Travel the World Without Worries: An Inspirational Guide to Budget and Adventure Travel 179348306X, 9781793483065

Table of contents :
Travel myth versus reality
Getting over the hump
How I got hooked on travelling
What’s new in this third edition
Getting inspired and challenging yourself
What do you want from your trip?
Overcoming your fears
Finding your travel inspiration
Why it’s worth travelling independently
Some of the world’s most epic trips
Round-the-world or overland
Public transportation or self-drive
Making your travels more adventurous
Key points from this chapter
Time and money: conquering the obstacles
Expensive versus cheap countries
Determining a budget
Travel hack: be privileged
Saving up money
Working while travelling
Finding the time to travel
Travel hack: don’t be American
Key points from this chapter
Planning to improvise: how to create your route
Planning an adventure vs. a holiday
How to wing it (more or less)
Why your plans will totally change
Avoiding annoying immovable dates
Choosing the best time to travel
How to use travel guides well
How to find the best info online
The must-have apps and tools
Using word-of-mouth tips
Finding places to stay
Getting from point A to B
Dealing with travel visas
Making your day-to-day decisions
Dealing with travel fatigue
Key points from this chapter
How to save money and travel cheaply
The money-saving mindset
Using the sharing economy
Finding cheap flights
Travelling at night
Paying a fair price for taxis
Saving money through haggling
Booking online versus offline
Reducing banking fees
A few more money saving tips
Thinking in averages
Tracking your expenses
Key points from this chapter
How to pack like a pro and travel light
The art of packing less
Why a smaller backpack is awesome
Finding the right backpack for you
The 100% essential items to bring
The pitfalls of packing lists
Packing your clothes
Suggested clothing list
Do I really need…?
Packing and organization tips
Packing and unpacking: how not to lose stuff
Preparing your digital devices
Key points from this chapter
Surviving abroad: travel health & safety
The basic truths about travel safety
Finding your comfort level
How to read a safety advisory
Terrible news
Essential ways to stay safe
Travelling as a woman
Dealing with worried family
Precautions against theft
Bank card emergencies
Staying safe during activities
Avoiding scams
Digital security and backups
Staying healthy on the road
Minor health issues or annoyances
Getting medical assistance
Travel insurance: do you really need it?
Unlikely events
Key points from this chapter
Meeting people & diving into the local culture
Who should you travel with?
Embracing the backpacker culture
The Universal Conversation Starter™
Getting along with other travellers
Hostel dorm etiquette
Too old for hostels?
Respecting local cultures
Dealing with culture shock
Spending time with locals
Dealing with language barriers
Key points from this chapter
How to travel solo (without getting lonely)
Why solo travel is awesome
Solo doesn’t have to be alone
How to enjoy being by yourself
How to quickly make friends
The downsides of solo travel
Getting through the first few days
Wait — what if you are very shy?
Key points from this chapter
Coming back home
Reverse culture shock
Keeping memories alive
What’s next?
A small favor
Online resources

Citation preview

Travel the World Without Worries A N I N S P I R AT I O N A L G U I D E T O B U D G E T A N D A D V E N T U R E T R AV E L

Marek Bron

I n d i e T r a v e l l e r. c o

Travel the World Without Worries / Marek Bron. — 3rd ed. Copyright © 2012—2019 by Marek Bron. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews. The author and publisher do not assume any liability for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by any errors or omissions in this book. Cover design by Rocío Martín Osuna. Cover has been designed using resources from Freepik.com. A publication of Indie Traveller (www.indietraveller.co)

Contents Travel myth versus reality Getting over the hump How I got hooked on travelling What’s new in this third edition Getting inspired and challenging yourself What do you want from your trip? Overcoming your fears Finding your travel inspiration Why it’s worth travelling independently Some of the world’s most epic trips Round-the-world or overland Public transportation or self-drive Making your travels more adventurous Key points from this chapter Time and money: conquering the obstacles Expensive versus cheap countries Determining a budget Travel hack: be privileged Saving up money Working while travelling Finding the time to travel

Travel hack: don’t be American Key points from this chapter Planning to improvise: how to create your route Planning an adventure vs. a holiday How to wing it (more or less) Why your plans will totally change Avoiding annoying immovable dates Choosing the best time to travel How to use travel guides well How to find the best info online The must-have apps and tools Using word-of-mouth tips Finding places to stay Getting from point A to B Dealing with travel visas Making your day-to-day decisions Dealing with travel fatigue Key points from this chapter How to save money and travel cheaply The money-saving mindset Using the sharing economy Finding cheap flights Travelling at night

Paying a fair price for taxis Saving money through haggling Booking online versus offline Reducing banking fees A few more money saving tips Thinking in averages Tracking your expenses Key points from this chapter How to pack like a pro and travel light The art of packing less Why a smaller backpack is awesome Finding the right backpack for you The 100% essential items to bring The pitfalls of packing lists Packing your clothes Suggested clothing list Do I really need…? Packing and organization tips Packing and unpacking: how not to lose stuff Preparing your digital devices Key points from this chapter Surviving abroad: travel health & safety The basic truths about travel safety

Finding your comfort level How to read a safety advisory Terrible news Essential ways to stay safe Travelling as a woman Dealing with worried family Precautions against theft Bank card emergencies Staying safe during activities Avoiding scams Digital security and backups Staying healthy on the road Minor health issues or annoyances Getting medical assistance Travel insurance: do you really need it? Unlikely events Key points from this chapter Meeting people & diving into the local culture Who should you travel with? Embracing the backpacker culture The Universal Conversation Starter™ Getting along with other travellers Hostel dorm etiquette

Too old for hostels? Respecting local cultures Dealing with culture shock Spending time with locals Dealing with language barriers Key points from this chapter How to travel solo (without getting lonely) Why solo travel is awesome Solo doesn’t have to be alone How to enjoy being by yourself How to quickly make friends The downsides of solo travel Getting through the first few days Wait — what if you are very shy? Key points from this chapter Coming back home Reverse culture shock Keeping memories alive What’s next? A small favor Online resources

Surely, of all the wonders of the world, the horizon is the greatest.” ― Freya Stark

“Don’t worry chicken curry” ― Sign above a reception desk in Labuan Bajo, Indonesia

CHAPTER ONE

Travel myth versus reality Travelling often seems so easy, doesn’t it? When you look at travel content online or in magazines, you might think travelling is always a piece of cake. Bloggers seem to dart effortlessly from one continent to the next, here today and in Borneo tomorrow. Women on Instagram with flouncy hats— always touching the brim, facing away from the camera—have spontaneous champagne picnics in magical locations. On YouTube, 15-hour flights become 15-second sizzle reels, followed by sick drone shots of famous locations and inspirational taglines like #MakeItCount or #LifeIsShort. That’s all great and wonderful. But there’s just one thing: real travel isn’t always as painless or effortless as all the glossy images might make you believe. If you’ve decided you want to travel then you’ll surely quickly realize this. Once you get into the nitty-gritty details of the logistics and trip planning, chances are you’ll soon scratch your head and think, ‘Wait… how am I actually going to do all this?’ It’s a side of travel that people don’t usually tell you about. Take it from me: I’ve travelled far and wide, and while I’ve gained so many incredible, unbelievable, I’ll-be-telling-my-grandchildren-one-day experiences, it’s not all just a walk in the park. Sometimes I’ve sat there at 3 a.m. with all my travel guides out and 20 browser tabs open, pulling my hair out because I just couldn’t figure out where to go next or how to get there. (Those inspirational travel videos? Yeah, they never show you this part.) Once on the road, I’ve had to learn some of the lessons the hard way. Sure, there were plenty of mountaintop sunrises, stunning landscapes, and

wonderful people met, but there were also plenty of unpleasantries along the way. I once got stranded with a broken car on a mountain pass in Guatemala at night. I got robbed in broad daylight in Rio de Janeiro. My debit card got swiped and cloned in Honduras and nearly $4,000 disappeared from my account (I got it back months later). At an airport in Australia, my taxi drove off with my luggage still in the trunk, and when I ran after it with my arms flailing it triggered the airport’s terror alert. (I had apparently caused a few heart attacks in the control room, but the police were very nice and helped me reunite with my luggage later.) In Indonesia, I once spent the night in a pay-by-the-hour ‘love hotel’ thinking it was just a regular hotel. That was just a little awkward, as I was probably the only guest actually trying to get some sleep that night. I lost my smartphone in the jungles of Laos, got scammed a dozen times in Vietnam, and developed a nasty ear infection in Thailand for which a village doctor inexplicably gave me a jab in my butt (why didn’t he notice me frantically pointing at my ears?!). But you know what? That’s what I love so much about travel. It’s the little doubts, challenges, and stresses along the way that also lead to incredible feelings of anticipation, joy, and accomplishment. Like yin and yang, one cannot exist without the other. Real travel is about so much more than collecting selfies at the usual tourist locations. It’s about having the guts to go on an adventure. It’s about putting in the effort to get the eventual reward. But at the same time, I also want to tell you that things are not as scary or complicated as they may seem. A little preparation goes a long way. And with the right knowledge and mindset, you’ll be so much less fazed when something does go wrong (as it inevitably always does). I wrote this book precisely to help you with this. I’ll be your friendly guide through the whole process of preparing for your trip — and I’ll give you a wealth of tips and tricks you can use when you’re finally on the road. You’ll probably get the most out of this book if you’re wishing to jump into the deep end of travel, as some of the advice and stories relate specifically to going on, say, a backpacking trip lasting many months, a year-long travel sabbatical, or an epic round-the-world adventure. But many readers have also told me they’ve used this guide for planning shorter trips of several weeks, or perhaps to places further away than they had been before. If that’s you, then welcome aboard, too! While some parts of this

book may be less applicable to you (e.g., I doubt you’ll be quitting your job or moving all your stuff into storage), I’m certain you’ll find the general advice very useful. I encourage you to still read the parts dealing specifically with long-term travel; maybe it will inspire a future trip. In any case, we’ll be focusing here mostly on backpacker-style travel. To me this means travelling light (often with a backpack and not with five suitcases), travelling independently (not taking a tour but following your own route), and often travelling on a budget as well. Not everyone who travels in this way might call themselves a backpacker. Plenty of round-the-world travellers or digital nomads would not use this label, for instance. Some prefer the term independent traveller. In any case, it’s hopefully clear what sort of travelling I mean: DIY-style and experienceseeking, not going on a packaged tour or cruise. If it sounds like this might be your kind of style—and if you have a thirst for adventure—then read on.

Getting over the hump While this book is titled Travel the World Without Worries, that doesn’t mean you have to be a total nervous wreck with severe hodophobia (fear of travel) to be reading this. Some people do have legit anxiety issues around travel. A few travel bloggers out there even deal specifically with overcoming chronic anxiety or panic attacks. To be clear, that’s not quite what this book is about. Although, who knows, maybe it will help with this too. More likely, you just have some minor nerves somewhere at the back of your mind. Maybe you’re thinking, ‘Wait, am I planning this the right way? Do I have enough money for this trip? Did I pack everything I need?’ Or perhaps your mind already wanders to when you’ll get there: What if no one speaks my language? What if I get robbed? And, umm, how bad could dengue fever be really? (Um, yeah… better not look this up.) I know those little nerves all too well; I had them too before I first set off to strange lands and still had them for many trips after. That’s why my first aim is to put your mind at ease by going through all the practical aspects of travel in a step-by-step way. We’ll look at trip planning, packing, the financial aspects, booking flights and accommodation, and many other practical issues. Along the way, you might read a thing or two that is already common sense to you, depending on your travel experience. But you’ll probably also be reminded of a few important things that you hadn’t thought of yet. The goal is

simply to ensure you’ve thought about everything before you set off, so that you can put as many of those little nerves to rest as possible. Of course, preparing for a trip is not just about ticking boxes on a checklist. Some aspects are quite personal—about how you, as a person (or a couple), will do this. That’s precisely why this is a book and not just a to-do list. I’ll be sharing some personal anecdotes and cautionary tales throughout, telling you how I (and my travel friends) tackled some of the gnarly personal challenges of travelling, such as dealing with language barriers, travelling solo, or all the ups and downs of being on the road. But whatever the challenges, I always believe that having the right attitude is key to getting the most out of your travels. If you approach things with the right spirit, things will become so much more fun. Almost as if by magic, you’ll find more unique experiences appearing on your path. But just as an open mind will make you a better traveller, I also believe that certain mental blocks can keep you from travelling as far and wide as you might truly want to. So before we can talk about anything else, we must talk about… The Hump!!! (Queue ominous music, thunder and lightning, etc.) Let me explain this through the magic of badly drawn stick figures:

