Ryem78

Hi again - sorry for bombarding everyone with questions!

We're heading off to Thailand for 2 months before landing in Sydney in August. I can't decide what to do with all our important paperwork though - e.g. birth certificates, marriage certs, all the papers re owning our house, etc. I was thinking about buying a fire & water proof box to put them all in and sending them with our furniture, but what if the movers lose it (seems to be a common problem!)?? The other alternative is to take them with us to Thailand, but we're going on the cheap and I'm worried they get stolen/lost while we're travelling around.

Has anyone else been in the same situation and what did you do?

What paperwork is absolutely essential to have for the first few months in Aus - I imagine just passports, birth certs and marriage cert?

Thanks in advance!

Wendy

Maybe get copies of birth certificates and marriage certificate from the registry office and leave one with a relative in the UK? Put the others in your shipping - I don't think I would chance taking them with me to thailand for 2 months - 2 weeks maybe

Driving Licence and Passports take with you and keep on you and in a safe place while you travel.

House certs, get them copied and certified in the UK. place the originals with a trusted family member, friend or solicitor and ship the certified copies out? Might be an idea to also give someone power of attorney so that you can sell house without having to go back - don't know your full circumstances though.

Can't think of anything else you'll need.

Iwannabethere

Have you thought of scanning them to DVD then sending the originals to your new address by courier (signed for) or International Signed For (Post Office) and carry the DVD. Or send to friends/relatives in Sydney if paperwork will beat you there. Or ask friends/family to post them to you by one of these routes in time to meet you in Aus. You will need your passports in order to travel (obviously) and I would suggest carrying birth and marriage certs and driving licences as you will need these virtually from the minute you land. Everything else can wait a couple of days.

Holbrob

I plan to scan the majority of my docs (most of them done anyway for the visa app) and copy them onto 2 secure USB sticks using encryption. Me and SWMBO will carry one each and the originals will follow via air courier once we have an address.

Wendy

We did that...they were useless because they weren't certified as being true copies etc etc.

They are still in the draw, never been used.

ray2gill

When traveling we have all our passports, driving licences, credit cards scanned and on a USB so if anything is lost or stolen we have all the info to hand if we don't have our coputer with us.

This is of course assuming the USB doesn't get stolen!

Leave the original documents with someone responsible in the UK and get them couriered to you when you arrive in OZ. Traveling you only need your passport and driving licence anyway, so there is no need to take any other documents to Thailand.

fish.01

After scanning your documents rather than carrying them on some physical media like DVD or USB drive why not just email them to your hotmail/gmail web based email account and then you have secure access to them almost anywhere and they can't be stolen or lost.

JAJ

You still need to find a way to look after the originals ... some things should not go with the movers.

Les Mighalls

My advice would be to leave documents etc behind with someone responsible to courier them to you, but if you were paranoid (I'm in that category) about possible loss then leave them with your solicitor who wil keep them in his fire proof document safe and get him to FedEx them to you once you have arrived in Oz.

It'll be an added cost but secure.

emelems

You can always get copies of birth certificates tho? and marriage certificate? via the internet and for a small cost..

We had the same... we scanned in copies of the passports and the visas and emailed to ourselves via gmail (incase we needed them.. they wouldnt be Valid as such, but we could pull off relevant info should we need it)...

We sent the originals of birth certificates etc in our container... OH thought that the likeyhood of our entire container going missing was less than me sending a parcel thru the post and it being easier to lose by someone else..

We did take documentation with us (drivers licences, last will and testament etc).. we backpacked thru Europe and then Hong Kong and then Thailand.. for about 2 months... (5 weeks in Thailand).. the paperwork was a total of about 5 leafs of paper and it all folded up and was kept with our passports (OH always had them in a money belt under his clothes around his neck)..

Keep it simple.. the replaceable just put with the normal stuff to be shipped, the non replaceable or priceless, keep with you.. your backpacks always have some zipped up area that you can stuff it into?! Surely?! Ours has!

Em x

ray2gill

Hadn't thought of that. Good idea.

Thanks.

Ryem78

Thanks for all the advice!! I think we'll do all of the above - get certified copies, scan and email, keep the most NB docs on us, and ship the rest over with our stuff. No I'm not paranoid I promise!

Rideaway

We are doing something similar in 10 days time around Malaysia first and have scanned important docs and loaded them to hotmail saving them as photos. We can download whenever we have internet access.

The originals are remaining with my parents to send out via signed for courier.