What's the 1st Thing You Check Before an International Trip?

Love and Empathy to All My Friends in LA!

Jan 10, 2025

First and foremost…. my heart goes out to all my friends in fire-stricken Los Angeles. May you be as safe as you possibly can be!!!

Nevertheless, in lieu of this terrible disaster, here is my previously-written, but now obviously frivolous, indulgent, and light-hearted Question:

What's the 1st thing you check before taking an international trip?

The season? The continent? The food? Weather? Price? Language? Who can go with you? The whole “tour package”?

Come on, now. No cheating.

Your answer?

I’ll even drop a photo here to give you time to come up with your personal preference.

Got it? Simple, right?

Well… before I give you my answer, first a little context and background.

Surya, my wife, and I - are going to Portugal. Meeting in Lisbon on January 16th, 2025. Happy New Year.

Neither of us has ever been before.

Me? Of course, I’ve been to “The Continent”. To just about everywhere in Western Europe, Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, to some of Eastern Europe, and if you stretch it, even to Russia. But I’ve never been to that charming strip of land west of Spain, from where Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) and Ferdinand Magellan took their 14th and 15th century leaves to “discover the New World”.

Portugal!

Surya, having spent her first 23 years in Indonesia, it’s her first time too.

But why now? You ask.

Well… you see, it’s low season in the hospitality biz, at least here in Santa Fe. The holidays and New Year are over, and tourists clear out of Santa Fe for the next several months - except for those enjoying the fabulous Sangre de Cristo Mountains for one of the best ski opportunities in North America. Meaning… workaholic Surya is allowing herself an early new year break and three-week vacation, even as one of the 5-star hotels she works at - closes for two weeks of renovation while she can simultaneously collect her “PTO “ (paid time off).

Secondly, it turns out that Portugal is the most “temperate” country in Europe, at least compared to the winter cold of the rest of the continent. This - a very important consideration, especially after Surya and I, foolishly and ridiculously went to South America in the summer of 2003 (Peru, Ecuador, & Bolivia) on our delayed honeymoon for three months, from June through August - only to discover ourselves... in the 14,000 foot Andes - in the middle of the South American - winter. Fucking brrrrrr!

Third, and even more significant than PTO and the temperate climate, is the fact that… it’s time to… shuttle and return “Opung” to the next mother caretaker, in this case, sister Number 3, “Cus” (pronounced “Choose”), in Rotterdam, Holland. “Opung”, just in case you’re not a regular reader, is Surya’s mother, and thereby, my infamous “mother-in-law”. She has been staying with us in Santa Fe for the last four months! It’s definitely time to shuttle, baby!

So… daughter and mother (in-law) flew to Holland this last Wednesday, January 8, to be greeted at the Amsterdam airport by sister Cus and husband Dave, who will ferry the fearsome twosome from cobblestoned Amsterdam to rebuilt, WW2-bombed, Rotterdam, where Surya will teach caretaking skills and patience to Sister #3, Cus. For an entire week.

Then, as I said, on January 16, Surya will fly from Amsterdam to Lisbon, where she will meet yours Trulesly (me), to begin our Portugal Adventure 2025.

Now… if you know me at all, you’d probably find it not hard to believe that - I don’t like organized tours, group travel, cushy cruises, or anything of the sort. Back in the day (pre-marriage/2001), I always traveled solo - with only a trusty “Lonely Planet” in hand, and I - improvised my way from one town and misadventure to another, in the most off-the-beaten-track manner I could discover and create. It was a lot of fun, a little dangerous, stupid, and unpredictable, but after sending many international emails from 3rd-world coffee shops - back to friends at home, my 1st-grade “sweetheart”, now a grown-up internet wiz, volunteered to create a travel website for me in 2002, long before WordPress blogging and Substack newslettering even existed. That led to a travel podcast in 2016, and still has me posting and blahg-ing to this day.

But back to Portugal. 2025.

I don’t know the first thing about the country. Except for hearing that a lot of American expats are now teeming into the country, much to the natives’ displeasure, buying and renting valuable real estate, just like in other tourist-colonized countries like Jamaica, Thailand, and Bali, Indonesia, where even the modest-earning Trules owned a villa for 10 years. In Indonesia, however, the government was smart and protective enough to not allow "bules” (boo’-lays) to actually “own” the property outright. We, and all the other foreigners, had to find a “sponsor”, a native Indonesian, to buy the land for us. They, the sponsors, were the technical “owners” of the land and whatever was built on it. You can only imagine what a legal morass that was!

Not so in Portugal. At least not yet.

Not to imply that Surya and I are ready to leave Santa Fe and expatriate to Portugal - although that, by all current indications, may very well change soon after January 20th.

In any event, Trules (that’s me), has planned a most scenic and adventurous 2-week tour, driving from Lisbon, all the way south to “The Algarve”, which sits, relaxingly, on the seashores of both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Then we’ll take about a week to drive all the way north again, along a different route, stopping at towns I’ve never heard of (Evora, Carvoeiro, Obidos, Coimbra, Porto, and a few more), to check out Roman ruins, 16th-century churches & castles, more cobblestone streets, Portuguese parks, mountains, and sweet-wine river valleys, all of which come highly recommended. Being years out of practice, we’re both looking forward to a scenic, and temperate, adventure.

