Island Vacation Tips: Your First Travel Abroad Packing Checklist

It can be so exciting to go abroad on vacation for the first time.
Island vacation is truly a very special offer. You have to cross water to go to an island so you will have to fly or to go by boat or may be just cross the water on a bridge by driving.
Be well [...]

It can be so exciting to go abroad on vacation for the first time.

Island vacation is truly a very special offer. You have to cross water to go to an island so you will have to fly or to go by boat or may be just cross the water on a bridge by driving.

Be well prepared for your first travel abroad and remember a number of things. Some are essential for your safe travel, like travel insurance (Read more here). Other items and things to remember might just help you to get the most out of your first travel abroad.

If you haven’t found your choice of island to visit you will still have a lot of options to get good travel information and vacation tips here at IslandVacationTips.com and at our partner site Island-Vacation-Tips.com (Opens in a new window).

But do not forget the packing checklist for vacation:

Print and keep the packing checklist and bring it with you to the island – check off the list at home to remember everything. Use it again when your stay abroad is coming to an end and you prepare for leaving the island. This is my best island vacation tips today. (Printer friendly button below.)

___ Travel tickets – check beforehand the date and time, and keep informed about changing schedules. If online booking remember booking numbers etc.

___ Passport – and valid in long time enough. Some countries demand at least 6 months.

___ Photocopies of your passport as backup and kept separately, for example in your suitcase or by a fellow traveler

___ Travel payment documentation

___ Phone numbers of travel agency and accommodation

___ Hotel vouchers or the like and their addresses

___ Local money for the island and may be transition countries

___ Some back up money in your own currency

___ Credit cards – make sure you remember the needed pin codes

___ Visa or other needed admission document to the country of the island

___ Needed vaccinations and proper documentation

___ Travel insurance – make sure it covers all risks of health hazards

___ A hard suitcase with code lock or other safe lock

___ Leave your itinerary and information about addresses where you stay at the island to people you trust (family or a friend)

___ Bring your driving license – an international diving license if you expect to drive on the island

___ List of phone numbers and addresses on paper – your mobile phone list isn’t enough if you loose it.

___ List of phone numbers for reporting problems with your credit cards on your travel

___ Your prescription medicine

___ Medicine to prevent seasickness or the like

___ Some emergency medicine and tools if you get problems with your stomach or infections.

___ List of addresses you want to send postcards from the island for friends and family

___ List of the emails you might need during your island vacation

___ Insect repellent and treatment of insect bites

___ Sun lotion with a high protection factor to prevent sunburn – often a big problem during an island vacation.

___ Cloths for the relevant kinds of weather conditions – often a big difference of the temperature from midday to late night on an island.

___ Different equipment for the different kinds of activities you expect to take part in: swimming, snorkeling, running or other kinds of sport etc..

___ Cloths for special occasions: parties, may be churches, mountain walking, running, dancing shoes …

___ A notebook – no, not the computer, I mean an old fashioned notebook of paper as you will often like to make some notes of people you meet during vacation, addresses for good eating places, booking numbers, or to tear a page to give some information to a person you have met at the island etc.

___ Electric adapter to fit your own electric equipment with the local options

___ Digital camera and memory card, battery and battery charger. An extra battery might be very helpful depending on the situation of electricity on the island.

___ Your iPod or what you use for music.

___ A good up-to-date guidebook about the island with travel tips. Find lists of many good travel guidebooks at Island Vacation Tips.

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Such a travel checklist is partly a list of essential items to include and partly a personal choice, but I recommend that you go through everything and make your final decision. Every packaging checklist need to be extended by your own extras. Here I just mark for 3 extra travel accessories but I am sure you have more.