Approaches to overcoming adversity while travelling to
San Francisco
SFWanderlust team December 7, 2018
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In our last post, we covered tips and tricks on how to save big money on shopping. Knowing winter holidays are coming, we thought you’d find value in these tips. In this post, we want to provide some how-to and what-to-do tips when you’re facing adversity or emergency while staying in San Francisco. Honestly, these would apply to any destination. Our hope is not to bring up any negativity because these kinds of things happen rarely, but they do happen so it’s generally to know how to approach unprecedented circumstances. Our goal is to help you to make the most out of your trip so you’re left with memorable moments. We’re going to make it a Question and Answer style. This list is in no particular order. We’ve spoken with many travelers over the years and look into our own experience to craft the list. Please remember, all of the things we’re about to mention are based on our experience and are not legal or personal advice.
Let’s get started:
Q1: What do you do if your documents such as passport, driver license, credit card, etc. are lost or stolen?
This happens so often and it has happened to me. I had my money withdrawn from my debit card despite the card never leaving my wallet. Technology advancement has also brought a series of problems giving the bad guys opportunities to commit crimes. Generally, you’d want to take a proactive and preventive approach and not let any of these circumstances arise in the first place. With the passport and driver license, I would always have multiple copies. I’d always scan the original documents and print out a copy. Afterwards, I’d save the scan as a PDF copy so I can put that in my phone or computer. Now depending on where you’re going, you can use the copies, but generally you’d still need the original documents when you’re at the airport, government agencies, or in the bank. The copies are good when you’ve lost your docs and need to fill out applications online.
As far as payment cards are concerned, I always use my credit cards in place of my debit cards. I only use debit cards for withdrawal and always set a daily limit to the minimum like $50 a day. This applies to ATM withdrawals. If I need to get more cash out, I go inside a bank and do the withdrawal with the teller. The issue with debit cards is that the money is yours – it’s cash equivalence whereas with a credit card, the money belongs to the bank. Good news is that there’s protection for both cards and the bank will give you the funds back to your accounts if they determine that fraud was not committed by you. Rules are different with each financial institutions so always make sure to check before opening a card. It’s crucial to set alerts for your card so that every time a transaction is made, you’re notified. The earlier you report theft/fraud, the higher the chance you’ll be off the hook.
Another thing I do now is I try to get gas at more reputable places like Costco since it’s always busy there and they have staff monitoring the place all the time. If I am on a highway and need to tank, I’d always go inside the station and pre-pay with cash. Any card readers out there could be compromised and you have no way to find out.
Q2: It seems like we’re always behind our plans due to unexpected events. How do you make the most out of your time?
Honestly, this also happens to me. Every time I make plans, I still have to allocate additional times for these unexpected events. Bad news is that they aren’t going away and everyone will have to face them. Good news is you can measure and track what’s taking the most out of your time – the things that don’t add value to your trip. For me, it’s traffic. Bay Area and San Francisco traffic is plain horrible. The term rush hours is outdated because rush hours are happening throughout the day. Every time I want to drive from the East Bay to San Francisco, I need to cross the Bay Bridge or take the Richmond Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge paying double toll. Without traffic (mostly at night), the trip could be as short as 20 minutes. Somewhat slow traffic could be an hour or an hour an half. Bad traffic could take more than 2 hours of your time sitting inside the car.
Public transportation is a better solution. BART and Muni trains are not free of delays, but if you’re commuting during the day, they are going to save you so much time. Plus, you don’t need to pay for parking, no tolls, avoid all sorts of transportation tickets, and you get to see the vibe of the city. Equally as important, you’re saving money as well not having to rent a car, buy insurance, and gas. Saving an additional 2-3 hours a day lets you explore so many other places and keep stress level low. If you have to travel to far away destinations like Yosemite, driving is needed.
Another thing that takes away time is lack of preparation. I used to fall for this all the time and still until today, but improving every day. Here’s what I mean. Have you ever found yourself traveling to a location and started looking for health insurance, places to explore, currency exchange places, items you forgot to bring? If the answer is yes, then we have a lot in common. These tasks are time-consuming and stressful. The solution is to create a to-do and to-bring list in advance – days or weeks before your trip. When you have time, you don’t stress out and rush to get whatever insurance plans is offered on the internet or accept whatever the currency exchange rate that you’re offered. This means that you’ll save money and hassle. When you have time, you can go back and forth with multiple vendors to get your best deals. If you have a to-bring list, you will know exactly what to bring instead of forgetting important items at home ending up purchasing them at the destination location adding more clutter and redundancy to your material possession.
We hope these tips have given you some ideas to more efficiently plan your trips and travel. Remember to always prepare in advance and have alternative plans for piece of mind.
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