Secrets for Travel Survival: Overcoming the Obstacles to Achieve Practical Travel Fun

by Eugene R. Ehmann

Overview

Leave the stress and anxiety behind, and learn to enjoy traveling again with these expert tips.
 
Travel can be an adventure, but it can also be overwhelming. Written by an experienced world traveler who also entertainingly recounts his own journeys, this guide can help you feel relaxed and ready to go, whether you’re on the road for business or pleasure. Learn:
 
* How to prepare for your trip to ensure the results you want
* How to plan your trip for the smoothest outcome
* How to best move through airport security
* How to visit or work in foreign countries where you know little or no local language
* How to be and feel safe and secure . . . and still have fun!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614482062
Publisher:	Morgan James Publishing
Publication date:	09/10/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	188
Sales rank:	782,569
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Eugene Ehman has traveled as a criminal investigator throughout North, Central, South America and Europe, and in Secrets for Travel Survival he weaves fascinating, true stories encountered throughout his travel experiences.  Besides being an entertaining read, you will also learn: * How best to prepare for your trip to ensure the results you want * How to plan your trip for the smoothest outcome * How to best  move through airport security * How to visit or work in foreign countries where you know little or no local language * How to be and feel safe and secure ... and still have fun!

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Why I Can Give You Advice

"You've got to help me !!" This was a real call from a frantic mother, and it was the nightmare of every parent. Her voice trembled, and she could just barely get the words out. "My son is a boat captain sailing in Mexican waters. He's been arrested for murder and is in prison in Veracruz. He was arrested just a few days ago. I just learned about it. The newspapers are calling him a jackal, and he's going to be sentenced within the next thirty days. I think he may be being tortured. I don't know if he has an attorney, and I don't know what to do. I need you to get down there right away and see if you can help."

My partner had called me early one morning. He was the head of a law enforcement agency in one of the southeastern states.

This woman had contacted the attorney general of one of the southeastern states, who in turn had contacted my partner. I was friends with the chief federal prosecutor of Mexico, and with a number of the heads of state police agencies there. I spoke Spanish, and by that time, I had traveled extensively in Mexico and knew my way around. The rule of life there was simple and clear: don't ever get arrested in Mexico!

The laws of Mexico are based on the Napoleonic code, which is quite different from U.S. constitutional law ... way, way different, especially as applied by Mexico. As far as the American is concerned, procedures are quite different and can seem very arbitrary. Time was of the essence. I knew that in such a situation, it was imperative to get to work within the first twenty-four hours of an arrest. Here, thirty days had already passed.

It was January, and we hastily made our arrangements through a travel agency, agreeing to meet in Dallas and then travel together to Mexico City, and from there to Veracruz. What happened next is part of the reason that I decided to write something about travel.

When we got to Mexico City, we found out that our travel agent hadn't worked out the details for our connecting flight to Veracruz and had not actually confirmed our passage, or so we were told. We found out that if we wanted to make it to Veracruz within the next day, we'd have to take a bus!

That ride, taken a number of years ago, is still vivid in my memory. Now it's a fond one. It was a lengthy delay in a rather urgent journey. It's only about two hundred miles from Mexico City to Veracruz — by air, maybe an hour. By bus? It's over the Sierra Madre mountain range, passing through multiple villages along the way: a six- to eight-hour drive ... depending.

I don't know how old the bus was, but it was at the very least beat, if not "mechanically challenged." We were the only norteamericanos among the ten-too-many passengers, but out of politeness and humility, we were offered seats ... a treasured provision! In fact, the passengers were extremely gracious and of good humor. Based on their demeanors, I had to imagine that many made this trip regularly.

Along the way, we picked up and dropped off passengers with chickens and goats. We got to see rural Mexican life in all of its delightful rawness. We drove into the evening, and even in mild Mexican winter weather, it soon grew quite cold. Our jackets were packed and under the bus. Our shivering was noticeable, and fairly soon, the kind Mexican passengers offered us several newspapers, which we saw they were using to cover themselves as they made that cold nighttime journey in an unheated bus. There we sat on a packed Mexican bus, covered with newspapers, bouncing along through the Sierra Madre mountains, making our way east to the coastal city of Veracruz ... listening to soft clucking of caged chickens.

