How to be paperwork happy
Travel, it’s said, broadens the mind.
Well, that kind of depends on your destination, your travel companions, your method of conveyance and, more poignantly these days, the hassle factor involved by travelling at a time of pestilence and contagion.
How quickly we forget the ease of flying and flopping somewhere on a whim – and paying next to nothing for the pleasure of contributing to global warming.
The demise of polar bears, however, was put temporarily to the back of the mind as we headed to Dublin recently for a family weekend.
The paperwork needed for this briefest of trips, while mercifully less than it was a few months ago, was still cause for pre-travel-induced anxiety. Passport and boarding card? Check. European vaccination certificate? Hmmm…OK if the NHS app is working. Our experience on that front has not been good. Insurance? Car hire and damage waiver insurance certificate?
It’s a serial paper-loser’s nightmare. And that’s before negotiating Ryanair and their myriad optional extras for “just a few Euros…”
The whole travel paperwork bit was made infinitely simpler thanks to fyio, a new app I now can’t live without. With the exception of one’s passport which still has to be the real thing, every other bit of paper, which would traditionally have been left at home, on a train or at the airport bar, was safely stored on my phone. And, had been shared securely with other members of the travelling party.
This, it turned out, was a real bonus for visiting anywhere in Dublin. As well as mandatory mask-wearing in public places, restaurants and galleries, they take a QR code reading of your vaccination certificate and ask for ID before you’re allowed in. All easy if the requisite documents are in one place on your phone.
This wretched virus and the havoc it’s causing to everyday life is not going to go away anytime soon. Neither is my innate ability to lose vital bits of paper and the anxiety it induces.
Pubs, restaurants, a functioning public transport system and characters in abundance – Dublin’s got the lot.
But, for real mind broadening, you could do worse than marvel at the ethereal paintings of Jack B Yeats at Ireland’s National Gallery. Prebooked tickets essential.
Safely stored in fyio naturally.
In the spirit of full transparency, fyio is a Salix client and we are immensely proud that our brand and communications work over the past two years has taken this start up to award-winning status, having been named a winner this week in the prestigious TechRound 100 – previous winners including such underachievers as Zoom, TikTok, and Revolut.
It’s a brilliant app and free to download from the App Store and Google Play – do try it, and enjoy the magic when you share an important document without it having to go anywhere near unsecure email, and landing exactly where it’s supposed to.
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