Wills, Thrills, and Carry-Ons: The Estate Planning Essentials Every Traveler Needs Before They Leave

The itinerary is booked. The hotel confirmations are in a folder. The restaurant reservations are made. Families in full summer travel mode tend to plan with impressive precision. Every detail accounted for, every contingency covered.

Except one…

As Ryan L. Goldschmitt, founder and managing director of Geminus Wealth Partners, puts it: "My clients plan their trips down to the restaurant reservations. Their estate plan gets the middle seat."

This month, I asked the Trust & Will Financial Advisor Contributor Panel how they use the anticipation of summer travel to open the estate planning conversation and what every client should actually have in place before they leave.

The Boarding Pass That Changes Everything

There's something about a plane ticket that changes the texture of a conversation. Clients who have been comfortable putting off estate planning for months suddenly become more receptive when a flight to Italy or a family trip abroad is on the calendar. The what-ifs that felt theoretical start to feel possible.

Al Faber, CFP®, Founder of DIWY Financial Planning, has built this into his client meeting agendas. He added a standing agenda item he calls "contingency planning"—a broader catch-all that surfaces travel-specific questions alongside everything else. Who has the spare key? Does someone have the alarm code? If there's a leak detector and it goes off, who gets called? These practical questions open the door naturally to bigger ones: who has the legal authority to make financial or medical decisions if something happens while you're away?

Matthew Ricks, CFP, founder of Haystack Financial Planning, draws a clear line between destination and stakes. A trip to Paris and a climb up Everest require very different levels of preparation. "Where you're going matters," he said. "Are you going to climb Everest? Okay, probably not reachable. But if you're in Paris—a metropolitan area—access to information and individuals matters. What do you have in place?"

What Good Is A Safe You Can't Open From Rome?

Charles Thomas III, CFP®, Founder of Intrepid Eagle Finance, is direct with clients about a gap most people don't think to close: having the documents isn't the same as having access to them. "It's great that you've got the paper copy in a fireproof safe or a safe deposit box at the bank—I support all of those things," he said. "But that's not going to help you if there's an emergency and your passport got stolen or something goes wrong when you're in France."

His recommendation is that every client store at least one copy of their critical documents in the cloud—accessible from anywhere, at any time. Matthew's approach is a shared Google folder that includes his own documents, his wife's, and his parents'. "You'll always be able to find it," he said. "Whether you realize it's there or not, once it dawns on you, it's easy access."

Al adds a practical step most families skip entirely: registering with the U.S. consulate before international travel. "People don't necessarily do it, but they should," he said. "I've had a case where I had to use it, and when you register, it makes things much easier." takes minutes to complete and can make a meaningful difference if something goes wrong abroad.

The Stamp Your Documents Need Before You Land

Ryan raised something that most pre-travel estate planning conversations never reach and that can render an otherwise solid plan completely ineffective.

"If you travel internationally and something happens, your Power of Attorney may be completely useless without an apostille," he said. An apostille is an official government seal that certifies a document's authenticity for use in foreign countries—recognized in over 120 nations under the Hague Convention. Without one, a hospital abroad can simply refuse to honor a power of attorney, regardless of how carefully it was drafted. "It takes almost no effort to get one," Ryan said. "It takes an enormous amount of effort to explain why you do not have one from a hospital bed in Rome."

Apostilles are typically obtained through a state's Secretary of State office and can often be processed by mail or online. For clients traveling internationally with any regularity, it's a straightforward step that most estate plans never address.

The Trip That Finally Gets Them to the Starting Line

Not every client who boards a plane this summer has an estate plan. For many, travel is the activation event—the specific, near-term deadline that finally makes the conversation feel urgent.

Chitra Patel, Founder and CEO of WealthWorth, calls this the "band-aid will" moment: a client who knows their planning is incomplete but uses an upcoming trip to get at least the basics in place before they leave. "Travel can be a good inspiration and reason to get at least the basic estate documents in place," she said. "Everything doesn't have to be fully perfect."

Charles put it simply: "The perfect is the enemy of good." For clients who have been waiting for the right moment to start, a flight on June 1st is as good a reason as any.

Vinee Mehta, CFP®, AIF®, Founder of Truly Unbiased, uses travel conversations as a natural checkpoint regardless of where a client stands. When clients mention upcoming plans, she confirms that their trustees and powers of attorney are aware of the trip—and that they have the most current version of their documents. For clients with plans in place, it's a prompt to review. For clients without, it's a push to start. "At a minimum," she said, "clients should have a healthcare power of attorney set up before they travel in case of a medical emergency."

Before You Board: The Estate Planning Carry-On

Before a client boards the plane, here's what advisors on the panel recommend having in order:

• A Medical Power of Attorney. The single most critical document for international travel. Someone you trust should have legal authority to make medical decisions on your behalf.

• A Financial Power of Attorney. So someone can manage accounts and financial matters if you're unreachable or incapacitated.

• Cloud-accessible copies of all key documents, shared with the people who would need them.

• An apostille on any documents intended for use abroad, particularly for international travel.

• Consulate registration through the State Department's STEP program if traveling internationally.

• A conversation with anyone named in your plan. Trustees, Powers of Attorney, healthcare proxies so they know the trip is happening and what to do if something comes up.

Pack The Plan

Summer travel has a way of making the unexpected feel possible. That's exactly why it works as an opening.

For advisors, the conversation doesn't have to start with estate planning. It can start with a trip to Austria, a cruise, a first international flight with the family. The destination is the on-ramp. The documents are the destination. Make sure your clients don't leave without them. Your clients can also access everything they need at the tip of their fingers with Trust & Will's Digital Safe.

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