Right, so maybe you find yourself in the same position as our little stickman here: waaaay at the beginning on this silly metaphorical graph. Many people never get over this first hump, forever doomed to never travel. Could there be legitimate reasons for not travelling? Of course. But quite often it’s merely mental blocks that keep people from getting over the hump and following their travel dreams. They might wrongly assume that travel must be ridiculously expensive, or that it’s impossible to find the time, or that it’s too late in life to go on an adventure. Or they might just be too scared to get out of their comfort zone. If you’re at this stage now then ooh boy, we’ve got some work to do! Just kidding. I think we can loosen up some of those mental blocks in the chapters to come. Much more is often possible than you might at first assume. But let’s say that you’ve already gotten over that first hump: you’ve become inspired to go on a big adventure or to travel somewhere totally new. You’ve started researching some potential trips, and maybe even find yourself daydreaming about travelling in exotic places every day. Well, beware, for there is another terrible hump:

You see, once you go from the daydreaming phase to the practical phase, you’ll surely reach what we might call, in technical terms, the ‘oh shit’ moment. This is a classic moment. I’m sure every traveller has had it. Suddenly you realize there’s so much more involved than you at first thought. You might start second-guessing the idealized images from your daydreaming and wonder what awful things could happen instead. And perhaps you begin to feel overwhelmed by this whole endeavour you’ve set yourself up for. Now, believe me that this is just another hurdle to overcome. If you can get past this second hump, you’ll be in good shape. Rest assured, we’ll discuss a ton of tips in this book that will help you get past this point. Think you’re done with the humps now? Nope! Not quite yet. Just before you’re about to depart, you’ll probably still experience one final moment of doubt. This is, once again, a normal part of setting off to parts unknown. Someone once told me the Swedish language even has a specific word for it: resfeber. It translates roughly as ‘the tangled feelings of fear and excitement before a journey begins’.

The good news is that you can learn to love the resfeber. It’s simply part of doing something new and exciting. You just need to push through it. Once you’re on the road, you still might not quite know what you’re doing at first. In unfamiliar places, things might not work exactly the way you’re used to. But you’ll soon get the hang of things, and then you’ll find yourself going down a wonderful rollercoaster ride of fun. Those pesky humps? It turns out they just had a chain track on them pulling you slowly to the top, only to release you with maximum kinetic energy. Wheeeeee!

At this point, you can finally stop thinking so much. Before you know it, you’re watching moonrises over Andean deserts, waking up to the whoops of gibbons in mist-shrouded rainforests, taking old sleeper trains that make you feel like you’re on the Orient Express, or singing karaoke with new friends in some odd corner of this beautiful world. Okay, to tell you the truth, it’s not always just a fun rollercoaster all the way down. Every now and then, there can still be unexpected twists and weird centrifugal forces to deal with—and we’ll talk about these later. But these are roughly the key phases of travel: the inspiration phase, the pre-trip planning, then life on the road, and finally coming back home. This

book follows these phases in order, though the chapters are also mostly selfcontained so that you can jump around to find specific answers if you’d like. You’ll feel the humps most intensely when you’re planning a long trip, as shit will be significantly more real. But you’ll probably also recognize them before a shorter trip—or when going somewhere far away that you’ve never been before.

How I got hooked on travelling Since we’ll be spending the rest of this book together, I thought I should tell you a bit about who I am. So, let me introduce myself. Hi! My name is Marek, and I’m a huge travel addict. Don’t worry, I won’t dive into my whole life story here — we’ve got far more important things to do — but let me tell you briefly how I got into travelling, just so you know where I’m coming from. It all started a long time ago: I took my first long-distance and solo trip at age 17, way back in the year 2000 (whoa, I’m old!). This was a super big deal for me, as I was going to a whole other continent for the first time; I’m from the Netherlands and was flying all the way to California. I had scraped together the funds by working in a hospital kitchen and writing video game reviews online — and had been looking forward to the trip for over a year (my parents wouldn’t let me go while I was still 16). I met up with a few online friends in LA first, but then I was mostly travelling by myself. It was the scariest thing I ever did; for the first 48 hours I barely slept at all, had to throw up twice, and seeing a police raid across the street from my hostel in West Hollywood (note: not as glamorous as actual Hollywood) put me seriously on edge. But as scary and weird as it was to be somewhere half a globe away, I soon realized things were actually fine, and I learned that I could more or less manage in a faraway place. Phew! I went on a few other trips after that, like road tripping through Eastern Europe and going back to the US several times. But it was probably years later, in 2009, that I well and truly caught the travel bug. At the time I was working in London for a video game publisher, which sent me to Tokyo for some meetings at their head office. Of course, I jumped at the chance to travel all the way to Asia on the company’s dime. Following my meetings, I added a few extra days to explore the city by myself. And it was in getting to know Japan for the first time that Pandora’s box got truly opened for me.

Tokyo was equal parts delightful and confusing: the bright lights, the tiny ramen shops that seat only a literal handful of customers, the waves of pedestrians crossing at one of the world’s busiest intersections in Shibuya, the taxis that all somehow still look like they’re from the 1980s, the occasionally bizarre food (I was served whole sea urchins at a sushi bar), and the toilets that have about 20 different buttons on them — everything was just fascinating and everything felt like a mini-adventure. I tried best as I could to navigate Tokyo’s soup sandwich of a metro system but got delightfully lost. I went to the top floor of a hotel in Shinjuku and sat in the same chair as Bill Murray in the film Lost in Translation. Later, I met some awesome locals at an expat bar (among them a charming girl from France) and inexplicably found myself at the album launch party of a Japanese reggae band. It was a pretty crazy trip. And it was probably Japan’s otherworldliness that awoke something inside me: a burning desire to see much more of the world. When I later lost my job in London due to corporate restructuring, I immediately thought about travelling. I felt frustrated with my career, having lost four jobs in a row due to things entirely outside of my control (and having zero finished projects to show for it). I desperately needed to recharge and clear my mind, so I bought a backpack and a ticket to Thailand. The plan was that I’d maybe travel there for a month or two, then brush up my CV, put some feelers out to a few companies, and then continue my regular life. But that didn’t happen. Instead I met some awesome people in northern Thailand who invited me to come along to Laos. I spontaneously crossed the border with them, not having read a single thing about this country. I loved everything about Laos —and then I just couldn’t stop. I went on to explore Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and a whole list of other countries. What I thought would be at most two months of travel became nearly a year. (In case you’re wondering how I funded all of this, it definitely helped that I already had some savings and redundancy money to work with. But there are many creative ways to fund your travels, which will be the main topic of Chapter 3.) Following this initial Asia sojourn I went home briefly, but it took hardly any time for me to get back in the game. I received a message from a travelling friend asking if I had any interest in joining him to pick up a car

he’d bought in Honduras and drive it to northern Mexico, where he and his girlfriend were planning to house-sit for a few months. Of course I said, ‘Sure!’ I arrived in my high spirits in a small town in Honduras where we were to pick up the car from repairs. What my friend hadn’t told me was that he’d bought a 1983 Subaru that was on its very last legs. When we asked the mechanic if the car might make it all the way to northern Mexico, he looked away and replied with an unconvincing “si… puede?”. Somehow, I knew this trip wasn’t going to be easy. And so we had a hilarious adventure with a shitty old car that broke down about 37 and a half times. We never quite made it to the finish line; when the entire gearbox collapsed through the floor about six hours from our final destination, we took this as our cue to finally give up and we sold the car for scrap to a man in the street. But at least we had a great time trying. We visited places many tourists don’t go, met a ton of car mechanics, played pool with a mariachi band, saw ancient Mayan temples, had margaritas on the beach, and even got to sneak into the opulent abandoned palace of a notoriously crooked Mexican police chief. Again, I just couldn’t stop. After concluding this road trip, I spent a year backpacking from northern Mexico all the way down to Argentina, in some parts with friends but mostly solo. My original plan of two months in Thailand turned into two years of nearly continuous travel. I’ve been travelling ever since and have now visited over 60 countries on six continents. Along the way, I learned a ton about the art of travelling and met countless wanderers from all walks of life all over the globe. These days, I feel like you could pretty much air-drop me into any country and I could probably just figure things out. Travel has made me more confident and curious. But I also still remember what it was like when I took that first trip to LA at age 17, or later when I nervously got off that plane in Bangkok on my first Asia backpacking trip with no idea of what would await me. Having lived in the Netherlands and the UK, and then nomadically for several years, I’m now based in sunny Lisbon, Portugal. From there I travel for part of the year while sharing my latest adventures on Indie Traveller (www.indietraveller.co).

What’s new in this third edition

I wrote this book’s first edition while I was based for a month on a tropical island in Indonesia a few years ago. Realizing how much I had learned about travelling on a budget and for an extended time, I wanted to put these lessons into a short e-book that maybe others could benefit from. As with other things I’ve done, it all got a bit out of hand. I wrote a fulllength print edition instead, spending many months and some sleepless nights putting it all together. Since I had no way of promoting the book, I figured I’d start a blog—it’s what became Indie Traveller, which is now my full-time job. So it goes. This third edition is not just an update, but an almost complete rewrite. While some fundamental truths about travelling don’t change, some of the practical aspects do, and I wanted to make sure this latest edition reflects this. Since this is the third edition, the anecdotes sprinkled throughout now come from various stages of my travel life. Some parts are based on backpacking in my 20s, while others are based on travelling in my 30s (I’m 35 now). Other things might be a bit of a mish-mash too. You’ll probably find various currencies and measurements used. I’m Dutch, speak English with an American accent, once lived in the UK, set up my company in Estonia, but now call Portugal my home. I typically use US dollars when I travel but have used British pounds or euros at home. I know, it’s a hot mess, but this is what happens when you become a world nomad. Hopefully, you won’t mind a few inconsistencies, as the book is intended for anyone from any country. (If you ever need to convert any units or currencies, you can simply use Google. For example, try typing ‘100 dollars in euro’ and you will get the answer straight away.) I’ve included in this book all the lessons I’ve learned, as well as many insights shared by travellers that I’ve been fortunate to meet. By the end, you should be able to hit the ground running and travel with confidence. While you will no doubt still feel that mix of fear and excitement when you get off the plane and set forth into the unknown, you can also feel assured that you’ll have thought of everything. Good luck! P.S. All websites mentioned in this book are also listed and linked at: www.indietraveller.co/resources/

CHAPTER TWO

Getting inspired and challenging yourself If you’re reading this while already planning an upcoming trip, you’re surely eager to get to the practical tips that will get you on your way. Don’t worry, we’ll get to those soon. But first, let’s take a step back. You see, trips often start to form long before you’ve begun actively planning them. It’s during the inspiration phase when many of the seeds get sown. While you can, of course, be totally spontaneous and go somewhere random, I think it’s always worth doing some research. There may be some romanticized tales in movies of people catching a last-minute flight to some entirely unplanned destination, but this seems more the style of an international fugitive than a traveller on a mission. If you have specific hopes or expectations for your trip, then a little brainstorming never hurts. When you’re still just getting inspired, try to forget about the practical nuts and bolts for now. Otherwise, you might end up thinking only inside the box. First, let’s have some fun and think big! In this chapter, we’ll discuss the possibilities of independent travel, learn about some possible destinations and routes, and consider several ways of making your travels more adventurous.

What do you want from your trip? Before considering specific destinations, it might be worth asking yourself this question: why do you want to travel? This might seem like a trivial question, but your answer can, in fact, help you better decide where to go, how to travel, and what sort of budget you’ll need.

