Travel tips to prepare for your internship abroad:

Checklists
Money/methods of payment
Scholarships
Phone calls
Insurance protection

Checklists

With a checklist you can make sure that nothing has been forgotten:
Below you will find our “10 commandments” for planning during the months / weeks before leaving:

1. How do I finance my stay: Is it possible to get a scholarship?

2. Which vaccinations are necessary?

3. Do I have all necessary insurance?

4. Are all my documents valid (passport, identity card, etc.)?

5. What methods of payment do I need for my trip?

6. Is everything organised for the journey: for example the train to the airport, the pick-up at my destination?

7. Travel luggage: not too much, not too little?

8. Have I collected all the useful addresses for my destination: general and emergency contact information?

9. Have all formalities been considered, for example an international driving licence, etc?

10. Is the return journey organised?


Here are some extra tips that might be helpful:

To put into your hand luggage:
- passport
- visa
- vaccination certificates
- all of your tickets
- insurance certificates
- traveller’s cheques
- all emergency phone numbers
- at least 6 passport photographs
- student identification card
- ISIC card
- pens
- money belt

Hardware:
Watch, travel alarm clock, pocket lamp, batteries, walkman or CD/MP3 player, camera (+film), adapter for electric equipment plug.

Photocopies for emergencies:
In an emergency (like theft), photocopies can save you a lot of trouble: make photocopies of your most important documents and leave them with your parents or friends. You can also scan these documents and send them to your own e-mail address, or save them on the web.
Driving license, addresses of embassies, series numbers of tickets, flight tickets, etc.; international driving license, prescription for your glasses/contact lenses, number and date of passport, series numbers of traveller cheques, series numbers of articles of value (for example, your camera) and of all your identity papers. Member cards, all details of your insurance, and also the emergency phone number of the insurance company, credit card numbers, and the phone number to block your accounts in case your cards are stolen or lost.

Books:
Phrase book, dictionary, address book, personal journal, travel guide

For making friends abroad:
Photos of your family and life at home, a book about your home country or home town; maybe a present for your host family or your colleagues in the company where you are going to do your internship.

Medicine:
Take a sufficient amount of prescription medications with you.

<< back

Money/methods of payment:

You should take a reasonable combination of payment methods with you. You can get cash with an EC card in most towns and from almost all cash dispensers. Ask your home bank about the costs.
In case your bank at home cannot provide foreign currency, you can take cash in euros with you and exchange it at an exchange bureau for expenses you will have as soon as you arrive (for example, for a taxi).
Make sure you have some traveller’s cheques with you. Because they are rather expensive, take only as many as you would need for a week in an emergency situation.
For credit cards, VISA or MasterCard are advisable.

<< back

 

Scholarships:
Leonardo da Vinci:
Scholarship Leonardo da Vinci

<< back

Phone calls:
Making phone calls: Mobile
This applies for all countries: Receiving calls abroad on a mobile phone with a card of your own country is pretty expensive. The caller pays for the normal mobile call and you pay the difference for the foreign country. We advise you to bring the mobile phone from your country and to use a card from a local vendor; in order to do that, you need a phone without “Sim-Lock”, and if possible with “Tri-Band” (can send and receive on 900, 1800 and 1900 Hz). For Spain, a Dual-Band phone (900 / 1800 Hz) is sufficient.
Vendors in Spain: Vodafone, MoviStar
Vendors in Argentina: CTI, Personal, Telefonica
Big advantage for you: you don’t have to pay anything when you receive calls and you are reachable all the time.

Calling home from abroad:
There are often phone centres, from where you can make relatively cheap calls home. In Spain and in Argentina they are called `locutorios´. These shops with their numerous little phone booths often also sell phone cards, which allow cheap calls from all conventional phones to your country via a free 0800 number. For that, you need to scratch free a code that you enter on the keypad after having dialled the 0800 number. After hearing your current balance, you can call home. Connections aren’t always good and prices vary. Generally however, it is the cheapest alternative to communicate with home.

<< back

Insurance protection:
As a rule, we expect our participants to be insured for all situations. We will gladly help you choose suitable insurance. Before you start on your journey, you should arrange for the two mentioned below. It’s possible that you are included in a family insurance policy, so please ask your parents about it first.

Travel insurance

Travel health insurance:
Since you will stay abroad for some time it is important that you are sufficiently covered. The change of climate, unfamiliar food or an accident may cause the need for medical treatment. A travel health insurance enables you to be treated as a private patient. As member of a compulsory health insurance you will not always be sufficiently covered, not even with a special health insurance certificate for this country.
We recommend that every intern (also within Europe) arrange for travel health insurance. It covers your stay abroad up to one year and offers great value for the money.

Liability insurance:
If you harm or cause damage to another person you must take responsibility. A moment of inattention or unfortunate circumstances can cause great damage and cost millions.

<< back