Well? :ddog Seriously - this may be one of the most important threads here. When you gotta have info fast, you should find it here. This is ONLY for emergency info, and not personal info either. Who do you call when you got your leg ripped off by a charging rhino? Sorry, Steve Irwin's not avaliable. Whaddya do when your passport, wallet, and bike title were just ripped off by a howler monkey? Nope, not Marlin Perkins either.
That's what I love about this place - the mod's are always looking out for us n00b's and the best interests of the individual FF's that come here. Warms my heartburn, it does.
How about a revue of Medjet? One of the members used them recently with good results. He had a broken tib/fib and was flown home. He got the ride home because he was hospitalized and needed further treatment. A broken foot without being hospitalized won't get you the flight home. I found that out last trip to C.A. Oh, well, I was in a pretty good spot to hang out for a couple weeks.
Don't forget to leave a flight plan if you're going out alone. apparently steve fossett didn't leave one for his trip out into the desert. so now crews are searching a gigantic area for him. been missing since monday. al
That really is a good idea when you can do it. On long trips, just staying in touch with family and friends works pretty well, too. My SO likes to keep track where I'm staying while on the road, makes it faster to do a search if I don't check in often enough.
Ah, for you unsuspecting noobs out there, don't use poison ivy for toilet paper. Dried grass works fine.
I do that with LR, too. He'll PM me or call me and tell me where he's headed. Even if it's just a general direction from where he's at, at the time, is better than nothing. A database of phone number would be a nice idea, but if you're overseas or in another country, that could prove tough if you couldn't get to a phone, nor have access to the net or are injured in the hospital. Sat phones are ridiculously expensive and I doubt many people can afford to carry them. I was at the SEMA show last year and talked to a few guys next to the Garmin booth. They were showcasing a product that attaches itself to the GPS(currently Garmin, then) and tracks the persons route which can be viewed on a server at every minute of the day. That would be helpful for traversing lowly populated areas or dangerous cities... the person viewing could tell where/when they stopped and for how long they'd been there(provided the device was left on). You can also talk(send messages) to the person via text through the GPS. GPS-Buddy Seems now they've made Garmin products equipped with the software.
Dried grass doesn't really give ya the coverage like Johnny Trademarks big, luxurious leaves though. They don't look like you would poke your finger through those either.
Carry a Visa card and at least two phone numbers of Advriders who aren't on the same trip as you. I'm serious about this. One call to the Collective and you'll have all the help you need, and then some. Parts, rides, place to stay, all will handled by your friendly neighbourhood Adventure Rider. Who will be more than happy to help you out. Dunno about anyone else, but even before the movie, I thought of it as paying it forward, good karma if you will. Being a soldier all these years, first lesson we got taught was that we take care of our own, never leaving a man behind. Cause that's how we roll, to quote crashie.
Scan copies of your passport, drivers license, bike title, emergency evacuation insurance policy, and credit cards (front and rear) and email it to yourself and a couple of people you trust. If you lose your originals- you can download them. If you're out cold, your emergency contact people can use them to get you home. If you're out of your home country, it'll help an awful lot with your consulate/embassy if you have a copy of your passport. my $.02
Moral: Have fresh batteries in your EPIRB, and carry one with you at all times while solo. Makes finding the body much, much easier on us recovery guys!
Prepare for an emergency before it happens, I carry a Govt issued survival handbook, it is the one for the airforce pilots. It is spiral bound at the top and the pages are plastic. Very handy book to have on you if your solo and get stuck somewhere. I tried to find a link that shows one but I cant find one anywhere, if you can get one from someone in the military I would highly recommend it. If you cant find one, study up on your basic survival skills, you may need them one day Here is one good link with lots of info, http://www.simplesurvival.net/articles.htm google and find more
IIRC, Amazon has em. The one you mentioned, USAF, is supposed to be one the better ones, even more so that the SAS book/s.
If I am traveling in a foreign country, I make scans of all my official documents. Passport, Visas, Insurance, bike registration, bank cards, Credit cards, Drivers licence, Air tickets, Contacts. Phone number list, credit card replacement phone numbers, consulate contact info. I then put it in a high resolution word doc password it and send to my hotmail address. This way if I loose anything I always have all the back up information I need. I also take my drives licence, passport and visas down to my local printer, they make a high quality color copies, then I get them laminated. They look like the originals. Hotels always want to keep your passport when you stay with them, so I show them my passport and then give them a laminated copy, they always except it after seeing the original. This way I am never without my passport and visas. I did this while biking in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:country-region><st1lace>Cambodia</st1lace></st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region><st1lace>Vietnam</st1lace></st1:country-region>. Kinda anal but it can be a real bitch if you loose any of that stuff. I also take three credit cards, two with high limits one with a very low limit. I use the low limit one if the place is questionable. I always keep one extra with US cash and a printout of all my docs strapped to my leg.
If you travel with a memory card (in a digital camera, GPS, PDA etc etc) place a phopto of the documents on it .. that way you are not waiting on a slow internet connection .. all you need it a PC or a digi camera to display it (and you could even print it at a camera shop) The walet you use day to day should be the one with the copies of your dirvers licence, day money, expired credit cards .. if you have to, then the low limit card ... this is the one you give to the robber..