Your International Travel Details:
As part of your program fee, AFS arranges your international travel from a gateway airport to your host country. Your international departure airport is dependent upon your program location, departure dates, and airline schedules.
An estimated departure date is listed at the top of your Dashboard. This date may differ by a couple days based upon airline schedules.
Your international itinerary will be shared about 6-8 weeks before departure for semester and year-program participants and about 4-6 weeks before departure for summer and short program participants. At this time, you will receive the a Travel Notification email, which includes the following information:
- International flight details and e-ticket
- Required arrival time to the international gateway airport
- Takeoff Travel Bulletin
- Link to your Dashboard for entering your domestic travel details
- Additional travel instructions related to your specific travel arrangements
This information will also be accessible on your Dashboard.
The program fee does not cover domestic travel to and from your international gateway airport. You are responsible for arranging your domestic travel and any related costs.
Planning Your Domestic Travel:
Depending on your international departure city and required arrival time, you may choose to be dropped off or fly in prior to your international flight. If you plan to be dropped off, you should arrive no later than 4 hours before the departure time. This allows for unexpected traffic, check-in delays, and long security lines.
If you plan to fly to the international departure airport, you should book a flight with a connection time of at least 4-5 hours between the domestic arrival and international departure. This will allow for flight delays and time to collect your luggage and transit to a different terminal/check-in counter. Additional guidelines for booking domestic flights will be shared within the Takeoff Bulletin in your Travel Notification.
You will be asked to share your domestic travel plans with AFS by completing a to-do item on your Dashboard. We require this so we can plan for in-person or on-call transit support on your day of travel.
Travel Webinar:
We encourage you to attend our travel webinar, which will be hosted roughly 2-6 weeks before your departure. We will go over AFS’ luggage guidelines, general packing tips, your domestic travel plans, how to navigate international airports, how we will communicate with you on your day of travel, what to do in case of travel issues, and other travel-related topics.
There may be participants going to multiple host countries on the same webinar, so we will focus on information that is applicable to all students. However, please bring any questions you may have. We will be happy to answer them or point you in the right direction.
The exact date and time of your webinar, as well as the registration link, will be shared with you via email shortly after your acceptance on your AFS program.