Of course, your reason for travelling can be as simple as just wanting to have fun. Then again, many people travel with some sort of goal in mind. Long trips make for especially good opportunities to broaden your horizons, learn new skills, volunteer, or just create some distance from your regular daily life. A while ago I chatted with a reader who was planning a year-long trip, and she had quite a specific reason for starting in Southeast Asia: ‘I just need this to be a real sort of soul-searching trip for me’, she wrote. ‘And for some reason I don’t think that happens for me in Europe where things are affluent and too nice.’ That’s a great example of how a personal goal can already point you in a certain direction. It’s common for travellers to seek some element of self-development. If you’re young, then travelling can be an awesome way to discover your own sense of independence. Sometimes it’s a minor life crisis that makes you travel: I myself went on my first big backpacking trip when both my job and relationship hit the rocks. Others simply want to see the world while they can: I’ve met many couples taking a kind of ultimate globe-trotting honeymoon before they finally settle down. If you have weeks and not months to travel, keep in mind it’s still possible to see and do more in two weeks than some backpackers do in a month. If you’re reading this just to plan a few weeks in one country, and not for some epic round-the-world trip, I’d still encourage you to check out Chapter 3. It takes a detailed look at how you can find the time and money to make a big trip a reality—if not now, then maybe in the future. If you’re finding it difficult to choose where to travel, it can be helpful to know about some of the existing popular backpacking routes around the world. I’ll be sharing some of these in a moment. Following such a route (or a part of it) can be a great goal, and it can be comforting to know that you’ll be meeting many others going the same way. Following a route is far from a requirement though and you could think of all sorts of other creative travel goals. For example, basic geography can give you fun arbitrary goals—like travelling from the northernmost to southernmost point somewhere. I once heard of a traveller whose goal it was to visit all the places mentioned in the Enya song ‘Sail Away’. (Ha, so cheesy!) I met another who wanted to visit the world’s top 30 surf breaks according to a surfer magazine—while exploring each of the countries they happen to be in.

If during your research phase you feel like you’re getting buried under a mountain of possibilities, just remember you can never do it all. No matter how much you travel, the list never gets any shorter. So relax, and try to focus on whatever bits excite you the most right now.

Overcoming your fears Remember when we were talking about those mental blocks in the previous chapter? When you’re considering ideas for your trip, your mental blocks or fears may already be steering you away from certain places. That’s a pity, as often the fears associated with certain places have little to do with the realities. Much of the email I get from readers of my blog has an air of nervous excitement. A lot of the questions essentially boil down to, ‘I really want to do this, but I’m also a bit scared… what should I do?’ First of all: being afraid is completely okay. It’s only human to fear the unknown! You haven’t been there before, so you have no way of knowing exactly what to expect. How can you get over your fears? Well, preparing yourself is a good start. I once jumped into the deep end of travel without having a clue, and that made things a bit more difficult for sure. But you’re already doing your research, which is sure to help a lot. The other thing is to just freaking do it! Chances are, you’ll be relieved to find that most countries are not nearly as scary as they seem. Even countries that are routinely portrayed in a negative light in the Western media are often just fine. I’ve felt safer in places like Colombia than I have some more developed countries. Even in countries with known safety issues, the concerns are usually limited to a few specific and easily avoidable areas. Funnily enough, the fears that many people have aren’t just limited to the less familiar or less developed countries. I recently read a post on a blog titled ‘No, It’s Not Dangerous to Travel Solo in Italy’. Oh my. Please just go! Of course, the other extreme is to be completely naive. There are still inherent risks to travelling. These might sometimes get shrugged off a little too easily by first-time travellers or newbie bloggers, but in reality not everywhere is safe or easy. Still, it’s more likely for travellers to be scared too much than too little, so don’t be led by your fears — especially when you’re still just gathering ideas. Most of the time the key to travelling places safely is just to not be stupid. You

can find many tips and tricks on how to stay safe and travel responsibly in Chapter 8.

Finding your travel inspiration There was a time when I thought that researching your destinations was a bit like reading spoilers for a movie: that knowing too much about places, much like knowing too much about the plot of a film, would surely ruin the experience. So, when I started travelling I did very little research at all. At first, I went to places mainly because others I met were going there too (like the first time I went to Laos), or because they were already on the way to somewhere else. This did free me a lot from expectations, and I think it added a cool element of spontaneity. Of course, later I realized I missed a ton of amazing stuff because I didn’t know jack shit about the places I was going! That’s when I stopped thinking of trip research as reading spoilers—it’s more like reading reviews in order to decide what’s really worth your time. That said, when it comes to gathering high-level ideas, I think it’s fun to cast a wide net and to get your information from a variety of sources. I’m saying this in part because—due to platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest—things have become hugely focused on just visual style and impact in recent years. Locations can even go viral when people find the coordinates on an Instagram post, which then become overrun with travellers all lining up just to take the same shot. If you focus only on the type of glossy images regularly seen on social media, you might miss some truly amazing things. Plenty of places aren’t so immediately photogenic, but they may be fascinating nonetheless. Instead of relying solely on social media, try to mix it up. Maybe read some blogs or ask well-travelled people you know. Check out magazines or coffee table books. Go to a library or bookstore and browse the travel section or steal ideas from film or television. And yes, look at Instagram or similar sites too, but keep in mind that almost all the big accounts on these platforms are carefully curated, styled, and edited. It can take some Instagrammers literally hours to get just one shot from one specific angle. I think basing your trip only on certain images you see on social media can be quite an unnatural approach to travel. (If you do use social media, it can be more interesting to ignore the big influencer accounts and to find locals living in the places instead. They might

show you cute cafes or hidden spots that the professionals just there for a day or two wouldn’t even know about.) In any case, try to get your ideas from many places, and don’t be afraid to throw in a wild card every now and then. If we all went to exactly the same places, that would be pretty boring! In Chapter 4, we’ll talk about how best to use many different information sources to plan your trip in more detail, how to plan a route that’s realistic and not too rushed, how to choose the best time to travel, and much more. But for now, imagining all those far-flung wonders of the world, and letting yourself get excited about it all, is a big part of your journey—before it has even started.

Why it’s worth travelling independently Okay, let’s take a moment to acknowledge that going on a proper trip takes some effort. That is, if you travel independently and want to do everything yourself. Doing the research, figuring out how to get from A to B… all of this takes time. If the process is still new to you, it can be a little daunting. But even a travel veteran will agree that going independently is often far more involving than just going on a tour. So… why bother? Somewhere in your planning phase, you might hit a point where you’re thinking, ‘Argghh, screw it! Why do all this all myself when I can just get a package tour and be done with it?’ I totally get that feeling. I almost went with an organized tour for my first trip to Thailand, as I thought it might be a safer bet. For a while, it just felt like it was a better solution that would give me far fewer headaches or risks. But I was just being led by fear, and I’m very glad I ultimately didn’t go on a tour. Doing things independently takes more initiative and effort but it’s also totally worth it — and going on a package tour won’t get you nearly the same kind of experience. Firstly, if you go with a tour, you’re going to pay for it. Let me give you an example: both G Adventures and Intrepid Travel, two popular budget-style tour operators, offer an itinerary from Quito in Ecuador to La Paz in Bolivia in about 30 days. The cost? With either company it’ll be a dizzying €2899 per person (that’s excluding flights!). If you know the local prices, then you’ll know that’s just crazy. I could easily do this trip independently for less than

half the cost. Much of what you spend on organized tours just goes to paying for the marketers who sold them to you. Secondly, when you plan it yourself, you can travel without compromise. You can go where tours don’t go, stay longer or shorter depending on how you feel, and have a much greater chance at meeting interesting people along the way. When you’re on a tour, it just doesn’t feel as much like a real adventure. You’ll have to sleep where you’re told and eat wherever a large group can be seated (which is almost never any of the good restaurants). The itineraries are also usually focused on just the standard sights. Tour groups tend to turn inward as well, making it difficult to have much contact with locals or other travellers outside of the group. I do agree that in some cases tours can be a more convenient option. Some countries are just too much of a pain to travel independently. In some specific cases it might not even be possible to DIY it (take Bhutan, for instance, where tourist guides are always mandatory). For solo travellers, tours can potentially be a good way to get comfortable with travelling on your own. This can be a bit like solo travel with training wheels on; it isn’t quite the real thing, but it can be a stepping stone to a proper solo trip. (Then again, on a group tour you’ll be put with a bunch of randoms whom you’ll be stuck with the whole way. That could work out very well—or not at all. If you’re going to travel solo, I think it can be a lot more fun and interesting to meet people in hostels or in the many other ways that we’ll discuss in Chapter 9.) Anyway, a few exceptions aside, I think travelling independently is the way to go. It’s the only way to make a trip truly your own. And keep in mind that while you make your own travel arrangements, you can still take short organized tours along the way (like day trips or excursions lasting a few days). You can book these locally as you travel and get the best of both worlds.

Some of the world’s most epic trips I wanted to focus this book on how to travel rather than where, but I can’t help mentioning at least a few of the big overland trips. Maybe they’ll spark some ideas. Before I became a travel addict, I had no clue that there were all these popular routes that many backpackers follow. While I had specific countries on my wish list, I was totally unaware of these longer routes that pass through multiple countries.

Despite the oft-cited ideals of ‘going off the beaten track’, many backpackers do travel on clearly identifiable circuits. These can be elusive at first, as they are not precisely set in stone, nor are they promoted in any sort of official way. Spread mostly through word of mouth, these routes are shaped by numerous factors over time including geography, points of interest, ease of access, and transit connections. During my first big journey through Southeast Asia, I didn’t realize I was following an established route at all until many weeks in. After sharing my travel plans with another backpacker, their response was, ‘Oh, cool, so you’re doing the Banana Pancake Trail as well!’ Umm, banana what? I later typed ‘Banana Pancake Trail’ into a search engine and discovered that, unbeknownst to me, I had been following this oddly named route almost exactly. When you’re on a long overland trip, it can be easy and rewarding to slip into one of these well-worn grooves. Like a river carrying a boat downstream, these popular travel routes can take you along for a wonderful ride. Then again, it’s not the only way to cook an egg, and maybe you don’t want to follow a particular route—it’s all up to you! If you don’t quite have the time to do these routes all the way, you can always bite off a smaller piece. For example, consider two or three adjacent countries you like the sound of. Instead of doing all of Central America, try southern Mexico and neighbouring Guatemala. Or, instead of covering the whole of Southeast Asia, maybe just focus on Thailand and Laos. Either way, knowing about these routes can be of great help when you’re still staring at a map of the world and wondering just where to go.

Southeast Asia (Banana Pancake Trail)

Southeast Asia is considered by many to be one of the world’s best backpacking regions. It is cheap to travel, has a high level of safety, a wealth of amazing points of interest, a balmy tropical climate, and a great network of local transportation links. While there’s still a bit of learning curve and maybe some minor culture shock at times, it’s an excellent region to get your feet wet. The Banana Pancake Trail got its tongue-in-cheek name during the early days of backpacking in Asia. Food vendors and guesthouses began catering to

travellers by selling banana pancakes and other comfort foods, giving them some welcome relief from just rice and noodles. Back then, the availability of banana pancakes would be a sure sign that other foreigners had come before. As a very rough rule of thumb, it takes about $1,000 a month to travel as a backpacker in most parts of Southeast Asia. If you want to take the plunge but you’re not quite sure where, then Southeast Asia is always my go-to recommendation. My first time in Southeast Asia I travelled there for almost nine months straight and I’ve since come back for several one- to three-month trips. I should mention that a few specific areas are getting quite overtouristed these days, especially now that more Chinese are beginning to travel the region too. Avoid southern Thailand and Bali in particular if you don’t like very touristy places. Some bits of Southeast Asia are also teeming with drunk 18-year-olds, but the party scene is easily avoided, if it’s not your thing. Southeast Asia sometimes has an unfair reputation in this regard. The entire country of Laos sometimes even gets pigeon-holed as a ‘party place’, which is ridiculous given that it’s just one specific town (Vang Vieng) that was known for its crazy parties during the early 2010s. Explore the rest of Laos and you’ll find pristine jungles, idyllic villages along the Mekong River, scenic motorbike loops through rice fields and karst mountains, and so much more. Despite what some might say about Southeast Asia, it’s very easy to get off the beaten path. Whatever vibe you’re looking for, you’ll probably be able to find it. (By the way, I loved diving into the party scene from time to time when I started out travelling.) The standard Asia backpacker loop goes to north Thailand, Laos, north-tosouth Vietnam, Cambodia, and then to south Thailand—but the core loop isn’t the only way to go! I think some of the best things can be found in the peripheral countries of Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Central America (Gringo Trail) Central America encompasses seven small, mostly tropical countries— eight if you count Mexico, which is in North America but often gets included in a trip around these parts. The Gringo Trail is named after the local slang word for a foreigner, and it loosely follows the Pan-American Highway that stretches from Mexico all the way down to Chile—though I’ll talk about just the Central American section first.

