The Need to Have a Local Contact in Your Destination Before Leaving Home
You need to deal with a lot of things before heading out to travel. You have to make sure that you purchased all the flight tickets and local transportation tickets. You also need a hotel reservation. On top of all these things, you also need to ensure that you have a local contact. It’s important to find someone whom you can trust once you arrive at that destination.
You don’t know the place and you might not even speak the language. You will feel more confident if there’s someone you can contact any time when you need help.
A possible tour guide
Although you don’t necessarily have to make this local contact your tour guide, it’s possible if you want to. Since you already established a good relationship, you can push it further by traveling the area together. You will be with someone who knows the place and will provide you more information. You can also have an interpreter if you need one. The trip becomes more convenient. The reason why it’s optional is that you might also want to explore the place by yourself. You don’t need someone making everything easy for you since it takes away the thrill of traveling to a new destination.
You can ask help for emergencies
Even if you already planned every detail of the trip, things could still happen. For instance, you end up getting lost or in trouble with the authorities. You can also end up with immigration issues. You know that you can call someone to help you out. During medical emergencies, you can also ask for help. It’s tough being alone in a foreign place when you know no one. It feels better if your local contact is there for you.
You will avoid miscommunications
You might feel confident getting a cab since you always do it back home. You don’t know that ok other countries, some cab drivers will trick you into paying more than what you expect. If you end up being brought to the wrong place or asked to pay more, you can immediately call for help. It’s applicable in other instances where you need someone to communicate with another party on your behalf.
Place the number on your speed dials
You don’t know if things will go wrong while you’re traveling. You want the trip to go as smoothly as possible, but it’s never a guarantee. Even the most frequent travelers could still end up facing these problems. Therefore, it pays to know someone in the area whom you can call any time.
If you’ve never met this person before, you can establish an online relationship. You can talk to each other before you leave home and feel comfortable with one another. It’s difficult if the person you think could save you isn’t really there for you. In the future, you can return the favor. When this person visits your place for a trip, you can do the same things that were done for you.
Photo Attribution:
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2nd image from http://bargainbabe.com/travel-on-the-cheap-with-local-tour-guides/
