Best Travel Tips
You never know what you’ll need until you need it. People who travel often usually know what to pack and what to avoid. Regular travelers also have a more calm sense of being throughout their trip, know tricks about airports or traveling in general and are even more natural when socializing and meeting new people. Practice makes perfect, and the more experience you get, the better you become. But a great tip or piece of advice can go a long way.
The following is a collection of the best travel tips I could find while searching the web. I included a link to the article and website to help you find other awesome travel sites and blogs and to get more info. I plan to update this article as time passes, so if you have suggestions to add to the article or know of a link to a great article, please leave a comment below!
1. Learn Common Phrases of the Local Language: A simple “Please,” “Thank you,” or “I’m sorry” in the local language goes a long way. I also like to learn the word for beer, but that’s just me. Read more: OrdinaryTraveler.com
2. Meet Local People: Make it a point to avoid other travelers from time to time and start conversations with local people. Basic English is spoken widely all over the world, so it’s easier to communicate than you might think, especially when you combine hand gestures and body language. Read more: ExpertVagabond.com
3. Spend More Time in Fewer Places: When you’re planning a trip, don’t try and go everywhere and do everything – that’s a recipe for burnout and blowing your budget! Instead of racing from one end of a country to another, or tearing through 6 countries in 6 weeks, get to know a region well. Read more: YTravelBlog.com
4. Protect Yourself Against Petty Crime – Petty crime is, unfortunately, rife in most large cities around the world. Many thieves target tourist attractions and hotels, as they believe vacationers are easy targets. Handy tips include leaving your passport in the hotel safe and carrying a photocopy with you. It’s also helpful to try and keep luggage out of sight in cars and not to leave any valuables behind, even in a locked vehicle. Read more: TheCultureTrip.com
5. Make Extra Copies of your Passport and Important Documents – Don’t forget to e-mail a copy to yourself so you’ll almost always have access to them, one way or another. Read more: NomadicMatt.com
6. Suck Up to a Blogger – Every major city has bloggers who are obsessed with what’s new and great in their backyard, particularly regarding restaurants. You can use Google Blog Search to find bloggers in whatever city you’re visiting. They’re a phenomenal resource, but don’t just read what they’re writing: Contact them for personal recommendations. The more specific your request — and the more you flatter them for their insight and wit — the more likely you’ll be to pique their interest and get a response. Read more: Time.com
7. Call your Bank or Credit Card Provider – Sometimes banks think that fraud may be occurring if transactions are suddenly happening in Bali when you’re from Toronto, and they will turn off your card as a security measure. Read more: Travelzoo.com
8. Patience Is Important – Don’t sweat the stuff you can’t control. Life is much too short to be angry & annoyed all the time. Did you miss your bus? No worries, there will be another one. ATMs out of money? Great! Take an unplanned road trip over to the next town and explore. Sometimes freakouts happen regardless. Read more: ExpertVagabond.com
9. Put Down the Cell Phone – We have been blogging less time than we’ve been traveling. We remember the days when you couldn’t share a moment instantly with your online friends. Now we watch groups of people spend so much time capturing the perfect selfie at a monument or lookout, that they forget to see what is in front of them. Read more: ThePlanetD.com
10. Make the Most of your Layovers – I love getting to explore a new place during a layover, and will almost always extend my travel day so that I can spend three or four days in a new city. Some of my layover highlights from the past five years include 48 hours exploring the Golden Circle in Iceland, spending a few days getting lost in Muscat, and when I spent 24 hours in Abu Dhabi… Read more: NeverEndingFootsteps.com
11. Double-check your Mobile Carrier’s International Plans – I came home after a trip to Kenya with a $675 mobile phone bill. I wanted to throw up. I didn’t research how Verizon would calculate my data plan and while I assumed it would be pricey, I was blown away by the fact that 20 minutes of 3G at the Nairobi airport netted out to almost $700. Every carrier has different rates for different countries and it’s best to assess what your costs could be at the get-go. Read more: HuffingtonPost.com
12. Mark your Bags with an Easily Recognizable Item– The days of flower-pattern steamer trunks are long gone; now we all buy our bags at the same stores from the same manufacturers. The result: an endless stream of nearly identical bags on the baggage carousel. The solution: mark your bags by tying a colorful ribbon, stitching a unique patch or putting a large sticker on your bags. You won’t see other passengers pulling your bags off the carousel to check for their tiny name tags, and you’ll be able to see your suitcases come out the door from miles away. Read more: SmarterTravel.com
13. Remember Backup Batteries and a Phone Charger – These are trivial things you don’t really need until you need them. Make sure you stash backup batteries for your camera and a phone charger.
14. Don’t Underestimate The Cost of Things – Running out of money is the worst. Always try to have enough to put your mind at ease so you can travel and enjoy yourself. One tip that my wife and I do is put an estimate on each day. We would do our best before we travel to figure out what the total cost of each day will be by overestimating things like hotel, food, and fun. If you can stick to this budget format, you’ll not only know exactly how you’re doing with the money throughout your trip, but you can create a surplus from days where you aren’t spending as much. This allows for “bonus funds” which is a nice feeling and can allow for you to buy souvenirs or add fun adventures to your trip.
15. Never Buy New Shoes for a Trip – People love to buy travel accessories for their trip all the time, but new shoes is not a great idea. You need to break in new shoes and traveling is not the time to do it. If you want to buy a new pair of hiking boots, running shoes or any form or footwear for your trip, make sure you spend the time in breaking them in beforehand. Your feet are essential to the success of your trip, no matter what age you are.
Bonus Tip: Make A Unquie Memory – This sounds a little cheesy, but sometimes you schedule too many places on one trip and years later you forget about your experience altogether. Get clever with making a memory. Try to capture a photo of you and your loved ones or travel partner doing something a little different than just standing next to a landmark.
Great travel tips! It’s amazing to me the amount of people who don’t spend more time getting entrenched in the local culture of where they’ve traveled to. It can be daunting for sure, especially if you’re not an extrovert, but it’s well worth it!