We met with the accused in the Vera Cruz prison — not a place to which you want to travel! Now, I mention all of this for several reasons. The first is to describe the extent and variety of my travel. You'll also find that it has included a mixture of contacts with business and government entities and criminals, with a sprinkling of personal touring thrown in.

Through my contact with each of them, I've learned a great deal about the ins and outs of travel. I've experienced wrong bookings and wrong flights, been searched and pulled out of line and searched again, and had every item of my luggage taken out; on the other hand, I've also been escorted through the entire customs and immigration processes, and I've been simply waved through searches ... but I've never lost any luggage!

I've stayed in some of the finest luxury hotels, slept in cots in facilities with no plumbing at all, and eaten in the finest restaurants and also from pushcarts on the sides of rural neighborhood roads. Under normal circumstances, no sane person would ever consider such carts as providing food fit for human consumption.

I've not suffered from any travel-related disease; I've not had adverse effects from eating local food, and in months of travel and living in (for instance) Mexico, I've never had the famous "Montezuma's revenge" (affectionately known as Entamoeba histolytica). As a general rule, I don't take preventative travel vaccinations, though there are clear exceptions; I've not found it necessary to take any for the last ten years of travel. I've never been lost for more than a few minutes, I've rarely been disoriented, and I have always garnered great bonus memories from my unexpected meanderings.

Fear should not be a component of traveling, either in the preparation or in the actual going. With the application of some common sense, some wisdom, and good preparation, you'll be able to have the pleasure of seeing, learning about, and relating to other peoples and their cultures. You'll be able to conduct business more effectively.

Let's walk through some planning and travel together.

CHAPTER 2

What's the State of the World?

The world, put on its ear: 9/11/2001.

I don't think I'm being either dramatic or ethnocentric when I say that the whole world changed with the events of 9/11. Yes, United States citizens tend to be ethnocentric, meaning "the belief that one's own culture is superior to all others and is the standard by which all other cultures should be measured." Yes, we believe that everything good begins in the United States and is developed and refined in the United States. We are woefully uneducated about much of anything outside of our borders. We stoutly refuse to learn other nations' languages. We expect everyone to speak English ...and to speak it effectively. We demand that "the mountain come to Mohammed."

That said, we are the world's biggest consumers. Sadly, in the eyes of much — if not all — of the rest of the world, that is our biggest plus. We consume. We also do produce a lot. We also are probably the most creative and innovative nation, in an overall general sense, in the world (though we clearly do not monopolize in those areas); and we do set the trends in many areas. However much debt we may have as a nation, and however much of that is consumer debt, is up for grabs. The fact is that for many years, the United States has been one of the most stable economies on Earth. I suppose some people also respond to the fact that the United States easily has the largest, best-equipped, and strongest fighting forces of all nations. Whether or not we are a "bully" nation is another subject.

I traveled to Buenos Aires in June 2001, before 9/11. Our client was a multibillion-dollar corporation and maintained a large distribution center in that city. Armed robbers invaded their fenced and guarded facility in order to steal two semitrailers of valuable goods. Our interactions there were really very cross-societal. We met with the executives of the corporation, local and federal police officers, Argentine customs officials, and eventually with the attorney general of Argentina.

Our investigation took us into Paraguay. Because of that, and because of the value of the merchandise stolen, we spent several months investigating. We eventually determined that there were elements of organized crime (yes, there is a presence of the Sicilian Mafia in Buenos Aires). And, not unlike organized crime in the United States, the criminal influence extended into the upper echelons of both private enterprise and government. That's the reason that our contacts there were so broad, and it is part of the reason that I learned a lot about their government and society.

