Getting prepared

My departure is still a few weeks away, but I've been working on a list of things I will need to take with me and also working out some of the logistics.

Not surprisingly, Switzerland is, as you know, a neutral country, and so is not part of the European Union.  That presents a couple issues.  

First is that they don't use the same money.  Last time I was in Switzerland (1976), every time you crossed a border you had to get money that worked in that country.  Switzerland uses the Swiss Franc and the rest of Europe uses the Euro.  It's good to carry some cash, especially for small purchases.  Everything else you can use a credit card for.  BTW, it is important to check if your credit card is going to charge you for doing a foreign transaction.  Capital One does not charge, but when you get to Visa or MasterCard, well, it depends.  Your bank may issue you a card that does charge a foreign transaction fee or one that doesn't. Fortunately, I found out that our card does not charge that fee.  Fees may be small but they will add up. 

I do plan to request some Swiss Francs and Euros from our bank soon so I can at least have pocket change once I get off the plane.  After that I can use an ATM to get any more cash I need.

Second issue is phone service.  When I was in Ireland I took an old Samsung phone (that I had unlocked) and bought a prepaid SIM card for it.  That way I had a phone I could use to call ahead and make reservations without paying for an international call.  Well, that phone only does 3G so it is fairly useless now.  I recently bought an unlocked Samsung phone from the Back Market (not BLACK market) website for a pretty reasonable price and will use it for local calls in Europe.  The only issue is that Switzerland, of course, uses a different phone system than the rest of Europe.  Remember roaming charges?  I will end up buying an EU SIM when I get to Paris and a Swiss SIM when I get to Zurich.

There is a bright side to the phone situation though.  As long as I'm connected to WiFi I can make a WiFi call back to the states on my AT&T phone and there is no international charge!  It will be nice to be able to make a call back to Susan in the evenings when I'm at a hostel or hotel.  That phone will be on Airplane mode the whole time I'm in Europe with only WiFi turned on when I need it.

So, 2 phones.  One for dealing with calls in Europe and the other for my Internet.  It will also track me via GPS so I can log my wanderings on Strava.

I'll talk more about my preparations in another posting.