Another geeky travel tip that you might have read elsewhere. It's a good idea for all travelers to make copies of passports, plane and train tickets, visas, etc. and bring one copy with us and keep one copy at home so that if we toss our luggage overboard in a fit of borderless exuberance while abroad someone can get the copies to us by mail or fax. Just try convincing immigration officials that you don't need documentation because you are a citizen of the world. Imagine there's no countries . . .
A photocopy of your passport is not going to work where a real passport is required, but it can make getting a replacement easier. Although, on her trip to the south of Spain, Chloe brought the photocopy of her passport just in case she needed it for identification because she didn't want to worry about losing her actual passport. They ended up staying in a hostel in Madrid unexpectedly (and were left to their own devices to find a place to stay for the night) and the management accepted her photocopy as proper ID.
I'm bringing copies with me, but rather than leave another set of copies at home, I'm scanning all of my tickets, hotel confirmations, and passport and e-mailing them to myself. If I lose anything, I can get to my Gmail account from any computer anywhere in the world and print out the lost documents myself. If you do the same thing with all of your exchange student's documentation before she leaves, she'll always have access to it. Of course, not everyone will have Internet access on their exchange, but chances are that someone in a nearby village will.
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