What’s great about Central America is that it’s relatively compact yet also has a great deal of geographic and cultural diversity. The region has more jungles, lakes, volcanoes, and tropical beaches than you can shake a stick at. And let’s not forget the impressive remnants of the indigenous Mayan, Aztec and Olmec civilizations, as well as Spanish colonial influences in many of the towns and cities. The security situation can be a bit tricky though, especially in Honduras and El Salvador. (Nicaragua too, at least at the time of writing, although it was among the safest until very recently.) The language barrier can also be a problem if you don’t know Spanish; unlike in Asia, even those working in the tourism industry might not always know English. Then again, it’s a great opportunity to learn a new language, and many language schools even cater specifically to travellers — often with the option of adding a homestay experience. Central America is usually very cheap to travel, with only Belize and Costa Rica being relatively pricier. As I mentioned earlier, my first trip through Central America involved driving my friend’s beat-up old car from Honduras to central Mexico. I then went backpacking from northern Mexico all the way to Panama in about six months, though I think you can cover Central America quite well in about

three months without rushing. I’ve since been coming back to Central America on shorter trips, still finding new places to explore. The varying security situation in Central America makes it not quite as carefree as a region like Southeast Asia or Europe, but don’t let that scare you off too easily. It can be a great choice even for a first-time backpacking trip (so long as you remember to pack your brains!).

South America (Gringo Trail) The Gringo Trail continues down from Panama all the way to northern Chile. Beyond this point, it then also has a sort of side-route running east into Argentina and up into Brazil. While the Atlantic side seems hardly travelled (e.g., relatively few go to countries like Suriname or Venezuela), you’ll find lots of backpacker infrastructure along the Pacific side of South America. Security issues exist here just as in Central America, though they are also easy to avoid if you know how (we’ll talk about these in Chapter 7). Distances can be a challenge. South America is truly enormous, key points can be very spread apart, and there are not that many budget flights—so you may have to sit in some very-long-distance buses to cover some ground. I still get traumatic flashbacks to the time I took a 20-hour non-stop bus from Buenos Aires to Iguazu! While Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia still have comparatively compact circuits, the distances get a lot more hardcore once you get to Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. But it’s also the sheer size and perceived remoteness that makes South America one of the ultimate regions to travel. You’ll truly feel like you’re on an epic journey in ways you might not anywhere else.

Along the loosely defined Gringo Trail you can find a ton of major attractions, including the Inca ruins in Peru, the salt flats of Uyuni in Bolivia, and the gigantic waterfalls of Foz do Iguaçu on the Argentina-Brazil border. While you’re here, you’ll also probably want to take a trip somewhere into the Amazon rainforest in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, or Brazil. As in Central America, English isn’t widely spoken. Then again, it’s worth learning the local language here more than arguably any other region in the world. Learn some Spanish in, say, Mexico, and you can keep using and improving this knowledge in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina. That’s totally different from Europe or Asia, where languages constantly change from one country to the next. It means you can get reasonably fluent fast, and that makes it so much easier to mingle with locals than in other parts of the world.

A Grand Tour of Europe

This part of the world is easy to travel in but not exactly cheap, especially in Western or Northern Europe. There also isn’t as much of a typical route: you can pretty much go everywhere from anywhere, and the geography doesn’t really force one particular way through. Europe obviously has a deep history and a huge diversity of cultures. That can also make it difficult to pull yourself away from any of the major cities. Many backpackers end up going on a crazy whistle-stop tour hopping from London to Paris to Amsterdam to Copenhagen to Berlin and so on— essentially doing just a long succession of city trips, while potentially missing everything else the continent has to offer. I highly recommend poking around and taking as many side routes as you can. There’s more to Europe than cities! By the way, train travel is awesome in Europe thanks to its amazing rail network. Try to take some overnight trains to catch some real travel mood.

Don’t forget about the central and peripheral parts of Europe. Countries like Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary are much more affordable and get far fewer tourists. The same is true for most countries in the Balkans and the Baltic states.

Central Asia (tracing the Silk Road) Intrepid travellers seem to be rediscovering this part of the world as of late. While in no way as popular as other backpacker regions mentioned so far, it’s a great choice if you’re looking for something a bit different. This route starts in Turkey and then moves east into the Caucasus region, passing through Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Then it crosses the Caspian Sea into Kazakhstan, potentially reaching as far as Mongolia or remote Western China. As far as travel logistics go, the route starts off easy but then gets progressively more challenging. The crossing from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan across the Caspian Sea is a bit of a hurdle, as it involves catching a ferry that goes only once a week. Not everyone can easily get a visa for Iran or for Russia, but overlanding it via either of these countries can make for an interesting variation. The ‘-stan’ countries are still rarely-visited, though they have recently seen more interest, slowly developing into ecotourism and adventure travel destinations. I have done a few bits and pieces of this route myself so far, and I think maybe someday I’ll do the whole works.

Southern Africa If you want to take a bite out of Africa and see several countries in this huge continent, then it might make sense to focus on the south. That’s in part because South Africa makes for a convenient springboard; it has good international flight connections as well as a more familiar Western vibe that can help you settle in. I must admit, though, that this part of the world was also an exercise in frustration for me at times. Suddenly I realized why so many backpackers go to Southeast Asia or South America! There’s no two ways about it: the public transportation in Africa often just plain sucks. Connections are limited, some are unsafe, and it’s just nowhere near as easy to get around. One cool option is to take the Baz Bus in South Africa, a hop-on hop-off backpacker bus service that can take you from Cape Town all the way to Johannesburg. You’ll be stuck to a limited schedule, often with just one pickup per day, but it’s at least easier than taking the normal buses. South Africa can already take a good six weeks to cover properly. From there, you could add on trips to nearby Swaziland and Lesotho, the beaches of

Mozambique, the deserts of Namibia, or perhaps even Victoria Falls on the Zambia/Zimbabwe border.

Some backpackers explore South Africa on their own but then book an organized tour around its neighbouring countries. This might feel like going against the backpacker ways, but it might also avoid much hassle. Others end up renting their own vehicle, as it’s possible to take a car rented in South Africa across some of the borders. Southern Africa can be more challenging to do solo but is fairly well suited to a couple or group of friends using private transportation. I’ve just been nibbling at Southern Africa so far. While I wouldn’t consider it a perfect starter location, I think it’s still relatively accessible. As with all of Africa, it won’t necessarily be the cheapest (which is often not what people expect) and you might need to be a bit savvier than in other parts of the world.

Other overland trips Clearly the world is enormous, and I’ve barely scratched the surface in this list (and in my own travels). There’s the Trans-Siberian Express, the wildly ambitious Cairo to Cape Town route, pretty much all of India and China… the list goes on and on. If budget is not much of a concern, then other developed

nations might catch your attention, such as Australia and New Zealand or Japan and South Korea. I usually think it’s neat to focus a trip on a specific region, as you’ll be able to travel overland and go deeper than when you’re hopping between a bunch of totally separate countries. If you have a bit more travel experience, then it matters less if destinations already have an established circuit or not. Apart from certain trouble spots, you can more or less travel anywhere. But when you’re starting out, it’s comforting to know there’ll be plenty of hostels, transit connections, and other travellers around. The aforementioned routes are all good places to find these. For a lot more info and suggested itineraries, be sure to browse my blog at indietraveller.co. For a huge wealth of other route ideas, I also recommend checking out wikivoyage.org/wiki/itineraries.

Round-the-world or overland Besides doing a big overland trip, there’s another option to consider: a round-the-world trip. Instead of going deep in one region, this lets you take a bite out of many regions all over the globe. Round-the-world (RTW) trips are usually organised around a special airline ticket that allows you to fly around the globe in one direction (e.g., west-to-east or east-to-west) while making a set number of stops along the way. For example, an RTW trip might start in London, go on to Bangkok, Sydney, Fiji, Los Angeles, and New York, and then back to London. These RTW flights are offered for one combined price, which can in some cases be much cheaper than buying each flight separately. While you will have to lock in all the RTW stops prior to departure, you will have some flexibility on the dates, which you can typically still change during your trip (sometimes for a fee). You will usually have to complete this multi-stop route within a maximum period of one year. Most RTW packages are limited to flights within a certain airline alliance only. RTW tickets can be a good option if you want to visit multiple continents, though bear in mind you can only go in one direction, and you are limited to flying only to your pre-chosen destinations. Travel agencies such as Kilroy, STA Travel, and Airtreks specialize in part in providing RTW tickets. Other agencies dealing with RTW trips are Boots’n’All in the US and Travel Nation in the UK. You can also check directly with the airline alliances such as Star Alliance, One World, SkyTeam and the Great Escapade (the last one is not an alliance, but an RTW program

shared between Air New Zealand, Virgin Atlantic, and Singapore Airlines). Searching online for ‘RTW itineraries’ can give you further inspiration for this style of travel planning. By the way, Chapter 5 has more tips on buying RTW tickets. You can either plan it yourself, get a standard RTW package, or have a specialized RTW travel agency help you out with a custom itinerary. There are some important pros and cons to both RTW and overland travel:

Round-the-world trip Gives you the most variation. You will visit a series of completely different destinations on several different continents. Often good value-for-money for flights. Since you are buying your flights as one big package, the total price can be quite attractive. But can be much more expensive overall. Most round-the-world routes go via major hub cities in expensive countries. In the earlier example above, Bangkok would be relatively affordable, but you will have to spend heavily during your stays in New York, Los Angeles, and Sydney. Requires more backtracking. With a round-the-world ticket you always need to backtrack to your prior point of arrival in order to fly to your next stop. This can be costly, time-consuming, or just annoying as you’ll have to retread old ground. For example, perhaps you land in Sydney, then you travel north along the Gold Coast, but you won’t be able to conveniently continue your trip from Brisbane or Cairns; you will have to go back south to Sydney again in order to fly off to that next continent. Requires more upfront planning. You will have to figure out your stops and schedule in advance, which reduces your flexibility. Often there is a small financial penalty for changing your flight dates. You will need to pack for multiple climates. Packing light becomes a bit more challenging, as you will likely need clothes for both summer and winter conditions.

Overlanding or regional trip (backpacking) Can give you the lowest cost of travel. Taking buses and trains is cheaper than flying (and it’s also better for the environment). Also, popular overland backpacking routes such as the Banana Pancake trail

in Southeast Asia and the Gringo Trail in Latin America run almost exclusively through low-cost countries. Goes deep instead of wide. You will get to experience many countries within the same region, letting you cut deeper into the culture and see more within each destination. Gives a different perspective. Psychologically, I think it can feel more like a proper journey. You will see landscapes change gradually and you can can gain a greater appreciation for distances and how places relate to each other. You might need to pack for one climate only. Packing is a little easier, as you don’t need to pack for every possible situation. For Southeast Asia, for example, you can easily survive with just a bunch of T-shirts, one long-sleeve, and one jumper for your upper-body clothing. Greater flexibility. The only things set in stone on an overland backpacking trip are your starting and end point (though even the end point could be left to improvisation if you haven’t purchased a return flight). This lets you easily adapt your route depending on your evolving travel goals. The appeal of a round-the-world trip is essentially seeing the world in one go. Of course, that is never truly possible, but that’s what it at least tries to aim for. One day you may find yourself tanning on a tropical beach, the next you’re freezing your face off while hiking a glacier in Iceland. If this is going to be your one and only opportunity to travel, then going round-the-world is a pretty awesome idea. The appeal of backpacking overland is that it lets you travel more slowly and find your own path. The goal is less to see the whole world (as impossible a task as this is) but more to have a deeper experience in some part of the world. Personally, I am very partial to overlanding, mainly as I just like having some focus. You sometimes hear of RTW trips that, say, hit up dozens of countries in several months by flying between each and every waypoint, but such a pace seems far too fast to properly enjoy each location. If you do take the RTW approach, make sure you leave plenty of breathing room in your itinerary.

