Operational guide for covert overseas travel and financial handling

up foreign fun faster than having to sign original documents when faxes are unacceptable. > One month out— Speak to the manager of your local post office and have all mail forwarded to a friend, family member, or personal assistant,2who will be paid $100-200 per month to e-mail you brief descriptions of all nonjunk mail each Monday. Get all required and recommended immunizations and vaccinations for your target region. Check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov/travel/). Note that proof of immunizations is sometimes required to pass through foreign customs. Set up a trial account with GoToMyPC or similar remote-access software and take a dry run to ensure that there are no technological glitches. 2 If resellers (or distributors) still send you checks—the fulfillment house should handle customer checks at this point—do one of three things: give the resellers direct bank deposit information (ideal), have the fulfillment house handle these checks (second choice), or have the resellers pay via PayPal or mail checks to one of the people you are trusting with power of attorney (far third). In the last case, give the person with power of attorney deposit slips so he or she can sign or stamp and mail in the checks. It is convenient to become a member of a large bank (Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Washington Mutual, Citibank, etc.) with branches near the person assisting you so that they can drop off the deposits while running other errands. No need to move all accounts to this bank if you don’t want to; just open a single new account that is used solely for these deposits. = Two weeks out— Scan all identification, health insurance, and credit/debit cards into a computer from which you can print multiple copies, several to be left with family members and several to be taken with you in separate bags. E-mail the scanned file to yourself so that you can access it while abroad if you lose the paper copies. If you are an entrepreneur, downgrade your cell phone to the cheapest plan and set up a voicemail greeting that states, “I am currently overseas on business. Please do not leave a voicemail, as I will not be checking it while gone. Please send me an e-mail at__ @__.com if the matter is important. Thank you for your understanding.” Then set up e-mail autoresponders that indicate responses could take up to seven days (or whatever you decide for frequency) due to international business travel. If you are an employee, consider getting a quad-band or GSM-compatible cell phone so that the boss can contact you. Get a BlackBerry only if your boss will be checking to see if you are working via e- mail. Be sure to disable the dead giveaway “Sent from a BlackBerry” signature on outgoing e-mail! Other options include using a Skypeln account that forwards to your foreign cell phone (my preference) or a Vonage IP box that allows you to receive landline calls anywhere in the world via a phone number that begins with your home area code. Find an apartment for your ultimate mini-retirement destination or reserve a hostel or hotel at your starting point for three to four days. Reserving an apartment before you arrive is riskier and will be much more expensive than using the latter three to four days to find an apartment. I recommend hostels for the starting point if possible—not for cost considerations but because the staff and fellow travelers are more knowledgeable and helpful with relocations. Get foreign medical evacuation insurance if needed for peace of mind. This tends to be redundant if HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013968