[chachacha]

i just returned from a wonderful five weeks of european travel. i took two grand circle tours back to back, sicily for two weeks and then spain and portugal for two weeks, and then went to amsterdam on my own to fulfill my bucket list item of seeing the Keukenhof Gardens....it was all wonderful but arriving home has been overwhelming (partially because i had to do my income tax) with five weeks of mail, bills, empty fridge, etc even though i paid a lot of things in advance before i left....can't think of anything else i could have done to make homecoming easier....any suggestions?

[CFrance]

One thing... How do you feel about e-bills? We do a lot of extended travel and have found we can receive e-bills and pay from wherever we have internet. Mostly they are secure sites, but if you can get onto the particular web site, (for instance, Seco's), even that will be secure. The only one who won't e-bill is our amenities/water bill, but that can be set up to come out of your checking account.

If you can, plan your travels around getting your taxes ready to be filed.

I always make sure we come home to a clean house with some decent food in the freezer for the first night home, and a bottle of wine.

We're usually pretty worn out from long plane travel when coming from overseas. The income tax thing would be my main priority to get done before leaving.

[blue skies]

Having a trusted friend scan bills weekly into a cloud service such as Dropbox - so you can read them and pay them remotely - will allow you to have peace of mind that nothing is slipping through the cracks while you are away. Most banks have remote bill pay once you review the bills. It is a little trickier to deposit checks remotely if you don 't have the checks in your possession but an endorsement stamp and a trusted friend could help deposit checks while you are gone. This is a good problem to have!