so you're planning a trip to europe or maybe thinking about planning a trip to europe and you
want to make sure that there's no surprises that are going to completely devastate your vacation
well you're in the right place these are the top things you need to know before planning or heading
out on your european vacation so for those of you that don't know me i am actually a professional
travel advisor and yesterday we had a huge seminar with the european union and their travel authority
there were seven things that they mentioned that i want to share with you to make sure your upcoming
vacation is as smooth as possible so let's go ahead and jump in with number one and that is
their new reopen eu website now this website is the one you're going to use to figure out
what exact requirements per country you're going to need to know so this is where you're going to
go to find out the country you're going to what their covid situation is what testing or vaccine
or rules you need to get into their country this is also where you're gonna go to decide uh
what rules you need from where you're coming from whether you're coming from america or canada and
there are some countries that also break it down by what state you're coming from there's
some states that are approved and some that are not so this is the website you're going to go to
for that this is also the website you're going to go to if you're transiting between countries so
for instance you're going to london but you have a stopover in ireland you need to check though that
information as well because that could change the requirements ultimately when you get to england
this is actually created by the eu and maintained by them so this is the top place where you're
going to get the most correct information and the links to the different countries embassies
so that you can always stay on top of what exactly is is required for your vacation this is something
you're going to want to stay on top of from the moment you book it and plan it and book it all
the way through when you actually travel because as you know things change hourly it seems so let
me show you around a little bit and make sure that you're familiar with it and comfortable
with it for planning your vacation alrighty so as you can see this information not only
is available on a website but is also available on the uh google play or app stores if you'd like but
what it does is on this front page you see that there's a kind of a color representation of the
current covet situation where you want to get into the planning information is come here to
the down arrow if i can make it work select the location that you're heading to so for instance
let's say we're going to france go and what this is going to do is it's going to pull up
all of the information about france so this first one is whether or not they take the eu digital
covid certificates now one thing about that today july 1st 2021 the eu is supposed to make some
announcements about the new digital covid passport and what is going to be required and whether
other non-eu people are going to be allowed to get that as it stands right now non-eu people can only
get it if the country they're going to offers it so for instance if you're going to and i don't
know if this is true but if you're going to france and france happens to allow visitors to get the eu
digital certificate then you could get it through france but there are supposed to be announcements
today as of this morning i haven't seen any but stay up to date on this eu website because that
is where all of the information is going to be updated first so anyway back to the website you
can see this is where it's going to have all of the information in regard to the vaccine and what
their status is in their country and what they're accepting this is the travel this is the current
covid measures that are in place this is the health situation and then general information
let's go back to travel uh so this is just general information if you go here this is if you
are an eu member and what is going to be required as another eu member this one is if you're non-eu
so most of my uh people watching today are non-eu so this is primarily where you're going to want to
visit read through everything and i mean everything if you are not a detail-oriented person
this is the year you maybe want to have either somebody else do it for you or put
on your detail-oriented hat or something because it is the most important that you get all of the
details this year in particular and then this is the transit information so again if you're only
going through that country you still need to check this because it could affect the rules
of what you need to have or not have it is so important that you know absolutely every rule
before you head out on your vacation so that you don't get stuck waylaid stuck in a quarantine
rejected there have been people that have been rejected from their ultimate destination so make
sure you're reading this absolutely tip to top top to bottom and understand exactly what it is you're
going into and what you need to have to make sure everything runs smoothly i want to go back for
one moment to the main screen one thing i wanted to show you i mentioned america was on the green
list and then there's amber and red if you scroll down this is the home page if you scroll down
these are the countries that are currently listed as green so as you can see america is
listed here also new zealand australia japan israel canada is not on here
yet so if you're canadian you need to know whether you're orange or red and then make sure you follow
those guidelines before you head to the eu one more thing i want to show you on this website
is travel plan so you can put where you're coming from you can put where you're going to and then if
you have any other stops in between and it'll tell you exactly what you need to know it'll
send you to those places so you can get the right information exactly what you're going to need to
take your vacation this year now the next one is just a piece of advice you don't have to follow
it and you may not be following it but this year with the complication of all the kovitz situation
i would recommend this is the year where you only visit maybe one country i would not recommend it
to be the year where you're going to be going on a seven country tour of europe you can of course
if you do it that way i highly recommend using either a travel agent or taking a tour operator
something that has been put together by the tour operators because they will make sure that you
know everything you need to know to facilitate that tour around all the different countries the
reason i say this is every country is completely different on what they require so you you're going
to come from say america to france to start and that'll be one set of requirements but then france
