Shalom Hartman this summer

[cellio]

I just registered for the Shalom Hartman Institute summer program in Jerusalem (after confirming a sane refund policy in case the region goes pear-shaped in the meantime). My rabbi recommended this program a few years ago and I've been eying it every year, and this year the stars aligned (dates, interesting topic, timely responses to email queries). It sounds like a great experience and I'm excited to finally be going.

I'm also kind of nervous -- not about the program, and not about the Iran thing (I can always bail), but rather about being a solo international traveler. This will only be my second time off the continent and the first time I went with a tour group so I didn't have to personally arrange anything, and somebody was steering us in useful directions. Those of you who've done this "foreign travel" thing, this is your enthusiatic invitation to tell me anything you think I ought to know, no matter how big or small.

Whee! Eeek!

Comments

[mortuus.livejournal.com]

How exciting! I've done the solo traveler thing, and it's awesome. I'm always more nervous when I first arrive (for some reason, even if my travel companion is as new to the place as I am, it's just less stressful to be wandering cluelessly with someone else), but once things start going, it's a lot of fun to just do what you want without having to coordinate with someone else's schedule and interests.

I prefer to have more like $50 of the local currency before heading off on a journey. I usually try to find an ATM as soon as possible after arriving to get more cash, but sometimes it takes a day or so, so it's good to be covered until then. Also, I always use ATMs to get local cash, not traveler's checks or other exchange places. I know nothing about the ubiquity of ATMs in Jerusalem, so check on that first, but if they're common, you generally get a better exchange rate that way. When I was flitting about Europe a few years ago, the friend I was with brought traveler's checks, and it was a real pain to find someplace that would take them/exchange them. But make sure you let your bank know where you'll be traveling so they don't block the card. (If traveling someplace where ATMs aren't common, though, never mind.)

[cellio]

Thanks for the advice. I have the impression that one can also often pay dollars and get shekels in change, at least in Jerusalem, so that's another way to get local currency. Otherwise, yeah, caah, ATMs, credit cards, but I wasn't planning to mess with traveler's checks.

[dragonazure.livejournal.com]

In Europe, it is more customary to find people using "smart cards"--a debit card with a chip in it instead of a magnetic stripe. Credit cards are still looked upon with suspicion, and some merchants will outright refuse to accept them as payment (since it costs them money to accept them). If you do use a credit card, you may need to show the merchant how to record the transaction (aka "swipe" the card through the reader which is normally at the top right of the handheld device they use)--I ran into that issue a number of times last year.

You can still get a cash advance from an ATM using a normal credit card, though.