TRANSPORTATION SAFETY

Getting from here to there, a significant aspect of life in general, looms very large indeed in study abroad programs. We want you to get from here to there safely. These tips cover transportation at all levels: by air, by rail, and by public transportation within your host city.

• The admonition to "travel light" is not simply a matter of convenience. When you encumber yourself with excess baggage you make yourself less independent, slower, more vulnerable. The more bags you have, the more likely you are to "lose" one, and a snatched bag is difficult to recover when you're weighed down with others.
  
  
• Both in traveling to your host country and in returning to the States, be sure to arrive at the airport well ahead of your departure time and check your luggage early on. Try to avoid flight plans with very short layovers. Even if you make it from one plane to the next, your checked luggage may not.
  
  
• Never leave bags unattended. If you see an unattended bag in an air or rail terminal, report it to the authorities immediately.
  
  
• On trains you should either take your bags with you to the dining or lounge cars or leave a friend to look after them. A stranger you have just met is not, for these purposes, a friend.
  
  
• Don't agree to act as a courier for someone else unless you know the other person well and know the contents of the bag or package entrusted to you.
  
  
• In general everything that we have said about avoiding crowds, being wary of strangers, and staying alert should be applied doubly to airline and train terminals.
  
  
• Public transportation systems in most foreign cities are usually more convenient and user-friendly than ours (also less expensive), and you will certainly want to avail yourself of the buses, trolleys, and subways in your host city. But you need to know the system and where it's taking you. Subways especially, because their underground routes keep you from seeing the passing cityscape, can convey you into areas you would not normally enter on foot.
  
  
• Here are some tips about taxis. While they reduce to near-zero the risk of being pickpocketed, taxis can pose other dangers (you are, after all, entering an automobile controlled by a complete stranger). Make sure that your taxi is a “normal,” properly licensed conveyance and that your driver’s identification is in view (the degree to which this is possible will vary from country to country). Most guidebooks will contain some information about the taxi system and give you the means for making the important distinction between legitimate and illegitimate cabs. (On this topic and on others, it’s important to read the pertinent sections before you arrive in your host country.) Before taking a taxi from an airport, take a second to size up how the cab dispatching system, if there is one, works. Look for an official cab line, perhaps with a dispatcher. Again, guidebooks are usually helpful in this regard. Be wary of drivers who are too aggressive in soliciting business. To avoid being driven in circles as a means of jacking up the fare, you may wish to reach a preliminary understanding with the driver about what constitutes a reasonable fare to your destination. This applies especially to meterless cabs. (Remember that, in some cities, nighttime rates are higher.) Obviously you want to avoid a dispute with your driver, and above all, you do not want a dispute to become violent. Look to police to mediate such altercations.
  
  
• Don't plan to operate a motorized vehicle abroad. Almost all of the overseas venues to which Chicago sends its students have two things in common: 1) public transportation is excellent and 2) strolling is pleasant and edifying. To saddle yourself with a rented motor scooter or vespa or automobile is to complicate your life unnecessarily. You add a distraction from the central mission of your program, and you put yourself in the way of a host of legal/medical problems. Walkers take in their surroundings and learn. Drivers watch the road. Our national obsession with the automobile (and motorcycle) is grotesque and a source of wonder to America-watchers abroad. We urge you in the strongest terms to think of your time abroad as an emancipation from the internal combustion engine. Walk, enjoy the air, take in the sights, connect with your host culture. Don't drive abroad.