Going to Italy and would like to type up ID cards as suggested by some of the forum contributors.
What would be appropriate and what should not be included?
Here are some of the entries I am considering:
Date, Name, Age, US citizen, complete Address?, Home phone number, cell phone number,
Emergency contact name and phone numbers, allergies, prescription meds,
and if room allows may be a good place to add eyeglass prescriptions
I've never heard of doing that sort of thing. Where did forumites give that advice?
What purpose do you envision using a card? If you know why you want it then you would know what to include I would guess
How would you carry it? If you put it in your wallet would that give a thief a leg up if you were pickpocketed?
Do you have a severe illness? If so I would expect that the illness support centre of whoever looks after you might offer a bracelet or dogtags which would help.
I think a little bit depends on if you are traveling by yourself or with a group or a partner. I do think it is a good idea to carry copies of your medications in both generic and official name. If you can have a swift reaction to an allergy, I would be wearing an alert bracelet. We do have a card in our passport for emergency contacts in the US.
I 've never heard of doing that sort of thing.
Nigel, I’m surprised you’ve never heard of that. People with significant medical conditions often wear medic alert bracelets or keep medical info in their wallet. I’m not sure how medical info would help a thief.
I would limit it to what medical personnel might need if you were found unconscious or were significantly injured and unable to speak for yourself . That would be things like your name, an emergency contact’s phone number, allergies, medication list, etc. In an emergency, no one is going to need to mail something to you or get you new eyeglasses, so no need for that,
Rather than bring your eyeglass prescription, you might want to just throw an old pair of prescription lenses in your bag in case you lose yours.
When I travel alone, I keep a small piece of paper with my details, emergency contact numbers at home and for where I am, and where I'm staying.
It also has my PP number, and my banks' emergency number in case my bank/credit card goes missing.
I also keep 100 of the currency of the country I am in.
It all goes in a tiny ziplock bag under the insole of my shoe.
If I'm robbed, I then still have some cash and emergency details with me.
Can't do it when wearing sandals however! :)
Other than medical specifics that should be on a bracelet if severe, everything else essential is in my passport, and that’s always in my moneybelt being worn.
We travel with $40 cash, wrapped in plastic, under the insoles in our shoes, incase we have an emergency. We used this once in Romania after we pumped gas and our credit card didn’t work. We also include a slip with emergency, passport and flight numbers. Luckily, we’ve never needed to use the slip.
I travel solo so I keep an emergency contact card in my money belt while traveling and wallet at home. This 8s 8n case something happens to me and I am not coherent.
It includes:
My name
Address
Emergency contact information
Medical issues
Prescription meds
As I also travel solo much of the time, I also keep an In Case Of Emergency card in my wallet and in my carry-on. This includes.....
I check the card before each trip and update if necessary.
At home I only have this information in my purse, but when I travel, I also have it in my money belt. I carry it because I have some serious medical conditions that aren't covered by bracelets.
Anything could happen that would render me unable to speak. My purse could become separated from me. I can only hope that someone would think to check for a money belt to identify me and find the emergency information at the same time.
This is the information I include:
My name and mobile phone number.
My husband's name and mobile phone number. He no longer travels overseas with me, but even when he did, we were not together every minute.
The meds and dosages that I take.
My doctors and their phone numbers. That's plural because I have specialists that would need to be contacted in an emergency. Contacting my GP would only delay things.
Recently I added a list of not normal blood test results. I'm going add my blood type. I never thought of that before.
This all may sound silly, but I am 72. One of my illnesses was diagnosed when I was in my early 30's, so age isn't the only reason to be prepared.
Of course I always get travel insurance, especially medical, and I do it as soon as I spend the first money on the trip so that pre-existing conditions will be covered. My coverage information also goes in my purse and money belt.
Thanks Lo, excellent advise. We will add these to our list.
My card has my emergency contacts, my doctor's name and telephone number, the drug which I take, and my rare blood type so the medical personnel can begin treatment and be able to contact those who know me. I don't include my address, etc. as my emergency contacts have all the other information. The information that I might need for less of an emergency is with my backup information, wherever I might be keeping it that day/trip.
While in Florida years ago, my mother had a stroke. Her emergency card in her wallet enabled the hospital to contact us early on in the emergency, so I think carrying this information has as much to do with at home as with traveling. I have the same information in my wallet.
I have a piece of paper with emergency contact information in my wallet, and had an amazing experience when visiting Tokyo, Japan last year. I stopped by a small ice cream store one evening and didn’t realize my wallet was missing until late that night at a restaurant where I had dinner. Fortunately I had some cash in my pocket, and that was enough for dinner and a subway ticket. On my way back to the hotel I tried to go to each place that I had visited that evening, but everything was closed and there were so many possibilities where I could have lost it including on the subway.
When I reached my hotel, I told the reception desk that I had lost my wallet and asked for a card key to get back into my room. To my surprise, the clerk went into the back room and emerged with my wallet! Not a thing was missing, including about $300 in Japanese yen. It turns out I had left my wallet on a counter at the ice cream store when I paid with cash, and kept the change in my pocket. The store owner went through my wallet, saw my hotel name on the emergency contact info and drove to the hotel to deliver my wallet! I later called him after returning to the US and used Google translate to tell him in Japanese how much I appreciated what he did.
iPhones come with a health app. Add your info to it, blood type, allergies, etc,
