Humanitarian Travel

American business travelers to Asia soon will be eligible for fast-track entry at airports in Asia-Pacific nations, thanks to a bill recently signed into law by President Obama.

The APEC Business Travel Card will allow qualified, pre-screened business travelers access to fast-track immigration lanes at airports, and it eliminates the need to apply for visas or entry permits. The card itself serves as the visa. The cards are accepted in 21 nations belonging to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and are valid for three years. Learn more about how the card works here.

The new card for U.S travelers is not yet available, but you can find progress updates here.

Frequent travelers know the headaches — and the risks — associated with being at the mercy of the airlines, Mother Nature, even political instability. Humanitarian Travel now offers a tool to keep you and your fellow travelers apprised of any change that could affect itineraries, helping you manage costs and exercise your duty of care.

SafeToGo is a mobile app for your smartphone that monitors media, flight schedule data, web services and government postings for up-to-the-minute information that could impact travel. You and your travel manager will be notified of any transportation delays or cancellations, extreme weather affecting travel, health hazards and security concerns at your destination.

To learn more about how SafeToGo saves you time and money and enhances safe travel, watch this video.

Your safety and security are our top priority, and SafeToGo provides the peace of mind that comes from having critical, timely information at your fingertips. Contact our Client Services team to learn more about traveling with SafeTo Go.

Yes, you had multiple pre-trip meetings with your volunteer humanitarian team before heading out of the country. Yes, you discussed health, safety and a myriad of subjects. Now that you and your team are on the field, do you really need another orientation?
 
Absolutely yes!
 
You see, the trip becomes “real” to your team once they actually arrive. When it’s real then they listen — really listen.
 
So what what’s the best way to do field orientation? First, try to meet with your team as soon as possible once you arrive at your destination. Remember, however, that your team probably will be tired from the long trip, so keep your comments brief and to the point. Focus on the immediate — particularly logistics, health and safety. Other details can be handled at breakfast meetings and other opportunities.
 
Logistics
Help orientate your team to where they are staying. Make sure everyone knows where to find you and other leaders. If staying at a hotel, remind your team about extra and often excessive charges that come from using the phone, laundry services, etc. If the hotel has a safe, then make arrangements to secure valuables like passports, unless they are required to be carried with you.
 
Make sure every person has a business card, matchbook or something from the hotel or place where you are staying that has the address and phone number on it. This will be invaluable if they get separated and lost.
 
Also make sure your team knows where meals and any meetings will take place.
 
Be sure to cover money issues such as how and where will money be exchanged, and what items team members will need to purchase themselves and what will be provided for them.
 
Health
Discuss with your team whether or not the water is safe to drink. If it isn’t, then remind them to avoid ice and non-bottled drinks made with water. Also remind them to use bottled water to brush their teeth.
 
Discuss any food preparation concerns and the need to avoid street vendors.
 
Also make sure they know how to use the toilet. That sounds funny, but many toilets abroad work differently. Some, for example, require water to be dumped into them in order to flush. Some places do not flush toilet paper but rather provide cans for their disposal. So just make sure your team knows what is appropriate.
 

Safety
Review safety recommendations and discuss any concerns. Now that you are actually there, you may notice things that could become issues. Deal with these right away. Also, remind your team to stick together and not venture out alone.
 
The team field orientation is one of the most important things to do upon arriving at your project destination. Work through a checklist that covers the items mentioned above as well as any other issues relevant to your location. Even though you probably discussed all of these before leaving home, your team needs the reminders. They’re listening now!

Heavy rains and flooding in Central America over the past few days have short-term humanitarian teams there scrambling to adjust. Mission Network News (MNN) is reporting on one volunteer medical team in Guatemala that was stuck in the storm and unable to continue the medical clinics it was conducting. The rains were so bad that people could not get to their clinics, and washed out roads made team travel difficult.

On Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City issued an emergency message to U.S. citizens advising against all in-country travel until the weather improves and landslides are cleared. “The recent heavy rains mean that water saturation in the mountains is high and more landslides could occur,” said the advisory.

Honduras has issued a “state of red alert” according to the British Foreign Office. The situation there is similar to Guatemala with travel also disrupted by landslides and flooding. Reuters is reporting 81 people dead and thousands of people have abandoned their homes across Central America. In El Salvador, more than 13,000 people were forced to flee the rising waters. Humanitarian groups there are concerned about long-term food supplies as the floods have wiped out much of this season’s harvest.

What should you do if you are on a short term volunteer trip and your humanitarian team faces natural or other disasters? First, make sure that you get good information. That starts before you go by registering your team with the U.S. State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program at http://bit.ly/ptDdL9. This will enable the local U.S. embassy to get in touch with you in case of an emergency or advisory condition. Also, monitor local news and stay in touch with local authorities for information about road closings.

