Your Best Travel Tips
 

Hi All,

We're working on a story about travel tips and we want to hear from you. Tell us your best tips and tricks and they may be included in our story!

International travel...never travel without baggies, Cipro and rain gear. Always pack light and carry on.
Stay longer in one location, rent apartments.

When you are in a new city, carry the business card of your hotel and taxi fare in local currency with you, so you can get back "home" if you are lost or tired.

I always bring an 18" cardboard tube with me to bring home paintings and prints from our travels. It hardly takes any room in the suitcase and it keeps the prints wrinkle free until you return home.

Take in the lush, volcanically active landscape of Bali while whitewater rafting on the Ayung and Unda rivers. Or get the heart pumping off-shore with an ocean-rafting sightseeing and snorkeling tour in boats that reach 44 miles per hour. Surfers hit the island's western side for big-time swells.

1. Be flexible.

2. Gestures work. Starvation is rare.

3. Take half as much stuff and twice as much money.

4. Call your bank and credit card companies before you leave and tell them you'll be traveling.

learn a couple of words/phrases in whatever the local language is of the place you're visiting. this little bit of effort goes a LONG way with locals.

If you're looking for a place to eat and don't already have a place in mind, go to a store or business that has no vested interest in sending you tot he corner tourist trap where they get a commission for sending you and ask someone working there to recommend a place. I've found real gems that I otherwise may not have discovered on my own.

Emily_D, post this in the Lounge if you want 100's of answers. Hardly anyone reads this branch.

that's my best tip -lol! :-)

My advice is to stay alert to your surroundings at all times.

Don't overplan a vacation. Leave enough time to sip a latte on a sidewalk cafe, sit in a piazza to people watch, or watch a sunrise or sunset.

For international flights, always take a few working ink pens.....I'm always amazed at the number of people who either forget or have no clue they'll have to fill out customs and immigrations forms.

Don't complain because things aren't exactly like they are at home~experiencing different things are the reason to travel!

* When you begin planning for an international trip, check your passport to make sure it is current.

* Also check the passport requirements of the country you are planning to visit. For eg. some countries require that the passport must have at least 6 months before its expiration date.

* If you need to get visa for a country, make sure you have a totally empty page in your passport and that page says "Visa" on the top.
Just a blank page in the passport or the last page in the passport that does not say "Visa" will not be accepted by many embassies to give you a visa.

* Keep your passport very safely during your travels. A lost passport creates many headaches and can be easily avoided by being alert and planning on ways to keep it safe.

* Good idea to carry a couple of extra passport size photographs and a copy of your passport's front pages with all the information in case of any emergency.

* Pack clothes that layer well.
* Make sure your footwear is broken in before your trip.
* Bring extra camera batteries and charge them every night
* Bring extra memory cards for your camera
* I always bring an extension cord. Often plugins in hotel rooms are not in convenient locations for plugging in my electronics whether that be phone, battery charger, hair dryer etc.
* Pack a small flashlight (there's some powerful LED ones the size of a chap stick tube that are great). I've used mine numerous times including my last trip when someone dropped their hearing aid on the plane.
* Email yourself all the emergency phone and account numbers you may need including bank, credit card, passport office etc.
* If you have a smartphone, create documents with all your reservation confirmation numbers, hotel addresses, flight info etc. and store them on your phone so you can access them without a data connection.

When you're in another country, make it a point to get lost! Just make note of the train station that you need to return to, pack some bottled water, and take a train to a random nearby city to explore!

As a solo female traveler I found it ideal not to carry a purse of any sort...everything was tucked into my bra. I bought a phone upon my arrival in Germany - carrying a laptop and/or tablet all proved to be pointless. I could post real time pictures on facebook from my phone and that let friends and family know that I was doing okay :)

<i>As a solo female traveler I found it ideal not to carry a purse of any sort.</i>

But how do you carry your water?

We pack small souvenirs from our home state of Texas when we travel to Europe. Ball point pens with "Texas" engraved on them were a big hit with tour bus drivers, guides, and others we encountered on our recent river cruise and tour.

When asking directions anywhere in South America, never ask any man between the ages of 15 and 70. If they don't know the place, they will just make something up to avoid losing face. Being a man myself, I am also incapable of listening to directions for more than two seconds, so my wife always takes the details!
After many months travelling around the continent it seems the only way to get accurate directions is to ask a child or an old person!

Before travelling to a strange country do check on what vaccinations may be required/advisable in plenty of time before departure. Check with a doctor or specialist travel clinic rather than a travel forum where the advice given, no matter how well meaning, is not from medical professionals and will rarely be accurate.

Thank you for all the great tips!

@Suze - I will definitely do that, thanks!

<<ideal not to carry a purse of any sort...everything was tucked into my bra.>>

Wow! Really????? Isn't that kinda uncomfortable?