Unbeknownst to the world and much of Argentina, their economy was on the brink of dramatic change. In June 2001, the Argentine peso was valued at roughly the equivalent of the U.S. dollar. By January 2002, that ratio began to drop dramatically, eventually arriving at a ratio of almost four Argentine pesos to one U.S. dollar.

It would be misleading to associate that economic decline in Argentina with the 9/11 attacks. However, that event resulted in very interesting comments and commentary to us, as U.S. citizens working in Argentina. Less than three weeks after 9/11 occurred, I was back in Buenos Aires. To a person, everyone expressed deep sorrow and condolences over the event. That surprised me. I was surprised because first of all, everyone spoke to the situation, and second, because they were so kind toward us about it.

Historically, from a government-to-government standpoint, relationships between the United States and Argentina were on again, off again. Within a period of three or four decades, Argentina had experienced extreme changes in government, from the fascist to communist-sympathizing leaders and dictators. The Argentine government had been sympathetic to a variety of enemies of the United States over the years. Argentina had openly supported and had economic relationships with terrorist groups, and with countries associated with al-Qaeda.

On the other hand, Argentina had also suffered at the hands of international terrorists, the two most notable attacks occurring in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994. Those attacks were against the Israelis and were carried out by Hezbollah groups. Nevertheless, during that same period of time a few (not all) government officials conducted official Argentine business with the same individual attackers. That kind of foreign-policy schizophrenia made it difficult for the United States.

It would be very, very easy to hear of the kind of information I've just mentioned and, as a traveler, become unnecessarily concerned or even decide to cancel one's plans. As I mentioned, to a person, everyone in Argentina responded to us very kindly regarding the losses sustained from 9/11. I'm not talking about just the merchants or the people who would stand to gain financially from befriending American travelers, but more importantly, I engaged individuals on the street, citizens next to whom I was having a cup of that wonderful Argentine espresso or of their native maté (mahtay) tea. Some almost came to tears when they spoke of the 9/11 attacks. Point? Simply be aware that we see ourselves one way, through our filters. Consider how others see us.

Now that over six years have passed, is there doubt in anybody's mind that the whole world has adjusted to the aftereffects of 9/11? Tragic as 9/11 was, it was obviously not the first terrorist attack, right? But it was the first major terrorist attack on the United States! With that, everything changed. Security and attitudes changed as a direct result of the reactions of the United States, and they changed throughout the world. Like it or not, that's the way things have gone in this world for perhaps the last seventy-five years. As the U.S. goes, so goes the world ... to a large extent.

The World Situation

While I fully believe that there has been an increase of tragic events around the world, it's very important for us to remember (especially we Americans) that the media — and by that I mean the tremendously improved communications that we now experience — has brought to our attention skirmishes and wars and deaths and plagues that fifty years ago, we wouldn't have heard about until we read a history book.

If you couple our greater awareness of events around the world with the fact that most of the man-made tragedies have not occurred on our soil here in the United States, we find that most of us have been pretty clueless as to what plagues, war, or terrorist attacks mean to us as a nation. Virtually all other countries in the world, even the Western European countries, have had instances of foreign attacks and foreign terrorism on their soil.

All in all, the United States has lived a very sheltered and extremely abundant life. Have you ever considered that for most of its life, the United States has pretty much been an island? We have oceans on the East and West Coasts, and the north and south borders are extensive, mostly rural, and very sparsely populated. Up until perhaps fifty years ago, the flow between Canada and the United States and Mexico and the United States was gentle and friendly, for the most part. We are a nation made of immigrants, and — again, for the most part — the citizens of the world were substantially law-abiding. There was no actual need for a fence, and philosophically there was every reason not to have one.

The several wars that we've been in have not been on U.S. soil. Perhaps with the exception of the great influenza outbreak in the early twentieth century, our experience of epidemics has been all but nil. If we dare to speak or think comparatively, our poverty has been and continues to be pretty mild.

What I'm saying here may seem obvious, and it may be easy to set aside or disregard. I'm saying that considering or even meditating on these few paragraphs can be a very important step toward creating a newer and clearer filter for the way we view the people we visit on our travels.

