Travel Tips for Educators When They Go On Speaking and Teaching Gigs | Facebook Walk With Reid
Reid: Hello sex geek! It’s Reid Mihalko from https://reidaboutsex.com/ and I am broadcasting to you from Edmonton. Edmonton in Alberta, Canada and I don’t know if this is using up my data on my cell phone plan or if the Wi-Fi is going to be enough. So I’m going to keep this quick because this live broadcast might cost me a pretty penny and that’s even witty you can use a conversion.
I am….I just landed in in Edmonton. I’m lecturing at MacEwan University tomorrow and I thought I would while I wait for my….my ride to pick me up from the college, I thought I would just like give you some quick travel tips and I know a lot of you are nerdier than me about travel things and I’m a cisgendered white guy, an American. So I mean you know some of the things that I might just not forget I might forget to talk about it’s just because it wouldn’t occur to me to….to do such and such also for those of you who are super techy I would love some links for customs security around just you know how do you take care of your passwords and protect your information so what are your travel tips? So please like share not just your international travel tips but you know travel tips as educators when you go on speaking and teaching gigs and for those of you who are like experts in tech security, what are what’s the best stuff that we got right now in these days of weird travel situations and whatnot but the main big things I would recommend if you’re teaching at a Conference or University ask them for a letter of acceptance or a letter of invitation and I’ll put in the link what the Canadian government talks about what exactly they’re looking for and I’ll do that later after the broadcast but this is really useful and it’s kind….it’s not necessarily required but it’s recommended and it helps a lot because the customs agent will….will sometimes ask for this. So when you book a gig in Canada or maybe in other countries but in Canada then ask for a letter of invitation and….and they’ll send you. It doesn’t you know it’ll and just get send them the link to what the government’s looking for and that’ll help a ton.
The other thing is before you leave the U.S if you’re traveling from the U.S this might apply to other places change your cell phone plan and turn off your data when you take off so that when you land your phone doesn’t automatically download a ton of text images or whatever your friends just sent you on the flight and then that beats up all your data and then you’re paying through the butt on that. So turn off your data and your roaming and then make it your phone only a Wi-Fi situation. That’s helped me a lot and you know those are like $40 mistakes when you screw that one out. And then also change your plan. I’m with AT&T and they’re they have a decent plan for you know it runs by month but even if I’m here for three days having an international calling plan just makes it way cheaper for me to be calling back and forth and then when I’m texting and calling people here in Canada and trying to meet up with my friends and other sex educators in Canada it’s not costing me an arm and a leg. Those kinds of things are just useful and for me you know I’ve been on AT&T for so long that I have I’m a grandfather clause into a really great sweet deal so I don’t want to ruin that so it’s just easier for me to just sign up and pay whatever it is for like unlimited texts and things like that and do my life that way and then when I get…..when I land, I turn on my Wi-Fi, I jumped on to the airport Wi-Fi signal and then just let all the texts and pictures and gifts that everybody sends me download through Wi-Fi and that helps me a lot.
Last but not least, I would highly recommend that you fly in the day before never…never….never….never do what I did once which is fly the same day internationally thinking I could make it. I missed the flight and screwed up everything and they actually have you cancel your workshop and luckily I was teaching for several days but…but like just on the rare instance or you know a situations if you get held up in customs or something like that and you have to you know you’ve been detained God forbid or you know it’s just taking a couple extra hours for you to get out of the airport. Try to fly in the day before, it’ll just help and then if you miss your flight like I did that one time you’ve still got a whole day to get there so I would just recommend that if you could.
Last but not least I had a big question about my sex geek t-shirts and bring them to the college because on the little checkbox declaration form they asked for if you’re if you’re bringing in commercial goods and I didn’t know how to ‘coz I’m gifting these things if I have a bunch of stickers and freebies like are those are those commercial goods or what are they? When in doubt, I think you shouldn’t lie and I think you just ask the customers agent because you’re not the first you know ignorant American to ask or not know what to do and then that way you can at least you know plead ignorance and have them show you in just you know for me in the way that I was raised I try to be polite to [Inaudible 00:06:28-29] if you would like to think you have your own version of that but….but today I learned that even if I’m giving them as gifts they’re still commercial goods so to declare them and then they have a basic money limit for what you can bring in and if you’re staying you can research this but if you’re staying a day I think it’s like two or three hundred dollars. If you’re staying a couple of days it goes up a little bit more you know but if you’re bringing in like $3,000 worth of gifts they might be suspicious.
Again, I’m not a travel agent nor a customs agent or a lawyer or anything like that. Do your own research and due diligence but I thought I would just share that with you guys today. I’ll check the….the comments when I when I get to where I’m staying tonight and hopefully, this broadcast went on Wi-Fi and it’s not costing me [Inaudible 00:07:21] of dollars. I will be back in a few days but I’m going to try to outlive from each day and thanks for being a part of all this. So, bye!