Three tips for international conference attendance on weather, flights and receipts

Arriving in London on a transit trip to the USA, it was raining, but on our return day, we had lovely weather and we decided to make the most of it by seeing the city from the London eye

More than once a week I see and read some of the lists on what to do or what not to do when travelling. Some of these lists are useful and others are wasting your time. This morning, one blogger instructed travellers to do  research regarding the weather at your planned destination. This not only helps you to pack correctly, but also ensure that you do not need to spend money (which our South Africans rarely have enough of when we travel due to the poor exchange rate) on buying clothing. I normally use web pages such as AccuWeather and the web page of the airline to provide me with a forecast of what to expect, but my dry mac is always in the outer zip bag of my suite case for easy reach should I need it when leaving the airport terminal. I normally only pack one pair of shoes, but when we are expecting lots of rain there must be backup (dry) shoes in my bag.

I also read a list advising not to travel on the same day that the conference starts or ends. This is also very good advise. Although you will not save that extra dollars you have to pay for accommodation you will save yourself a lot of stress and give yourself a few more hours to explore. Only once did I book our tickets directly after the conference ends and we nearly did not make the flight. I like to book the last night of our stay near the airport, or even on the airport if we have an early flight (to avoid traffic jams and delays). If we have a late night flight which is normally the case when coming back via Dubai on the Emirates flight, we book at least one night near attractions that we want to see or visit and enjoy a short break before heading home.

And lastly, this I did not read in a to-do list, but experienced firsthand last week due to changes in university policies on conference attendance and travelling: Strict measures are becoming more common at Universities in South Africa to provide evidence that academics did indeed attend academic conferences and used the money paid out to for the purpose that it was intended. So, my fellow academics, do not throw away your boarding passes, car hire slips and conference pamphlets, pack them in your checked luggage for future use. You already know that you should keep all these receipts (hotel, meals, air tickets) for use when you prepare your annual income tax forms to submit to SARS, so add these few sheets of paper to your luggage and ensure that you can proof to the university that you actually did attend the conference.