You're Going to Travel, Eh?

Okay, so you've either found out or you've decided that you're going to take a trip. Let's assume you have a week or more to plan. The first thing that I do is to catch up on the social and political climate of the country or state to which I'm going to travel. Today, I'm a New Yorker. It would be good for me to learn a bit about West Virginia, were I to go there, and what's going on. If you really enjoy traveling, it's a good idea — and kind of fun — to know those things anyway.

We live in a small world today, don't we? Many times the events of another country can affect us in one way or another. So it's good, as a matter of general education, to know what's happening in other places in the world.

Let's consider a couple of things. First, and perhaps foremost, as a general rule, no matter what you read, foreign countries want American dollars and contact with Americans. Perhaps a kinder comment is that overwhelmingly, foreign citizens are eager to receive and learn from Americans. Yes, there are a few places where Americans aren't very well-liked. But even there, the citizens of those countries are inundated with American products, American media, and American habits. As a result, their curiosity and interest in things American mostly overrides any animosity they may have toward us. Add to that the fact that in many nations, tourism is the country's biggest source of income. But "America" is different from an individual American.

Second, there are many, many ready sources of information about the different nations and world events. The easiest of those sources, readily found on the Internet, are those from the U.S. government. We have to remember that the U.S. government reports the conditions and events in other nations, not only with a slight bias, but also in a very cautious way. Many times they overstate difficulties, struggles, or issues in order to ensure that the American reader is "properly warned." If you are an extra-cautious person and an extra-cautious traveler, then the U.S. government informational websites are for you.

Don't get me wrong, I read the websites. I seek as much up-to-date information as is possible, and I bear their information and their warnings in mind. That said, I've never not traveled to a country where I've had business because of the warnings offered on these websites. Certainly things like national elections, strikes, or rebellions can influence a trip. That's especially true with regard to our behavior once inside that country.

Get an overview of conditions in the part of the world in which you have an interest. As an example, let's say I'm interested in travel in the Caribbean. Had I not traveled in the area, I'd want to get an overview of the area, so that's where I'd start.

May I emphasize? When I read about an area, particularly from government sources — which I heartily recommend — I use the information as a guide only. It is rare that I heed all of the warnings in such a way as to keep me from going to a locale. I do heed the information as being meaningful, at least to bear in mind, to help me know that a situation or condition exists in that locale and then to be sensitive to it.

So I'm going to travel first to the Caribbean; let's say it's a pleasure cruise. I easily located general information from the end of February 2007, when I was working on this part of the book. (With the sites I recommend, you can be informed within the week of any locale, pretty much throughout the world.)

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Secrets for Travel Survival"
by .
Copyright © 2009 Eugene Ehmann.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Preface,
Introduction: Why Should You Read My Book?,
Chapter 1 – Why I Can Give you Advice,
Chapter 2 – What's the State of the World?,
Chapter 3 – It's All in the Preparation,
Chapter 4 – Learning,
Chapter 5 – Not All People Think Like Americans,
Chapter 6 – Contingencies,
Chapter 7 – Logistics of the Trip,
Chapter 8 – Actual Travel,
Chapter 9 – Now We're There,
Chapter 10 – What If? (Things Do Happen),
Chapter 11 – A Practical Walk Through From Two Recent Trips: England and Italy,
Resource Pages for Easy Printing,
Phone Country Codes,
Voltage and Adapter Plugs,
Airplane Seating, Interior,
World Time Zones,
Free Bonus,
Epilogue,

Editorial Reviews

"Traveling to a foreign land can be a frightening experience, especially if you don’t know the language, the laws, and the local customs. Eugene Ehmann’s book goes a long way in eliminating those fears.  If you’re a hesitant traveler listen up: travel really can be fun again! Bon voyage!"
Tim Knox, Speaker, Entrepreneur, Media Host, Author of "Everything I Know About Business I Learned From My Mama"

From the Publisher