Our best Travel tips for before you set off!
Travelling for the first time can be exciting but also daunting. You can’t always expect everything to go to plan when travelling abroad.
Even after years of experience travelling and many mistakes we still find ourselves missing busses, getting ripped off or booking wrong dates. No one is born the perfect traveler. We are still learning from our mistakes and we have compiled a list of our best travel tips.
1) Pack Light
Its easy to over pack. Half of the time I don’t end up wearing half the clothes that I have packed. Moving to the UK I had to pack very light as we had planned to do a lot of travelling. It is ok to wear the same clothes a few days in a row. You can always buy clothes while your away if you need. You want to pack clothes that are light weight and will dry overnight onced hand washed.
2) Pre Pack
Start packing a few days before you leave, then go through your bag a few times to make sure you have all the important necessities like passport, print out of bookings, spare passport photos, any required paperwork for countries, comfortable clothing, socks, undies, shoes, hats and insect repellent ect. This will also help you scale down your bag of things you don’t need to pack.
3) Bank Cards
If you can, always take an extra bank card or credit card with you. Disasters can happen. Its always good to have a back up incase you loose a bank card or if it gets stolen. You don’t want to be stuck somewhere without access to your funds. Also check which bank can offer you the best overseas rates on cards when travelling. Certain banks will offer no charge fee for atms. Always let your banks know you are traveling overseas, this stops the bank from putting a block on your card.
4) Travel Insurance
Travel Insurance is extremely important when going overseas. I have heard too many horror stories of accidents happening and the traveller doesn’t have travel insurance. You don’t want to be in a country somewhere and end up with a huge emergency bill.
5) Carry on
Always keep your important valuables in your carry on like your passport, laptop, camera, external hard drive, a debit card, some spare cash. We have been lucky enough to never have any checked in luggage go missing.
6) Weigh your bags
Theres nothing more nerve racking before your flight then knowing if your bag is going to be over the weight allowance. This happening to us a few times so I went and bought ourselves a digital luggage scale. It saved me time and stress and I always use it while packing my bags to measure the correct weight. Now when we arrive a check in we already know that we won’t have to unpack or pay extra baggage fees.
7) Online check in
Checking In online before your flight can save you time and can remove the need to stand in queues at the airports check in desk.
8) Arrive 2 hours early
Leaving for your flight a couple of hours early has saved us in so many ways. Sometimes your taxi might be running late or there might be a traffic jam and having that extra time mean that if this happens you won’t be running late for your flight. Airports always have places to eat and somewhere to sit. You would rather be early then miss your flight from not giving enough time.
9) Learn basic words
If we are travelling to a country that english isn’t the primary language we recommend to carry a small language book on the country with us. Its always respected more if you learn a few basic words in their language like Hello, Please, Thankyou.
10 ) Learn the currency and DONT exchange at the airports
Before flying to a new country its good to write down the currency equivalent of $5, $10, $50. This used to help me relate to pricing and so that i knew that if i was paying the equivalent of $10 for a water then i would be getting ripped off. Now i always use Currency Converter on my phone. I only exchange enough for a taxi. Airports always have the worst exchange rates.
11) Save important addresses to your phone
Always print off copies of your booking accommodation, screen shot them onto your phones or write them down. When you first land in a country the chances of you not having a sim card or wifi is high so i always like to save it on my phone to show the cab driver.
12) Always carry a lock
When heading out for the day always lock your bags up even if going out for a few hours. Locks are very important if your staying in shared dorms, travelling on busses and planes.
13) Cook your own food
If you are trying to be careful with your money and you have access to a shared kitchen we would recommend buy some groceries from your local market and cook some traditional food. Not only can this save you money if you cook a few meals to take out with you but it can also be healthier.
14) Pack a pair of comfortable shoes
Most of the time when travelling in a new country you can expect to do a lot of walking around when site seeing. Its the best way to see cities but you want to make sure that your feet are comfortable and not going to be in pain.
15) Pack spare outfits in your day bag
If your wanting to take a lot of photos for your Instagram or blog in one day I always like to pack a spare outfit so that I’m not wearing the same in every photo.
16) Boys – wear pants with zip pockets
This idea comes from Max, he always wears pants with small zip pockets on the side. They are easy to fit small camera parts or small wallets and have more security with a zip compared to open hole pockets.
17) Invest in a good camera
iPhones these days are so easy to use and the quality is fairly good but your photos will be some of your best memories, so invest in a good camera. And, of course take the time to understand how it works before you leave.
18) Wake up early
If your in a country that is touristy chances are if you go during the day to some of the sites, its going to be packed. We always get up early to start our day and also to beat the crowds. The best photos are taken early during sunrise and sunsets.
19) Take a power board
It’s still common to turn up to a dorm rooms or hotels and find you only have a couple of power sockets to share between charging your phone, cameras and laptops. Bring a power board to ensure you can charge what you need to, while allowing everyone else to charge their tech, too.
20) Buy a dry bag if your travelling over water
Dry bags are amazing for keeping your valuables safe on boat trips and for protecting any electronics you have in your daypack when it starts to rain.
21) Buy a portable charger
One of the best gadgets you could buy for when travelling. The portable chargers allows you to charge your phone or any usb plug when on the go.
22) Use Skyscanner to find cheap flights
We compare and book all of our flights through Skyscanner because it consistently finds cheapest deals. The key here is to keep things flexible. I look at flights to an entire country (or search for “everywhere” if I’m not sure where to head next) and look at prices over a whole month. Be aware that the site has cookies which remembers pricing. I sometime search on my laptop and then on my phone and book with whichever is cheaper.
Kayak Explore is another one of the best travel sites to search for flights to anywhere by simply typing in your departure city.
23) Find photogenic spots with Instagram
When visiting a new destination I always search the hashtags on Instagram to find the best spots for taking photos. Search through hashtags relating to the place your heading to to check out the popular photos and see where they were taken.
24) Have fun
Travelling is one of the best life experience you can have. Go somewhere new, meet new friends, eat different food and have the time of your life.