Public transportation or self-drive

Using public transportation (buses, trains, and so on) is generally the most accessible and hassle-free way to move around. Many backpackers rely on it entirely, and a lot of big trips are done in this way. My own experience is mostly with using public transportation the whole way, though I’ve also done a few road trips, and at times I like to travel by motorbike when I’m in Asia (where these are super easy and cheap to rent or buy). One downside to using only buses or trains is that you are sometimes limited in where you can go. Travelling as a passenger is easy when following at least the somewhat beaten track, but going to less-explored areas can be more challenging. If you are thinking of doing your entire journey as a road trip though, know that while road trips are fun, they take a lot of additional preparation and dedication. This is especially the case if you are planning to go road tripping in any countries where road quality and services aren’t exactly optimal. Driving in the more remote parts of the world can also be tiring: you will often need to keep an eye out for goats, donkeys, potholes, unmarked speed bumps, and so on. It helps to know something about basic car or motorbike repair, and it’s a good idea to choose a brand of vehicle for which you can easily find spare parts where you are going. You will probably need to get your vehicle internationally insured. Additional paperwork is often required at borders, as your vehicle may need to be cleared by customs. I’ve had some frustrating situations at borders having to wait hours for the vehicle to be permitted into the country. A good general resource for road travel is the wiki located at wikioverland.org, which has specific road-tripping information on 50+ countries and has lots of advice on all of the practical issues you will face. In some parts of the world, it’s common to do specific routes with rented or purchased vehicles. Such trips can be conveniently merged into a larger RTW or backpacking trip. For instance, it’s popular to travel Vietnam northto-south or vice versa by motorbike. In Australia and New Zealand, many backpackers rent camper vans for increased mobility and to have a ‘free’ place to sleep. In Africa, renting a vehicle is often a necessity, as countries here frequently lack the sort of public transportation networks that make backpacking the other continents so much easier.

Making your travels more adventurous Regardless of how long or exactly where you travel, having interesting adventures depends mostly on how you approach things. Even if all the big

globe-trotting trips seem a little out of reach (for now), just know that you can still have fantastic adventures even when covering fewer places. By avoiding the usual all-in resort holidays and prefab tours, you can already make your trip totally your own. I once compared those generic packaged holidays to the experience of snorkelling; they can be fun, but you’ll be always be stuck at the surface level, and always on the outside looking in. Travelling independently feels to me more like scuba diving: it can seem a bit scarier at first, but it lets you truly dive deep and immerse yourself in the experience. Maybe that already seems obvious, but every now and then I get another email from a reader for whom everything just clicked. Just take this email I received a while ago: “I totally fit your description of the traveller who is like the snorkeler. I always think I’m going on an adventure, then I book expensive resorts and pack 9 pairs of shoes for a beach vacation. I'm so over it. I want to really travel, like my friends do. We're all going to Thailand and Vietnam (and more!) for a month. I am following your guidance and it’s gotten me so pumped to be a real traveller!” Emails like these make me so happy. I’m pumped when readers get pumped! While I think one of the best ways to travel deep is to go on a long trip, it isn’t the only way. As we wrap up this chapter, I want to leave you with a couple of thoughts on how you can challenge yourself more — and take your travel to the next level.

Go to more exotic places People are often afraid of cultural or language barriers. But they can be a ton of fun! Even just ordering food in strange lands can be like a miniadventure. Navigating unfamiliar places can heighten your senses and lets you notice so much more. When you’re trying to get inspired for your next trip, consider going to places that are just a little bit beyond your comfort zone.

Travel more slowly I’m always amazed when people try to see like 364 places in six days. Noooooo, what are you doing? Slow down and smell the roses! If you’re just moving around at breakneck speed, the more interesting things won’t get the chance to bubble up from below the surface. Pace yourself and you’ll find cool stuff that hurried tourists skip over.

Travel on a budget (even if you don’t have to)

I often find that the more upmarket you go, the more likely you are to get trapped in artificial bubbles that are far removed from local life. But if you stay close to the ground, adventure will find you much more easily. Even though I can now afford a few more comforts or luxuries on my travels if I wanted, I still keep staying in budget guesthouses and using the local forms of transportation, as this inevitably leads to experiences that are more interesting to me.

Travel solo I know this might not be for everyone but travelling on your own can be an enormously fun and self-affirming experience. And no, you don’t need to be super extroverted to do it. (In fact, some travel solo just to get away from people!) In Chapter 9 we are going to take an honest look at what it takes to travel solo and the ups and downs you’re sure to face along the way. Something I love about going solo is that it makes you so much more approachable and open to adventure. I’ve had so many serendipitous encounters and unexpected discoveries while travelling solo that I otherwise might not have had.

Skip the starter countries It normally probably makes sense to learn the ropes in easy countries first. For example, Thailand has long been the obvious starter country in Southeast Asia. It has the most advanced tourist infrastructure and gives you by far the least hassle, making it a great place to level up your travel skills. But… maybe you don’t want to take the normal cautious approach. One friend of mine took her first backpacking trip at age 19 to Jamaica. This country is not an easy nut to crack! There are a couple of spots that are visited by cruise ship passengers, but beyond this it’s a difficult place to travel independently. She told me that at first she was terrified, but she pushed through and ended up having an amazing time. It gave her an insatiable appetite for adventurous countries. (She’s off to Kenya next.)

Travel without the internet I once saw some graffiti on a wall in Lisbon that said, ‘Do more things that make you forget to check your phone.’ I was like, ‘Whoa… that’s so true’. The internet can be an amazing tool and it’s made travel so much easier, but it can also be a real distraction. Try exploring a city without reaching for TripAdvisor or a GPS map; it’s fun to get lost and to force yourself to ask for directions. If you grew up with smartphones, then you might not even know what to do with yourself without one. But if you can kick the addiction for a while, it

can be a real zen-like experience. A journey abroad can be a great excuse for a digital detox, as roaming charges or the necessity of local SIM cards might keep you offline anyway. The less you’re looking at your screen, the more you’re looking at the world — and you’ll soon find that this enriches your travels greatly and pushes you in new directions.

Become a yes man or yes woman In a hostel book exchange, I once found a memoir titled Yes Man by the British comedian Danny Wallace. It’s a simple tale but I enjoyed its premise: the author needed to get out of a rut and so for one year decided to say ‘yes’ to every possible suggestion or invitation. Of course, hijinks ensue: he makes a drastic change to his career, has some extremely wild nights out, meets a variety of unusual characters, and—yes—ends up travelling the world. It reminded me that I have often said ‘yes’ during my travels without thinking too much about it — and how this sometimes paid off in amazing ways. As the book concludes, ‘Sometimes the biggest risk is never taking one.’ So don’t be too stuck in your plans if you get a random suggestion or invitation, as you inevitably will at some point. There are even some ways in which you can force more of those things to happen; in Chapter 8 we’ll talk about ways in which you can get closer to the culture, meet interesting locals while you travel, and meet other travellers (if that’s something you want). Always keep in mind that even if your next trip won’t be some globetrotting voyage, you can still turn any trip into a smaller version of it just by bringing an adventurous attitude. That said, if you’re feeling inspired and you’re ready to challenge yourself, then try to carve out as much time for your journey as you possibly can. Once you’re on the trail you will surely wish you could travel longer! Once the travel bug hits, there’s no stopping it. And that, my friend, neatly brings us to the next chapter, in which we’ll tackle the first practical hurdle to travelling: finding the time and money to actually do it.

Key points from this chapter Ask yourself what you want from your trip on a deeper level, as it can help you decide where to go and how to travel. Don’t be led by fear when deciding where to go! Many countries are far more welcoming and feel way safer than you might expect.

Try to get your travel inspiration from a variety of sources (i.e., not just Instagram or your Lonely Planet guidebook). Travelling independently can be a bit of a pain sometimes, at least compared to just going on an organized tour, but stick with it. It’s going to pay off. Established backpacking trails can be interesting to follow on a longer trip. You can also look at doing one or a few countries within them. Planning a round-the-world trip is another option for an epic trip, though it has different pros and cons compared to focusing on just one region. There are many ways to have amazing adventures. Going on a long trip is merely one of them!

CHAPTER THREE

Time and money: conquering the obstacles Money is what makes the world go round — and it’s what makes you go around the world. Having dreamed big of where you want to go, now comes the harsh reality of finding the funds to do it. People often think you must be extremely lucky to afford to travel. I once saw a poster in my local supermarket showing someone on an inflatable lounger bobbing around a tropical island, which I immediately recognized as Krabi in Thailand. It was an ad by the national lottery. It said, “PLAY MAKES IT POSSIBLE”. I shook my head. I have been to that island, spent an incredible amount of time in other wonderful places, and I never won the lottery. I wouldn’t bet on the lottery anyway. Determination and patience will get you much further. If you are serious about going on a great journey and you make it a priority, chances are you can get more funds together than you might have thought possible. In a moment, we’ll look at various pre-trip money saving methods, as well as how to prevent money from draining needlessly while you travel. Besides money, the other key factor is time. If you only get a limited holiday allowance every year, you’ll probably feel that certain travel experiences are out of reach. But there are still ways of making maximum use of your available holidays or even getting more time to travel. We’ll look at some of the possibilities in the second part of this chapter.

Expensive versus cheap countries If your budget is limited, the first and most obvious solution is to—wait for it—go where it’s cheap!

Every now and then, I’ll hear complaints about how supposedly expensive it is travel. Then when I ask where they are going, they’ll say something like Paris. Uh yeah, no shit! Paris is hella expensive. Even a bed in a hostel dorm will cost like $40 a night there. So why are you going there if money is an issue? Now, can you still hack it on a budget in Paris (or Zurich, or Hong Kong, or...)? Sure, there are some ways to make it work, but it won’t make your life easier. So, first of all, consider where it’s cheap. Often, these won’t be the more familiar or heavily promoted places in the Western world. Your money will go a lot further in many developing countries, and these often aren’t as scary or as difficult as people think. It’s actually low-cost countries that can make travel the most liberating. In countries like Guatemala, Vietnam, Bolivia, or Nepal (just to name a few), your day-to-day financial concerns can easily fade into the background. Want to have a nice meal? When it’s just $2 you don’t have to think twice about ordering. Want to hire a local private guide to take you out hiking for a day? When it’s only $10 it’s a pretty low-risk decision; if that hiking trip ends up being less than amazing, at least you won’t have to beat yourself up about the money you spent. Low-cost countries are not just cheaper overall, but they can also put you in a different mindset. You’re often thinking more about the possibilities, and less in harsher terms of cost versus payoff. I know that a lot of people would still think, say, Italy is a less intense place to go than Cambodia. But the latter is, at least in a financial sense, much more worry-free. Another way of going where it’s cheap is to go to more rural areas, as it’s typically the major cities and capitals that cost the most. So even if you’re not going to the cheapest countries per se, you can still go to cheap regions within them. In Lisbon, Portugal, prices for food and drinks can be easily 50% higher than in the countryside or the smaller cities, for example. (I’m just using Lisbon as an example as that’s where I live at the moment.) Okay, so after considering the cheap places versus the expensive ones, how much does it truly cost to travel the world? That’s obviously a pretty broad question. It’s a bit like asking: how big is a fish? I mean, would you believe me if I answered, “about 30cm to a meter”? I guess that’s sort of correct a lot of the time, but obviously it all depends on what kind of fish we’re talking about. I mean, what about a whale shark? Or a dwarf goby? Yeah, what about a dwarf goby?!

Well, the same thing is kinda true with travel budgets. It’s hard to talk about them without making some wild generalizations. Still, I think there are basically four categories of travelling the world, and I’m going to be so reckless as to suggest some estimated budgets for them. Keep in mind these will be super ballpark and just focused on an average scenario. Actual fish may vary. (By the way, the estimates assume you’re actively travelling, not constantly basing yourself in one place to work or volunteer. They don’t count pre-trip expenses like visas, insurance, or flights.)

1. Travel like a bum in cheap countries (One year: $6000+, One month: $500+) This is the absolute most basic way to travel the world. You’ll travel only in the cheapest countries, while also spending the bare minimum there. This is the category of the vagabonds and the drifters with only the smallest of shoestring budgets. Maybe you could spend time in rural Central America sleeping only in your own tent, eating cheap buffet meals and saving leftovers for later, hitchhiking, and only going on activities that are free. You could go to India and fully immerse yourself in the local lifestyle, avoiding any of the popular tourist sites, and moving from place to place in crowded 3rd class train carriages only. This is travel for the ultimate free birds, content to spend much of their days plucking their guitar or trying to sell friendship bracelets to other travellers. Okay, maybe I’m stereotyping here, as not everyone on a shoestring budget is a hippie. But in any case, you’ll probably only do activities that are free, maybe sleep in your own tent or hammock, or use sites like CouchSurfing and other hospitality exchanges to avoid paying for accommodation. It’s not always easy to travel in this way and you can’t always do everything, but it might be the only travel that is financially attainable—and for a few, it’s simply a way of life.

