Travel Time Checklist

 You’ve planned your summer vacation. Now let’s do a checklist:
1. Clothing: List generically, per day. Then lock in specifics. Some clothing can be rinsed out in hotel rooms or sent to a hotel’s laundry.
2. Accessories: List cameras, tripods, binoculars, cellphone & computer (if you just can’t leave them behind) batteries, chargers, AC converters and adapters.
3. Document packet: passports, airline tickets, hotel confirmations, itinerary, maps, schedules, lists of events and activities in each location, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of contacts at home and en route.
4. Give copies of your itinerary to key people.
5. Currency: Many currency exchanges may be accomplished economically at banks and ATM’s, without the need for purchasing foreign currency here.
6. Carry-on: medicines, toiletries, reading matter, travel documents, money, jewelry and sleep aids (a neck pillow?).
7. Suitcases: Do a pre-trip mock pack. Is all luggage in good condition?  Can you carry/wheel everything yourself, if there’s no porter?
8. Complete current work assignments several days before you leave. The final days on the job are best devoted to last-minute details.
9. At home, tidy up, so you won’t face a mess when you return. Suspend newspapers. Arrange for mail pickup or rerouting. Ask appropriate neighbors, friends or relatives to check on your house during your absence. Confirm ground transportation. Have a Plan B, in case that shuttle that promises “no charge if we’re late” doesn’t show at all.
10. Of course, everything will go smoothly, and you’ll return safe and sound. Still, wouldn’t this be an ideal opportunity to be sure that your personal affairs are in order? (If this sounds like a pitch for doing some long-postponed estate planning, so be it.) How about committing the act of kindness that you’ve put off before? Be sure your will, living trust and Advance Health Care Directive are up to date. If you don’t have a trust or will, shouldn’t you?
Hopefully your loved ones won’t have occasion to benefit from your kindness for many years to come. Nevertheless, the most thoughtful gift may be the gift of a little attention to detail — arranging your affairs so that someday, whenever life is done, your loved ones will be left with an orderly succession, not a nightmare of paperwork and hide-and-seek.
Jerry Kessler practices law in Santa Clarita. You may call him at 661-255-1001.