Ever needed a break to recover from your break? Take a load off your mind by following eight steps to a hassle-free holiday.
Tickets - check. Passports - check. Shades - check. Silly hat - check. Prozac - right here in the hand luggage.
Travelling, particularly in pursuit of leisure, pleasure and relaxation, can be one of the most stressful activities ever dreamed up by marketing executives to sell suitcases, hangover cures, sunscreen and T-shirts. Going on holiday can leave you needing a holiday. But there are ways of ensuring you return home without having gone postal in a car-rental office, hijacked a banana boat or sold the children into slavery in Africa.
2. Take cover! Insurance is really boring and the last thing that enters any normal head filled with thoughts of azure seas and desert islands. But although largely neglected by Hong Kong travellers before September 11, the idea has since caught on and might just save you from financial catastrophe. A spokesman for insurance company Blue Cross says the terrorist attacks, predictably, 'had a strong impact' on travel insurance and that 'people travelling to Europe and North America want protection from high medical expenses'. Nevertheless, 40 per cent of Blue Cross payouts are made in settlement of minor medical claims - 15 per cent cover lost luggage, followed by payments for flight delays, cancellations and loss of passports. Remember that sporting and other physical activities are often excluded from standard policies; specialist cover should be purchased for the likes of bungee jumping, scuba-diving, mountain biking, parachuting and rock climbing. Multi-trip insurance will save you money if you travel abroad more than once a year.
3. Don't hang about If you're flying, particularly in economy class, set off for the airport early. Sod's law of universal conspiracies states that there will be a motorway lane closure and a railway signalling fault on the day of your flight so leave plenty of time to make it to check-in and you won't have to stand there hot and hassled. And you are unlikely to want for amusement after checking in: thanks to the edict requiring tourists to start spending their holiday cash before take-off, large areas of modern airports are, in fact, shopping malls featuring diversions such as video-game parlours and restaurants.