Second, don’t take chances. Roads in developing countries can be treacherous under normal conditions let alone during severe storms. Also, many of these nations do not have the resources to quickly respond to multiple emergencies and road closures. It often is better to extend your trip a couple days and allow for the situation to stabilize. If you do that, however, be sure to contact your Humanitarian Travel agent so that we can notify the airlines and work on rebooking you. Failure to do so may result in losing the entire value of your ticket.

Finally, look for ways to serve in the midst of the crisis. In the case of the Guatemalan medical team, a hospital near where they were stranded asked for their assistance. Flexibility is always important for these trips, especially when hit by unforeseen events such as severe weather.

The continued soft global economy has airlines cutting flights and raising prices, and that could have a major impact on humanitarian teams and their 2012 budgets. In addition, with the Olympics coming to London next year (a major transfer airport for volunteer teams) airline prices are being driven up even more.

USAToday reported that airfares rose in the U.S. nearly 10% for the 12 months ending in August compared to the previous 12 months, and the major U.S. airlines will cut capacity 2%-4% next year. This means 2012 airfares could go up even more. Baggage and miscellaneous airline fees are also on the rise.

In addition to fare increases, travelers can expect tax increases in 2012, especially on international trips. The White House has proposed travel tax increases, the UK is threatening increases, and various individual countries have already raised their taxes. Bulgaria, for example, just raised one of their travel taxes by 8%.

What does all of this mean to the humanitarian traveler? Here are four things to keep in mind:

You can’t use last year’s trip budget. If you base your 2012 trips on what you paid for your 2011 trips you can expect to be greatly disappointed. Instead of guessing, call us and let us give you a no-obligation quote so that you can work with realistic numbers.

You may need to alter your trip dates. It is always true that flexible travel dates often lead to substantial savings; this is especially the case for 2012.

Consider alternate airlines. Some frequent humanitarian travelers have their favorite airlines and will stick with them even if they have to pay a little more. In 2012, however, you could be paying a lot more. Be open to considering other airlines. Your Humanitarian Travel agent can give you all the details and let you make an apples to apples comparison of airlines.

Watch the luggage weight. It is reported that some airlines are charging as much as $450 for overweight bags on international flights. Pay attention to the airline weight rules and know that if your trip involves different airlines, there may be different weight restrictions. This is especially true if you are transferring to smaller regional or national airlines. For example, with certain tickets a team traveling to Tanzania from the U.S. can have three 50-pound bags, but if they take an in-country flight the national airline limits them to one 44-pound bag. Again, contact us for details on luggage rules and for information on our special tickets that allow for free extra bags.

As always, the earlier you can plan your trips and purchase your tickets the better off you will be, especially going into a volatile 2012. Contact Humanitarian Travel today at 1-866-429-1325 or www.humanitariantravel.net and find out about our airfare discounts for your 2012 international volunteer trips.

With hundreds of thousands of apps available for cell phones, including thousands that are travel related, how can you find the best ones for short term mission trips? Well, over the past couple years we have reviewed a number of apps as well as put several to extensive use while serving abroad. Hands down our favorite is Trip Journal which is available on the iPhone, Android and Symbian (Nokia) platforms. Here’s an overview:

App:

Trip Journal

What it does:

Let’s you journal your trip through video (on video equipped phones), pictures and writing; track your travel; and share everything through Facebook. It also exports to YouTube, Flickr, Google Earth and Picasa.

Why we like it:

The app has a beautiful interface and neatly organizes trips around waypoints. Once you have identified a waypoint you can shoot video, take pictures, make notes, or locate yourself on a map. Trip Journal tags these with the waypoint name which makes it easy to view your trip. You can jump back and forth between waypoints, media and your notes. When you later review your photos you know right where they were taken—no need to tag the photo as Trip Journal does that for you.

The app includes an interactive map and uses both GPS and cell tower triangulation to locate your position. It even provides your elevation. Trip Journal’s statistics feature shows the total distance traveled, elapsed time, high and low elevations, and average speed. The Facebook connectivity is excellent. With one tap of the screen it not only uploads all of your pictures and videos, but it also organize them with your notes and maps before placing the entire trip into a complete online journal.

How we use it on humanitarian trips:

One of the biggest challenges on volunteer service trips is keeping a journal. Every day is filled with interesting and exciting experiences and you want to capture as many of those experiences as you can. With the fast-paced nature of these trips, however, there is little time to sit down and write. Plus if you wait until the end of the day to journal, chances are you will forget a lot. With Travel Journal you can make notes on the fly quickly and easily with just a few taps on your cell phone.

We’ve used the app to find our coordinates at remote locations in Africa that are not on any maps. Once we got home we plugged those coordinates into Google Earth and had a nice visual for our post-trip presentations.

Cost:

Trip Journal is currently on sale for $0.99.

At Humanitarian Travel we are always looking for ways to not only help missionary travelers and humanitarians save on their international airfare, but also provide tips and resources to help them have more productive trips. When you need help with humanitarian travel arrangements, we are just a phone call (1-866-429-1325) or mouse click away.