Before You Travel

We suggest carrying a couple of hundred US dollars as emergency cash, along with enough local currency to cover tips for your guides and drivers. For everything else, credit cards are accepted almost everywhere you’ll be traveling, and a card is our recommended way to pay. It’s worth letting your card provider know you’ll be traveling before you go, so that a foreign transaction doesn’t get declined while you’re away. For how much to set aside for gratuities, see “Are tips expected, and how much?” and “Should I tip in dollars or local currency?”

We suggest adding travel insurance as soon as you can, though it remains available right up until departure. The reason to act early is that two benefits are only available within 14 days of your initial deposit: the Cancel Anytime option, which lets you cancel for almost any unexpected reason and reimburses up to 80% of your trip cost, and cover for pre-existing medical conditions, which also requires insuring the full non-refundable cost of your trip. After that 14-day window our Classic and Basic plans can still be added at any point before you travel, but Cancel Anytime is no longer available and pre-existing conditions are not covered. For a quote or to purchase, call us at (800) 653-0017 or email hello@canterburypilgrimages.com.

Compare all three plans side by side on our travel insurance page.

Local currency is preferred, whether that’s euros, shekels, Egyptian pounds or something else depending on where you’re traveling, simply because it’s easier for your guides and drivers to use straight away. That said, your gratuity is appreciated in whatever form you can offer it, so please don’t worry if dollars are all you have with you. The amounts suggested in “Are tips expected, and how much?” are given in US dollars as a guide, so you can convert roughly to the local equivalent. Since your travel kit includes tip envelopes, it’s worth deciding what you’d like to give before you travel, and picking up some smaller notes in local currency once you arrive.