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50 Years of Travel Tips

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Re: 50 Years of Travel Tips

#31

Post by rwmj »

susam wrote: post #18

One travel technique that has worked very well for me takes place the day before my trip: using a pre-travel prep-and-packing checklist. I created this checklist about 15 years ago and still refine it occasionally. This list has three sections: A) Preparation tasks: Like printing essential travel documents, saving a backup to my mobile phone, buying foreign currency, activating data roaming, etc. B) Packing list: Min…

I have one of these. It also tells me all the things I need to turn off / check are switched off in the house.

Re: 50 Years of Travel Tips

#32

Post by hermitcrab »

A couple of tips from my own experience.

-Have a checklist, so you don't forget stuff.

-Packing cubes make packing a bag much easier.

-For long flights with a stopover (e.g. Europe to NZ) you can stay in a transit hotel in the airport terminal. This means you don't have to go through immigration, security etc. So much easier than having to travel out to a hotel.

-I have found Airalo to be quite good for local data esims.

Re: 50 Years of Travel Tips

#33

Post by Ylpertnodi »

rwmj wrote: post #31
susam wrote: post #18

One travel technique that has worked very well for me takes place the day before my trip: using a pre-travel prep-and-packing checklist. I created this checklist about 15 years ago and still refine it occasionally. This list has three sections: A) Preparation tasks: Like printing essential travel documents, saving a backup to my mobile phone, buying foreign currency, activating data roaming, etc. B) Packing list: Min…

I have one of these. It also tells me all the things I need to turn off / check are switched off in the house.

With the prices of electricity these days I turn off everything by remote control per room each time I leave the house for work etc. Not even extension cord lights are left on, only the very bare necessities - fridge etc remain on.

Re: 50 Years of Travel Tips

#34

Post by Tinos »

Great read but I must say I completely disagree with:

"the best way to avoid [[getting cheated/swindled]] is to give strangers your trust and treat them well. Being good to them brings out their good. If you are on your best behavior, they will be on their best behavior."

As someone who's lived in London for 20 years, if you trust and treat everyone well you will lose all of your money, your watch, and phone. Unfortunately, those looking to cheat you out of something have become extremely common and totally remorseless!

I get that the author is probably referring to locals but these days it's impossible to tell who's a local trying to be kind and who's trying to distract you to reach into your bag.

Maybe I'm being unnecessarily pessimistic about strangers but i guess that's what London does to you haha

Re: 50 Years of Travel Tips

#35

Post by ghaff »

hermitcrab wrote: post #32

A couple of tips from my own experience. -Have a checklist, so you don't forget stuff. -Packing cubes make packing a bag much easier. -For long flights with a stopover (e.g. Europe to NZ) you can stay in a transit hotel in the airport terminal. This means you don't have to go through immigration, security etc. So much easier than having to travel out to a hotel. -I have found Airalo to be quite good for local data es…

>-Packing cubes make packing a bag much easier

I agree in general. Underwear and socks are always in one packing cube and I carry a lightweight mesh laundry pag.

In addition, I have a few small kits I pretty much always carry in addition to my document folder. Need to replenish (and cull) from time to time but it makes the checklist a whole lot simpler for most trips.

Re: 50 Years of Travel Tips

#36

Post by dpb001 »

throwaway290 wrote: post #30

Lots to disagree about like > The list of most coveted cities to visit have one striking thing in common—they are pedestrian centric. if your coveted places are mostly in Europe/Japan. Los Angeles, Chiang Mai (or any city in most SEA) etc are the opposite of pedestrian centric. Do you like multi hour walks in heat among pollution and traffic or stray dogs to get to a nice coffeeshop? Yeah. Public transport is broken…

It took only one long solo wait at a crosswalk in Chon Buri to convince me that it was worth paying about 3 USD to travel about 6 blocks. Traffic yielding to a single pedestrian is a quaint notion and as you say a lone farang seems to be a soi dog magnet.

Re: 50 Years of Travel Tips

#37

Post by keyme »

hermitcrab wrote: post #28

Lots of great advice here. But.. >In many parts of the world today motorcycles play the role of cars. That means you can hire a moto-taxi to take you on the back seat, or to summon a moto-taxi with an uber-like app, or to take a motorcycle tour with a guide doing the driving. In areas where motorcycles dominate they will be ten times more efficient than slowly going by car. I would be extremely wary about this. You a…

2 years ago when backpacking in East Africa, I went from "there is no way I'm ever doing this" to taking nothing but those moto-taxis ("boda bodas") even for 40 minute inter-city rides with a 12KG backpack on my back. No helmets to speak of. Except maybe in Rwanda.

Part of the learning experience of such travel, is to see firsthand how the locals of these places perceive the risk. How they manage risk in general, and what is the "value of a human life" for them as compared to our western perceptions.

Re: 50 Years of Travel Tips

#38

Post by zeroq »

ghaff wrote: post #26
seer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one thing you _need_ to pack, apart from visa docs required for travel, is a credit/debit card. Anything you’ve missed can be purchased on location. Traveling to rural Vietnam looked daunting and dangerous for people from the EU, but once there me and the friend realized all the worrying and excessive preparation was for naught. We still forgot some things, an hour or two spent at the local shops and the problem…

My counter to that is that, once you get out of major cities, even in the UK, there may be very few opportunities to pick up things including pretty routine first aid supplies. You probably also don't want to spend the first half-day of your vacation doing routine shopping. So, yes, you can often pick things up but don't count on it. If you're adaptable, you can probably manage (perhaps outside of some things like me…

My counter is if you can't produce it within a day it's most likely not a necessity.

Re: 50 Years of Travel Tips

#40

Post by zeroq »

seer wrote: post #23
susam wrote: post #18

One travel technique that has worked very well for me takes place the day before my trip: using a pre-travel prep-and-packing checklist. I created this checklist about 15 years ago and still refine it occasionally. This list has three sections: A) Preparation tasks: Like printing essential travel documents, saving a backup to my mobile phone, buying foreign currency, activating data roaming, etc. B) Packing list: Min…

The one thing you _need_ to pack, apart from visa docs required for travel, is a credit/debit card. Anything you’ve missed can be purchased on location. Traveling to rural Vietnam looked daunting and dangerous for people from the EU, but once there me and the friend realized all the worrying and excessive preparation was for naught. We still forgot some things, an hour or two spent at the local shops and the problem…

This!

Only other thing I would like to add is CASH.

Not a lot, just enough to keep you afloat when your credit card is not cooperating.

You may end up in a place that only accepts cash and there's no atm nearby or these that are available won't accept your card for some reason.

And it doesn't have to a remote place like Laos or Bali. This happens in places like Berlin.

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