list needs to be done just before we walk out the door to catch our flight.