2. Travel comfortably in cheap countries (One year: $12000+, One month: $1000+) If you have more money saved, it’s possible to travel relatively comfortably in cheap countries (think South and Southeast Asia, southeastern Europe, the Caucasus, much of Latin America, and some parts of Africa). You may have to stay in somewhat rustic places at times or live like a local a bit;

clearly, don’t expect the local bia h ơ i beer in Vietnam to be any match for a fine Danish craft beer, or for that ramshackle bus in Ecuador to be exactly on time. But otherwise, you can be comfortable and have few real restrictions. This is admittedly one of those wild ‘how big is a fish’ guesstimations, but there’s a pretty big category of developing countries where you can travel for about $1000 a month, give or take. With such a budget, you can pay for hostel accommodation or basic hotel rooms, go sightseeing whenever you’d like, have sit-down restaurant meals multiple times a day, and move about using local transportation, tourist shuttle services, or the occasional short-distance flight. Travelling in these cheaper places, especially on a Western income, can give you some amazing value — and a huge feeling of freedom.

3. Travel frugally in expensive countries (One year: $25000+, One month: $2100+) Travelling in the world’s more affluent countries can be astronomically expensive... at least, if you do it the same way as you would on a regular holiday. The cost of hotels alone can send your budget spiralling out of control. The alternative is to find creative ways to travel more cheaply. For example, some frugal-minded hostel-hopping travellers can get by on about $70 a day in Western Europe. This could mean sleeping in basic hostels and hospitality exchanges or cooking your own meals in hostel kitchens and making packed lunches. You’ll avoid expensive tours and activities, and instead enjoy mostly publicly accessible sights or go on free (or donation-based) city walking tours. While you maybe can’t quite do everything or go everywhere, it’s still possible to travel in expensive countries on a limited budget.

4. Travel like a rockstar in expensive countries (One year: $100000+, One month: $8000+) When money is of virtually no concern, you can truly go everywhere and do anything… but I imagine not many folks will find themselves in this particular boat. One notable travel blogger, who has travelled non-stop for many years running, once shared that he spends well over $100,000 a year. Yep, my eyes were also popping out of my skull like in a cartoon when I learned of this. (He apparently acquired his fortune by selling his internet business during the late 90ies dotcom boom.)

If you’re this well off, you can obviously book any long-distance flight without thinking twice. And you could spend ample time in fancy hotels in expensive places like Dubai, Fiji, French Polynesia, Monaco, and so on. If this were you, clearly you would not be reading this, and you’d already be sipping $30 cocktails in a Presidential Suite somewhere. This book deals mostly with travelling on an average person’s budget, so I’ll talk mostly about the categories 2 and 3. So if you are planning to travel like a tramp with just a bag on a stick or, on the flip-side, if you’ll be jetsetting around the world while ordering bottle service and making it rain, then maybe not all of the budget travel tips to come will be the most relevant to you. The key point here though is that cheap countries can give you some amazing opportunities to travel further or longer. The differences in cost can make your head spin. One time I came back to England from a trip to Indonesia and realized that just my 40-minute train ride from the airport to central London (cost: 22 GBP) was about equal to an entire day’s budget in Indonesia, which would have included all transportation, accommodation, meals, and sightseeing. Of course, not everyone can benefit from such varying levels of income and development. But cheap countries do give many of us some fantastic opportunities—and I think they’re always worth keeping in mind.

Determining a budget Once you’ve got your sights set on a few destinations, you can start saving up for your trip. Obviously, it will help a lot to know roughly how much you’ll need. The longer your trip, the less of an exact science this becomes. For a shorter holiday, you might well book everything ahead and create a super accurate estimate of the total costs. On a longer trip, you are far less likely to book everything ahead, and your whims might lead you towards unexpected expenses (or financial windfalls) during your journey, making it much more difficult to budget precisely. When estimating your budget, consider adding some wiggle room. Maybe save up 10 to 20% more than you think you need, as it can simply reduce any money-related stress. There’s also nothing worse than being halfway around the world in a place you won’t be back any time soon, only to realize you can’t do something totally amazing because you’re just a little bit short.

If you want to go balls-out with your budgeting, then you only need to look for spreadsheet templates online. Search for terms like “RTW travel budget spreadsheet” or “RTW budget calculator” and you will find spreadsheets with dozens of tabs and countless of columns that let you seemingly work everything out to the last cent. Don’t let such spreadsheets deceive you into thinking you can truly predict all your expenses, but they can certainly be helpful tools. Budgeting doesn’t have to be rocket surgery; it can be as basic as making a list of your fixed costs and a list of your everyday travel costs. For your fixed costs, add up any pre-trip expenses, as well as any major one-off expenses you’ll incur during your trip.

Separately, you can then work out your day-to-day cost of travel. This includes food, drinks, accommodation, and allowances for transportation and sightseeing. Travel guides usually give broad estimates for daily costs (e.g. “between $20 and $30 a day”) which can be a good starting point. Of course, people travel in many different ways, so these estimates are always a bit tricky. For instance, the typical backpacker budget for Nicaragua is around $20 to $25 a

day, yet I’ve met some master travel hackers spending as little as $10 a day there (e.g. by sleeping in a tent, buying food directly from farmers, and so on). Check the assumptions behind the suggested budgets and what sort of travel style they’re about. Travel guides also typically have a low, mid and high range estimate for a country. There are many example budgets listed online as well. For instance, you can find a killer list of travel budgets at legalnomads.com/travelresources/#budget Again, check what travel style these examples are based on and if they’re similar to yours. Another way to find your daily cost estimate for a country is to collect specific bits of information yourself (such as the average price of a meal in a budget restaurant or the average price of a beer). Good websites to use for this are priceoftravel.com and budgetyourtrip.com. For accommodation costs, you can look at booking sites. Put everything together and you’ll get a rough daily cost. If you are planning to travel through multiple countries, you can make a daily cost estimate for each country. Then add up your daily costs depending on how long you are expecting to stay in each country, and add up your fixed costs, and you will have yourself a rough savings target. This is, of course, a pretty diligent way of doing things. Plenty of travellers also don’t budget at all; they simply hit the road, spend what they have to, and pick up jobs or volunteering gigs when money runs low. But I still think it’s good to have at least some vague notion of the costs, as it will just be one less thing to worry about.

Travel hack: be privileged Okay, let’s take a quick break from all this budgeting talk to address a potential elephant in the room. Maybe right now you’re thinking, “Dude, I’m from Bulgaria where the minimum monthly wage is a paltry 260 Euros—how am I supposed to save up anything for a backpacking trip?”. (Or perhaps you’re from a similarly lowwage country.) Or maybe you’re like, “Umm, hello, I’m a broke-ass student! All these thousands of dollars or euros are mentioned waaay too casually here.” Well, you might be right. Clearly, not everyone has the same resources available. I‘ll also admit that saving up can be more difficult depending on where you live and the opportunities you have. Travellers from low-wage countries are kind of screwed in this regard as their income isn’t worth much

more abroad. Meanwhile, someone from, say, Germany can still make a good salary even as a student working in a bar—and living frugally for a while can earn them weeks or months of travelling. Some of us are ultimately more privileged than others. This isn’t just about money: it’s about your passport too. For example, many Iranian travellers have told me about how excruciatingly difficult it is for them to get any travel visas — and it’s really no joke. A traveller from the Philippines once told me she’d been waiting for a European visa for over a year. Meanwhile, I’m just pissing around the world on my Dutch passport getting free visa-on-arrival stamps most of the time. It’s really not fair. Mind you, I don’t think you need to feel bad if you’re from a Western country, as you probably have privileges mostly by chance. But it is unfortunate when people don’t even realize the amazing position they’re in! And when others still manage to hack it and travel far and wide (despite the greater obstacles) it makes the more privileged among us look rather silly when we complain. Anyway, even if your situation is challenging, chances are you can still travel. I know another guy from the Philippines (where a typical monthly salary is around 200 EUR/USD) who had to wait forever for a European visa, got fed up with the process, and then decided to travel through every province in the Philippines instead. Now he’s slowly travelling through Southeast Asia while working online. I met a girl from Bulgaria who’s been travelling for over a year now, reducing her travel costs through house-sitting assignments and helping hotels with their social media accounts. One contributor to Indie Traveller is from the US and managed to travel through Europe for an entire year for under $5000, which is far below what many people might spend. She says that she did this by travelling slowly, hitchhiking, volunteering, cooking her own meals, and of course being disciplined with her spending. There’s that saying, “row with the oars you’ve got”. Maybe your boat has rotten oars, which definitely sucks. But maybe instead of oars your boat is equipped with a 70 horsepower V8 fuel injected outboard motor… and you might not have even noticed it’s there. Many people would love to be in your boat! I might claim in a moment that it’s easy to save up money, or that certain things are “cheap”, but of course this might not be true for everyone. Still, being able to afford travel is often a matter of priorities. I hope you’ll get some creative ideas on how to get the money together for an amazing trip, even if the overall difficulty will obviously be different for everyone.

Saving up money Wait, where were we? Oh, right... we were trying to get the financial things in order, so we can get this show on the road! Once you have your estimated budget, you will now need to save up money (unless of course you happen to already have enough savings). The key to getting your travels funded is to make it your top priority. The more determined you are, the faster you will get there. Consider opening a separate savings account for your travel fund so that you can keep the money clearly separated, track your progress more easily, and better resist any urges to spend those hard-won savings.

Increasing your income At the risk of stating the obvious, the easiest way to save up money is to make more money. Perhaps it’s possible to work additional hours or get more clients. This doesn’t necessarily require a well-paid high-skilled job. For example, I met a Dutch girl in Indonesia who funded a three-month Asia trip by working extra shifts as a waitress. In countries with a good minimum wage, it is common for graduates or students to fund their travels through side jobs, summer jobs, or seasonal work. Consider if there is extra work you could be doing on the side. The internet makes this increasingly easy. You can look for online jobs at sites like Upwork (upwork.com) or Fiverr (fiverr.com), for example. You can also use the sharing economy to make some extra cash; you could drive people around with Uber or Lyft, cook dinner for people with EatWith (eatwith.com), or become a tour guide in your local area with Vayable, WithLocals or GetYourGuide. Let your friends and family know about your travel goals, as they may be able to help you in achieving them. If your birthday or the holiday season comes around, ask for contributions to your travel fund instead of the usual gifts.

Reducing your spending Getting enough travel money together is sometimes a matter of priorities. Many people won’t blink at spending serious money on new clothes, going out, or on expensive hobbies—and changing such habits can earn you some serious savings. Here are just some ideas:

Umm… stop buying things! Focus on making maximum use of the things you have now instead of buying new things. So, stop buying any new clothes for a while. Stop buying new video games and play what you already have. When you think you’ll need to make a major purchase, wait at least a few weeks before buying it—either the moment will have passed, or you’ll know for sure you truly need it. Find a roommate. Rent is often a huge chunk of people’s monthly expenses, so see if you can reduce it. Can you share your place with other people? Or put your room on Airbnb? Or maybe you can live somewhere cheaper for a while, before going on your dream trip. Some travellers move in with their parents for a few months to save money. Downgrade your mobile plan. Check how many of those minutes or gigabytes you are using. Often you can get by with a cheaper plan (or with pay-as-you-go). Get rid of unneeded subscriptions. If you have multiple TV or online streaming subscriptions, pare it down to just one, or only watch things that are for free for a while. Look at your magazine subscriptions, online subscriptions, gym memberships, or anything else that involves recurring payments that you can either freeze or cancel. Cook more meals at home. Go to restaurants less often and cook at home instead of getting take-out. Why not try some recipes from the countries you want to travel to? Brown-bag your lunch. This takes just ten minutes every morning but can save you a bit of money every day. Make your own coffee. If you are in the habit of buying a coffee every morning on your way to work or uni, making your own (e.g. using a French press) can save you a decent chunk of a cash. In the US, a tall Caffe Latte costs about $4 at a Starbucks. Multiply this by about 22 working days and that’s $88 saved per month. Drink less alcohol. This could be a bit of a sacrifice depending on how you spend your time, but go out less frequently for a while and you can make significant savings. Those two cocktails that you’re not having tonight might well represent an entire day’s budget in Vietnam. Quit smoking. It’s good for your health and for your wallet!