to germany might be a completely different set of requirements and every country they're in so in
unless you're doing it with a professional to help make sure everything is covered
or you are incredibly detail oriented and really know how to make sure everything is is organized
and taken care of or through a tour operator i would recommend this be the year that you maybe
just do one country to explore that one country and save those multi-country tours for maybe 2022
or beyond on the note of visiting those countries this is also the year that you should not
improvise and by that i mean this is not the year where you want to backpack through europe and just
show up at a hotel or hostel and expect to find availability most countries are wanting
to know that you have reserved lodging in the destination that you're going to they want to
know you have that hotel reservation or that airbnb or whatever it is that you're doing
you need to have all of those reservations before you go to that country also any activities that
you're doing shows that you're seeing even restaurants reserve and make appointments
and buy tickets for as much as you possibly can ahead of time because of the limited capacity in
a lot of these places if you think you're going to get there and still be able to get in chances
are or maybe not chances are but you run into a much higher risk of not having the availability
so be sure to plan any potential anything that you want to do reservations everything
ahead of time this is the year where you need to be the most organized of any any time ever in
your life and if you're not an organized person then use the professional because they will be
that organization for you speaking of having all those reservations the other thing that i highly
recommend you do is print everything and i mean everything bring a hard copy of your vaccine or
test or both bring a hard copy of your reservation at that hotel or resort or hostel or airbnb
whatever it is bring hard copies of everything basically the airlines have said because of the
digital vaccine passports and all of the new rules basically airlines are a complete mess complete
mess the airlines have literally said that to expect it to be complete chaos so what happens is
sometimes either there's a tsa or a customs agent that doesn't know what the latest thing is and and
so it holds up the line and you have to explain to them no no this is exactly what is required
sometimes they don't accept the digital they only accept the printed sometimes the digital
reader isn't working so no matter what the situation print everything everything and bring
it with you when you go on your vacation speaking of chaos at the airports my next tip is to expect
chaos expect lines so for instance in america the tsa they simply don't have enough employees yet
they're hiring like crazy to keep up with demand so simply by having less employees
that is going to cause some chaos in regard to the wait times at the airports
so always give yourself extra extra time especially if you're flying to the eu
much much much more time than you normally would and one thing that you can do if you're going
to the airport super early is take advantage of those first class lounges go ahead and see this
video above where i talk about how to get passes to those lounges so make sure you're building that
time in the other thing is when you get to the other side customs is even worse they are saying
it's taking approximately 20 minutes per person to get through the custom line and i don't mean
your party i mean in the entire line so if there's a hundred people in line guess how long you're
waiting so just know that that customs line might be extremely long and plan for that just know
what's going to happen use the bathroom before you get in line bring snacks bring something to read
something to keep the kids occupied just know that's going to be a long line the other thing
you could do is get a global entry which won't help so much going into a foreign country but will
help you when you come back or the tsa pre-check those are some things that could help expedite
things a little quicker but just know it's going to be chaos don't freak out about it but just
build it into your plan build in more time build in more bring more snacks and more activities and
just make it a part of your your your day and know when you get to europe if you are
in an eight hour line and they are saying it could be up to eight hours in line and custom
build that into your vacation so don't have that be one of the vacation days that you're thinking
you're gonna go do a bunch of tours have that travel day just be a travel day and nothing else
that way and if you have to build an extra days on the back end do that but just know that they
might be shot depending on how things go all right my next tip has to do with your flight
a lot of airlines are canceling routes and the reason is again they're not getting the staff back
and so they don't have enough staff to cover all of the new sudden demand that is coming on
now that vaccines are spreading more and we are able to travel more so keep an eye on your flight
from the moment you book it all the way until you leave because there have been cancellations of
routes a lot of cancellations of routes so make sure you're watching that and then if they do
cancel it they're not going to just automatically book you on something else necessarily so
make sure you're proactive and getting yourself on a different flight if that happens
now they can't keep your money they'll have to give you a credit or give you a refund
but be sure you're staying on top of that so you don't not realize it until the last minute and
then now there's no flights available for you so so watch it on a regular basis and the the final
tip is to keep an eye on the country that you are dealing with so the country you're going to
the country you're leaving from and the country that you perhaps might be transiting through
make sure you're watching that eu website the reopen eu website or app so that you're monitoring
exactly what's happening so in case there's a new spike in case there's a new change in
case maybe they do start opening that eu digital certificate and you can get that and that might
save you more time watch those things from the moment you book it all the way until you leave
because as you know things change hourly and we need to stay on top so we're prepared so our trip
doesn't go terribly terribly wrong when we finally get out from covet and finally get to that country
we're so excited and then we get screwed because we didn't catch something so stay on top of that
the whole time to help you plan your trip you can also take a look at these videos if you
enjoyed the information that we shared if you can give us a thumbs up and we hope to see you on the
next video happy travels be safe out there and we will see you on the next video take care bye