But again…

What’s the first thing to check before departing on an international trip?

My answer?

Duh…

Your passport!!

To see if it’s up to date and ready for the road.

Unfortunately…

I forgot to do exactly that…

…and my friggin’ passport expired - in 2023!

Merde! Or however you say that in Portuguese!!!

Now what am I supposed to do? I leave in a week!

I frantically attack the web:

US government: “travel.state.gov”. “No go”: 4-6 weeks, by mail only.

No, wait… “expedited” delivery for a mere $60 more.

But only by mail. 2 weeks the soonest. “No go” again.

FedEx: Yes, ok, but $349 for 5-7 business day delivery. Too much of a risk to get it in time. $629 for 2-4 business days PLUS government passport agency fees. Fuck, that’s more than the airfare.

I rush out to the UPS Store to take passport photos. No problema.

But HOW am I going to get my new passport on time?

What a fucking idiot, Trules! You let your 10-year-old friggin’ passport EXPIRE!

Desperate, I call the US passport agency directly. I only have to wait 45 minutes for a live human being to answer.

Happy New Year, U.S Passport Agent. How are you doing today? Putting on the best of my limited Trulesian charm.

How can I help you, sir?
Well, I’m traveling internationally in eight days, and I stupidly let my passport expire in 2023. Is there anything I can do so I don’t lose my plane fare and all my reservations?
Certainly, sir.
Great! What is it?
Just come directly into the U.S. Passport Agency. We have “urgent” and “life-threatening” services.
Does my 8-day dilemma qualify? Where’s the agency?
Yes, it does, sir. What’s your zip code?
87507.
Just a minute, sir while I locate the nearest agency for you. You’ll have to make an appointment though.
No problem. Please, go ahead.

She puts me on hold, leaving me listening to vintage American muzak. I’m sure I’ll be disconnected.

But no, there she is again.

Well, the Denver agency is 392 miles from your location, sir, and the El Paso office is a little less, 321 miles. Do you want to make an appointment?
Don’t you have an agency in Santa Fe or Albuquerque? What about FedEx?
No, sir. We don’t recommend using any outside agency. Do you want to make an appointment?

My mind races, having to make a split-second decision. Six hours to Denver, 5 hours to El Paso - versus the FedEx “non-recommended” option.

Fuck, I want a valid passport ASAP.

Yes, ok, El Paso as soon as possible.
We have appointments today and tomorrow before 10:30 a.m.

Riiiight, it’s 9 o’clock right now.

Tomorrow. 10:30 ok?
Yes sir…. blah blah blah, details, requirements, driving directions, etc.

El Paso, here I come.

I leave Santa Fe in the pitch dark. 5 a.m. A straight run south on the I-25 south to the Mexican border - just like Marty Robbins in his tragic love song of the same name.

Thanks for reading Santa Fe Substack! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Surya and my son, Exsel, think I’m nuts. Exsel even volunteers to go with me and drive half the time; he’s still on this Christmas break.

But nooo… Trules is going it alone. Solo. He’s a bad, gunfighting man.

I rev up my 2002 RAV4 with the rebuilt engine and the rebuilt transmission, pedal to the metal. I’ll just zip there and back in no time….

Now…

I know what you’re thinking - that this is just the beginning of the story. A sad desolate one about an old dying Toyota on the side of the road, just like Neal Cassady (Jack Kerouac’s best buddy on whom he based the main character, Sal Paradise, in “On the Road”), who died stiff and frigid, his corpse lying along the railroad tracks outside San Miguel de Allende in old colonial Me-hee-co.

But nooooooo!

This story doesn’t have a sad ending at all.

In fact, in just the predicated 5 driving hours, I arrive at the U.S. Passport Agency on Oregon Street in legendary El Paso.

And right on time… the agents check me in.

How is the weather in Santa Fe, sir?

One takes my $190 ($60 extra for the expedition), and just an hour and a half later,

I have IT.

My new friggin’ digital passport.

Then… along with a new red plaid, snap-button cowboy shirt purchased in El Paso, Texas, from Starr’s Western Wear,

and after devouring a delicious huevos rancheros comida from “Martha’s”, the best local diner in El Paso,

and spending an extra $110 on metal flower and rooster sculptures from Hatch, New Mexico (home of the famous green chile) for my new Santa Fe side-yard rock garden,

I drive back home.

To “The Land of Enchantment”.

Along the I-25 North,

…arriving just after sunset…

…at 6 p.m.

Not bad, right?

A 13-hour, haul-my-ass ordeal for - a NEW DIGITAL PASSPORT!

My only advice for you is…

DON’T let YOUR passport expire!

LOL!

I hope I cheered some of you up, at least a little bit.

I’ll be sending you a report from Portugal (now that I’m “back in the saddle”).

Trules

What's the 1st Thing You Check Before an International Trip?

Love and Empathy to All My Friends in LA!

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