These are of course just some ideas, and you can probably think of some more that are specific to you. Don’t take your personal austerity program too far though. If you haven’t left the house in months, eat only baked beans from cans purchased in bulk, and have reduced your entertainment options to playing solitaire or telling stories to your cat, then you’ve probably cut a little too deep. Making too many sacrifices will make you lose motivation, so it might be better to still let yourself have some fun while you save.

Sell your crap Another great way to make some extra money is to sell things you don’t really need. It’s amazing how much you can end up hoarding over the years. Go through all of your stuff—all of it!—and be as thorough as you can. Pretend you are moving house and that you have to pack up everything: open every drawer, cupboard, and storage space, and take a full inventory of everything you own. Think hard about the last time you actually used things, then eliminate anything that’s not essential. Have a yard sale or sell things on eBay, Craigslist, Gumtree, OLX, or whatever your local equivalent is. I did this before one of my journeys and earned myself an additional month of travel. I kept digging up things that I hadn’t even thought about since, well, probably the last time I moved. I sold many videos games, box sets, and movies that I kept only for nostalgic reasons but was realistically never going to touch again. I found my old broken laptop and realized I could still sell it for spare parts. I sold my printer with the goal of going paperless. A bunch of kitchen appliances I never used went out the door too. Decluttering can not only make you an extra buck, but it can be a worthwhile exercise in itself. As the saying goes, “the things you own will end up owning you.” Now might be a good time to donate unwanted clothes to charity, or to throw out those stacks of magazines that have just been accumulating. There are many excellent blogs dedicated to having a more purposeful and minimalist life free of things you don’t really need. Check out Zen Habits (zenhabits.com) or Becoming Minimalist (becomingminimalist.com).

Eliminating debt You might have an existing debt burden that makes it more difficult to simply drop everything and travel. It seems the issue of debt is can be

especially relevant for some readers from the US, where credit card debt, household debt and student debt are relatively high. I’m not the best to give personal finance advice, but if you want to know more about this topic there are some excellent blogs you can follow. Check out getrichslowly.org, goodfinancialcents.com, and manvsdebt.com for ideas on how to save up money or get your personal finances in order before you travel. The Man vs. Debt blog, while a few years old now, deals specifically with eliminating debt with the eventual goal of going on a round-the-world trip.

Reducing your overhead What to do with your home while you’re abroad? It’s something to ponder, as that rent or mortgage will still be added on top of your travel costs. One solution is to rent out your place while you’re away. This may already cover the cost of your rent/mortgage and house insurance, or even make you a little profit. Another option is to move out and give up your place entirely. This will probably feel like a drastic move, but for an ambitious trip it may be worth the huge savings you’ll make. If you do give up your home, you will need a secure storage space to keep your belongings. Perhaps friends or family have some space to spare. Selfstorage providers are another solution. Look for ones outside of city-centers, which can be way cheaper for long-term storage. Since storage fees are a continual drain on your finances while you are away, it is definitely worth finding a good deal. Make sure that storage costs don’t exceed the cost of the items you are storing. I once stored a bulky 3-seater IKEA sofa for half a year that I honestly should have just sold and repurchased. Try to downsize by throwing away unused items or donating them to charity. You truly don’t realize how much things you own until you are trying to cram them all into a storage unit!

Working while travelling Finally, another way of financing a trip is not to do it all ahead of time, but to work during your trip as well. This is usually how people manage to stay on the road for a very long time or even indefinitely.

Working locally You can find work while travelling in many ways. Some travellers will work in bars or do reception work in hostels. This doesn’t always pay very

well, and in some cases doesn’t pay at all (some hostels merely offer a free bed and a meal in exchange for your work). But if you can find a good bar or hostel gig, it can at least be a cheap way to be based somewhere for a while. If you are still under 30 or so, it’s especially easy to get a working holiday visa in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, France or Ireland. This will allow you to stay in a country for a longer period than on a tourist visa, and it will let you officially apply for work. Australia is a particularly popular destination for seasonal work such as fruit-picking, and you can make a killing there so long as you resist spending all your earnings within Australia where cost of living is very high. One of the most popular and financially rewarding jobs abroad is to teach English as a second language. Becoming an ESL teacher requires getting certified (this takes about a month), after which you will be qualified to teach English classes almost anywhere (although not all schools will accept the most basic of qualifications). You can make serious cash in countries like United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Salaries in other places are not as high (such as Vietnam, Colombia, Costa Rica, or China), but your cost of living there will be significantly lower as well. Not all ESL teachers are native speakers, with some speaking it as their second language themselves. Beyond teaching or seasonal work, think of any skills you have and how they might help you. Some people offer massages or haircuts to other travellers or teach yoga or music classes. Others go busking or street performing. You can make money by being entrepreneurial as well: I met one guy who was raking it in by organising bar crawls and movie nights for backpackers. I met a guy who was a pretty decent photographer, and so he offered to make high-quality photos for hotels and hostels and help them with their marketing in exchange for either money or free accommodation. He travelled through all of Central America in this way. To find work you can look at local job boards, or you can use platforms specifically dedicated to connecting travellers with local temporary work. Great sites for these include Working Traveller (workingtraveller.com), Job Monkey (jobmonkey.com), Kareeve (kareeve.com) and Jobs For Travellers (jobs4travellers.com.au). As the owner of one of these platforms told me, the absolute key to getting increasingly better jobs is to collect good references. Grab whatever job you can get at first, then make sure you do well and get a

great reference, which you can then use to get better paid work next. This process is the same as C.V. building at home, just on a much smaller scale. The skills that often pay the best are ones that are difficult for companies to get locally. Let’s just say that social media marketing skills are pretty scarce in outer Mongolia. Just being able to speak English or another major language can often get you good temporary work, as well. Finding temporary work can be as easy as just putting the word out there. Mention that you are looking for work to every shop owner and hotel or hostel manager you meet along the way. They might have a job for you or might know someone else who has.

Working remotely Finally, another category of work takes place entirely over the internet. If you have any job skills that require only a laptop and some WiFi, then this could be you. Work that can potentially be remote includes writing, translation, web development, search engine optimization, consultancy, accounting, copywriting, marketing services, graphic design, photography, data analysis, and much more. I even know a therapist who sees clients online, and an architect who designs buildings while she’s on the road full-time. If you’re already a freelancer, then you could perhaps work for your existing clients from any location. If you are already employed at a company, you may still be able to take your work from the road. I once travelled with a friend who worked for an NGO that was going through a slow period, and she persuaded her department to let her go away for 6 months so long as she would still dedicate one day a week to writing reports on her laptop. Some digital nomads take things one step further by becoming internet entrepreneurs, setting up virtual businesses such as e-commerce shops, e-book sales businesses, or blogs that are monetized in various ways. The popular manifesto for this kind of mobile lifestyle is the book The 4Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, which got many hopefuls chasing the dream of doing minimal work from a hammock in paradise. I read the book many years ago, and while it’s somewhat flawed and paints an overly simple picture it did inspire me to pursue my travel blog and another internet business that I’ve since sold. I can say from experience that things are not as easy as the book makes you believe, though the general mindset it promotes is definitely very helpful and inspiring. Keep in mind that when you’re working remotely, you’ll have to regularly drop whatever you’re doing and, well, sit down and work. With no divides

between your working day and your downtime, that can be easier said than done. You might be fully in the travel flow but then have to force yourself to find a café with WiFi or a co-working space. Digital nomads often find it hard to get much done when they are constantly on the move and will instead stay put in one place for several months so they can focus. Another disadvantage of the digital vagabonding ways is that you can never be too far away from a WiFi or 4G signal. I’ve often recommended cool off-the-beaten-track places to digital nomad friends only to see them staying based in a much more accessible hub for their entire trip, as they just can’t take their work to the jungles, mountains, or any remote islands—or not even some charming rural village where the internet just happens to be slow. That said, online work can offer some great opportunities. A friend-of-afriend travelled the world and for a time got happily stuck living by a gorgeous volcano lake in Guatemala while ghostwriting ebooks for a UK company. I once went shark diving in the Philippines with a programmer from the US, and while we were having drinks afterwards, he was simultaneously debugging a website for a client (on his smartphone, no less!). I myself managed to generate an income from my travel blog which I could update from anywhere, although I always caution that this took many years to build up. Travel blogging is certainly not the easiest path to making a good income; I think blogging about other less saturated topics can be a more interesting path. Resist paying many hundreds of dollars for ‘digital nomad courses’ peddled by so-called lifestyle consultants—this money is better spent on just getting a good laptop! If certain nomad gurus seem totally obsessed with projecting an image of success online, it’s probably because they’re living entirely off their course or ebook sales, so they might not have much actual insight to share. It’s generally better to learn things through online communities, free tutorials, or meet-ups instead. For example, you can find an amazing resource and community for digital nomads at Nomad List (nomadlist.com). If you are thinking of doing just some opportunistic freelance work while abroad, be sure to check out platforms such as Upwork (upwork.com) and Fiverr (fiverr.com), which connect freelancers with all kinds of one-off jobs.

Reducing your travel costs Okay, so we’ve looked at how you can save money for your travel fund, and how you could make more money as well. The final piece of the puzzle is

reducing your costs while you travel. Since this is such a big topic, it is covered in its own chapter (Chapter 5). It will go into greater detail on how to find cheap flights, save money on accommodation, food, and other regular expenses, how to haggle to get the best prices, and much more.

Finding the time to travel Moving on from the issue of money, let’s look at the issue of time. If you are a student or recent graduate, then count yourself lucky because you are in a life phase with fewer commitments than most. For you, money is probably the main limiter rather than time, so simply try to travel for as long as you can or want to. Go with the wind, young grasshopper! The same is of course true if you’re retired; time is unlikely to be the biggest obstacle you face. But for the rest of us, it can be tricky to find the time to travel, especially when there is a job or other life commitments in the way. You might have plenty of money saved up, but then still have no way of travelling more, so let’s look at a few potential solutions.

Traveling loads while keeping your job The obvious way to travel long-term is not to have a job at all, but that might not be right for everyone. Before we consider this nuclear option, could it be possible to travel more while still staying in your job? Well, maybe. Outside of the US, it’s common to get at least around 30 days of annual leave in many countries—usually through some combination of mandatory national holidays and some free holidays. In my home country of the Netherlands you get at minimum 13 national holidays plus another 20 holidays. I’ll spare you the whole jigsaw puzzle, but by using those 20 days strategically around weekends and in combination with some of the mandatory holidays, you’ll usually be able to go on four 10-day holidays a year plus a couple of shorter trips. That’s not too bad! (One downside is that many people try to do this, so prices go up around these popular periods. If you’re flying, be sure to book early.) Some travellers make agreements with their employer allowing them to take unpaid time off and return to their jobs after their trip. I once thought that was only possible within, say, cushy internet start-ups eager to please their star employees—but it turns out that’s not strictly true. For instance, I met a psychotherapist who got three months of unpaid leave, and a call centre

worker who was able to get away for six weeks. Usually such arrangements take advantage of a slow period within the organisation. It’s a win-win, as the employer can reduce their overhead for a while and will get you back later refreshed and already trained on the job. Mind you, these examples are of travellers from Europe, and American readers may not always have as much luck as the work culture may be different there. If you’re trying to get away for a not-too-crazy amount of time such as a month, this can potentially be done through a combination of paid and unpaid leave. While on a permanent contract I once managed to double my time off by requesting additional unpaid leave on top of my accrued holiday. I made the argument that I had gone beyond the call of duty at work in recent months, and that I had a unique travel opportunity that I had been dreaming to take. It’s somewhat gutsy to do this and you clearly must be tactful about it, but I guess it’s as the saying goes: you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. In some working cultures it’s entirely acceptable for someone to take a one-time career sabbatical, though you need to lucky to live in a country where this is expected and supported (hello, Sweden!). If you get to travel for work at all, see if it’s possible to add holidays onto any business trips. Clearly this strategy isn’t available to everyone, but maybe it is to you. I used it successfully for a couple of years while working for an international company. When I had to fly somewhere for work anyway, I’d often try to move up the return flight and tack on a few holidays. I was lucky enough to travel in Australia and Japan in this way, among other places. If you ever find yourself getting invited to conferences abroad (for your job, or perhaps for your studies), then try asking the organizers to book the return flight for a later date—if the cost is the same anyway, they won’t ever care when exactly you fly back, earning you a free trip (hopefully to somewhere cool). Finally, as I noted before, some people manage to take their job with them on the road. This may be an option for you if you have the sort of job you can do on a laptop from anywhere.

