After events in Indianapolis today, John McCain will make his latest excursion overseas, when he lands this evening in Colombia for meetings with the country's top political leaders. He also has stops planned in Mexico, where he will defend his free trade stance and certainly garner his share of Hispanic media attention here in the United States.

Barack Obama has a major foreign trip planned as well, with stops set in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Israel and Jordan, though exact dates have not been announced for security reasons. Obama will be in the Middle East before the convention, fueling speculation that he might make unannounced stops in Iraq, Afghanistan or both.

Both trips will drive a message: For McCain, it's about free trade and solidarity with two of the country's most important allies to the south (Colombia President Alvaro Uribe is seen as perhaps the most U.S.-friendly leader in an increasingly anti-U.S. South America, led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez). For Obama, it's about focusing on turmoil in the Middle East he will argue has been made worse by President Bush's policies.

There are political components, too. Obama needs to shore up questions about his foreign policy experience, thanks to shots from McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee, which have hit him for not visiting Iraq in more than two years. With little experience in foreign affairs, Obama needs to show he can be the diplomat as well as the strong commander-in-chief.

McCain, who has always favored a more comprehensive approach to immigration matters than his fellow Republicans, has the opportunity to dominate Hispanic and Spanish-language media and to appeal to a growing minority that will play an important role not only this year, but in the future. If McCain can win the same number of Hispanic voters that President Bush did in 2000 -- around 44%, according to exit polls -- he could easily take the White House.

But time grows short. With a mere eighteen weeks to go before November 4, candidates are shifting into a general election mode during which they will have to hit a certain number of markets with a certain frequency in order to stay in local battleground news media. And, to paraphrase a joke McCain used in a recent speech in Ottawa, there aren't a lot of electoral votes in Colombia or the Middle East.

Still, foreign travel means something, and it almost guarantees stories close to the top of the political news section when candidates tour countries outside U.S. borders. In both cases, whether to bolster support among key Hispanic voters or to shore up foreign policy credentials that are, so far, lacking, foreign excursions can play an important role in a presidential campaign.

Plus, one of these guys has to lose, and the post-election vacation only gets better when Obama or McCain uses frequent flier miles to pay for it.