Travel hack: don’t be American Okay, wait... time out. We need to address another elephant in the room here! Perhaps you’re thinking, “Dude, I’m living in the US where I can never take more than two weeks of annual holiday, and maybe not even all at once.

If I ask for more or try to hack it some other way, I’m definitely going to get fired.” Yeah, fair point. The working culture in the US seems to be quite different from almost anywhere else. It’s often said is that Americans are money rich, but time poor. Not only do Americans get very little vacation time, but student debt and other financial burdens can make it seem irresponsible to not work continuously. To be honest, as a European, I don’t quite know how you Americans haven’t yet overthrown your government or anything. Every country in the world has at least some mandatory paid vacation except for the US (oh, and I guess also the proud nations of Pulau, Micronesia, and the Republic of Kiribati). Even freaking Afghanistan has 20 paid vacation days and 15 public holidays enshrined into its labor law. For anyone caught in the US system this is obviously a very frustrating reality. It’s no wonder that many US travel blogs make travelling sound like a breaking of chains or a jacking-out-of-the-matrix. If you’re American and you want to go on an extended trip, it’s often much harder than for other nationalities. Going away may even still have some stigma attached— compared to, say, Australia, where taking a break to travel for many months is a totally normal and expected thing to do. I wish I had better advice to give, but you might just have to ditch your job to travel more. There are ways of phrasing your time travelling on your resume that make it sound like a valuable and educational experience, rather than just some time slacking off. Mention any work or volunteering you might have done, as well as any soft skills you might have gained from your experience such as planning, budgeting, negotiating, communication, and increased adaptability. Many companies value employees that have some international experience. Another increasingly viable option is to take your work with you on the road. The word “digital nomad” is no longer getting quite the blank stares it used to. These remote workers are often independent contractors or freelancers, though some forward-thinking companies have also begun to allow employees to work remotely. (Search for ‘remote companies’ or ‘distributed companies’). One of the best job boards for remote work that I know of is Remote OK (remoteok.io). Just a few days ago I was catching up with some nomad friends from the States. They’re a couple; he does online e-mail marketing while she teaches English to Chinese schoolchildren via Skype from anywhere in the world.

Over the past year they spent several months in Chile, several in Argentina, several in the US, and are now spending the summer in Portugal. They switch their home base roughly every three months and then take trips around the region whenever they can. While digital nomading is not a perfect way to travel—for example, there’s often much conflict between wanting to experience each place but also needing to work—it can be an amazing way to travel while continuing to generate an income. By the way, you may be surprised to learn that your monthly travel costs can, in fact, be lower than what you’d spend in a month at home. You can take advantage of spending your time in cheaper places, and your life becomes a lot simpler when you just need to fit everything in a backpack or suitcase. It might seem counterintuitive, but many digital nomads are significantly lowering their expenses by travelling, and thus working to pay off debts or building up savings faster. While it’s not an option for everyone, I think it’s certainly a way of playing a bad hand very well, so it’s worth having a close look at whether you have skills that would let you work remotely.

Quitting your job to travel Aside from totally min-maxing your holiday allowance or finding some crazy life hack (like becoming a remote worker), the ultimate way to travel long-term is just not to have a job for a while. This might sound extreme, but it’s the only way to be completely free. Many world travellers either ditch their jobs or were laid off and found in this the impetus to travel (this was also the case for me). Maybe it can be difficult to even imagine quitting your job to travel, especially if you’re on a promising career path—and doing so might honestly not be right for everyone. That said, often the fears associated with quitting have little to do with the realities. If you managed to get your current job, chances are you can find another one like it in the future. Keep in mind that in an increasingly globalised world, having some international experience can be a real asset. Quitting your job probably feels risky, but consider the risk of future regret as well. Will an entirely safe career path still make you happy many years from now, or will you be wondering why you never went on that big adventure when you had the chance? The problem is that it’s all too easy to become overinvested in your career, always hanging on for the next promotion or that next paycheck. Things that aren’t really that important, like your next

employee evaluation or next year’s financial targets, will somehow always seem super important. But I constantly meet travellers around the world who are thankful to have stepped out of the hamster wheel, at least for a little while. Imagine what you’ll be telling your grandchildren about one day: will it be that time you were still working in that soul-destroying job… or the time you were on a grand adventure filled with magic and wonder? I know that one of those does not make for great story-time material.

Other life commitments Besides a job, there might be other commitments keeping you from travelling. If you own a house or if you’re on a tenancy contract, this can almost feel like this is physically tying you down. Wouldn’t it be great if you could tie 20,000 balloons to the roof of your house and fly away like Carl in the movie Up? Sadly, this is not very practical. A better solution might be to sublet your place, or to move out and temporarily put your belongings into storage. You would think that in certain situations you would be mad to go on a big trip. I once thought that once you have a family with kids you’ll definitely have to put any grand travel ambitions on ice until they’re grown up… but then I met a whole bunch of travelling families and my perspective changed completely. In Malaysia, I met an Israeli family with three children travelling continuously. By encountering so many cultures and interacting with so many other kids with different languages, those kids just seemed almost scarily worldly and confident. I imagined them growing up to work at the UN or becoming prize-winning foreign correspondents. On a deserted island off the coast of Panama, I met a French family who sold their car, rented out their house, bought a boat, and went sailing around the world. They planned to sell the boat and settle back down again once they’d traveled for a year. In Vietnam, I met a British couple who were backpacking for two months with an infant. I imagine this must not always be easy, but it just goes to show you that people out there are doing awesome things that some might think are quite unconventional (but are still surprisingly common). Of course, maybe you don’t have a family or any dependants. The broader point here is that whatever is keeping you fixed in one place, there are often

creative solutions that still let you travel. Remember to think outside of the box!

Key points from this chapter Don’t have much money to travel? Then consider cheaper countries first (they’re not that scary!). Or avoid major cities and the most touristy sites and go off the beaten track or to the countryside. Determine a budget so that you know how much money you will need. Your budget will consist of your fixed costs and your day-today travel costs. Keep in mind that a budget can never be 100% completely accurate, especially for a longer trip. Keep some flexibility in your budget in case of unexpected expenses. You can fill up your travel fund at home either by making more money or by saving up. There are often lots of ways to reduce your day-to-day spending, either by holding off on larger expenditures or simply by being less wasteful. Selling some of your belongings can also be a great way to get some extra money. Try to reduce your overhead while you are away for a long time. Your biggest expense is probably going to be your rent, so try to sublet your place or move out and put your belongings in storage. You don’t have to quit your job; there are some ways of getting more time to travel without taking this step. But quitting your job will let you travel as long as you want, so long as you’ve got the financial means. Working while you travel is another way for you to fund your journey and to travel longer or even indefinitely. You can pick up the odd job locally as you travel, or you can find ways to work remotely via the internet. Even if you have kids or other responsibilities at home, you may still be able to travel—even if it seems a little unconventional!

CHAPTER FOUR

Planning to improvise: how to create your route You trudge through the airport terminal in a numb haze, the halls echoing with announcements in languages you don’t understand. It’s been a long flight and you’re tired and jet-lagged—yet you’re feeling excited all the same. This is it. This is the start of the trip you have been dreaming of! You eagerly make your way through the labyrinth of immigration checks, duty free shops and service desks, until one final hallway funnels you into the arrivals hall. As the automatic doors slide open, a new world is opened to you… one that you know is filled with limitless potential for adventure. You can go anywhere, do anything, be anyone! But then you just stand there, the proverbial tumbleweed passing you by… Uhh, right. So… what’s the plan now? Where do you actually go from here? Suddenly, all those stories you’ve heard about travelling by your own rules and just sailing with the wind might seem a lot easier said than done. Those inspirational bloggers that told you to ‘just do it!’ may have forgotten one minor detail: ummm, how, exactly? How do you figure out where to go, where to stay, and how to get there? The answers may be obvious to an experienced traveller, but they can be real head-scratchers if it’s your first time travelling—or even if it’s just your first time in a totally different part of the world, where the language, customs, and travel methods might be completely different from what you are used to. It’s no surprise that many travellers struggle in the planning phase. Most of the questions I get from readers of Indie Traveller fall into one of the following categories: ‘How do I get from A to B? And where can I book tickets? HELP.’

‘Is Y days/weeks/months enough for doing X?’ ‘I’m planning to travel in the winter/autumn/rainy season/high season/lunar new year/etc. - but is this just a terrible idea?’ ‘Do I just start booking accommodation right now? Do I just show up to places? What if everything is booked out?! WHAT IF EVERYTHING IS BOOKED OUT????’ These are all good questions — and they are just the tip of the travel planning iceberg. But fret not, as this chapter will help you out. We’ll talk about all the things you should plan in advance of your trip, as well as the things that you can probably best figure out day-to-day as you travel. That way, when you arrive at your destination and you leave the airport, perhaps you won’t just be paralysed by that vast horizon of possibilities ahead of you.

Planning an adventure vs. a holiday I have some friends who, when they are organizing a weekend getaway or a short holiday, go truly balls-out with their planning. One of them once asked me for feedback on a weeklong itinerary. What she sent me the most amazingly elaborate spreadsheet that had everything

broken down line-by-line; exactly where to stay each day, what to do, and even restaurant options for every lunch and dinner based on TripAdvisor or Zomato reviews. To me this is like ‘whoaaaa… craaazy!’, because I never plan a trip in this way. But I get why she does it: she only gets so many holidays each year and so she doesn’t want to leave anything to chance (she’s from the States, i.e. royally f**ked when it comes to vacation allowance). In her case, planning more surely means much fewer headaches for her and her boyfriend, and less time wasted on figuring things out during their trip. Their goal is just to have a relaxing break from the daily grind. But when you’re planning more of an adventure, that approach has some major downsides. Obviously, pre-planning everything will remove any spontaneity and will reduce your chances for making your own discoveries. As travel writer Paul Theroux put it, “It is fatal to know too much at the outset: boredom comes as quickly to the traveller who knows his route as to the novelist who is overcertain of his plot”. Still, it might seem that a longer trip requires more planning than a shorter one. Actually, I find the opposite is usually true. With more time available, you have more room to leave things to chance. You can take a punt on something—and if a place doesn’t work out, you can always just move on. Also, the longer your trip, the more variables there are to consider (such as the weather, travel delays, fatigue, etc.) which become increasingly difficult to predict. When a single thing goes wrong in your supposedly perfect plan, it can have a terrible domino-effect on the rest of your meticulously planned trip. When I go on a shorter trip (e.g. one or two weeks), I usually do a bit more planning just to make sure I make good use of my limited time. Still, these plans are almost always of the back-of-a-napkin sort, not the detailed spreadsheets my friends like to make. When I go on a longer trip, I will still research some places of interest, but I never nail down my exact route. I love doing it that way—and I find that it gives me less stress than when planning everything ahead of time.

How to wing it (more or less) Playing it a bit loose with your plans can be a lot of fun. But it might also seem a little scary at first, as it just doesn’t give you anything to hold onto. And the truth is that some planning is still required for a journey, even if you were to play things mostly by ear.

Ideally you should plan enough to have a decent sense of what you’re doing, while keeping your plans flexible enough to pursue unexpected opportunities as they come. Striking that balance can be tricky, and it’s all too easy to over-plan. What should and shouldn’t you plan in advance? Well, if you are a traveller wishing to embrace the spirit of adventure, here’s what I recommend: DO research the countries you intend to go to. Find out what they’re all about. Make sure you are aware of any practical challenges you may face, any potential safety issues, the weather and climate, cultural quirks, and so on. This will let you travel with confidence and quickly hit the ground running. DO investigate the visa requirements (and possibly pre-arrange visas if needed), sort out your travel insurance, and take your time to pack your things well. DO make yourself aware of any national holidays, festivities, etc. that could make late bookings more challenging. (I always manage to find great places to stay by booking a day or two ahead of time or by simply showing up, but the exception are usually major events like, say, the Day of the Dead in Mexico or Carnival in Brazil.) DO have a broad outline in mind for the route you want to take. Your route could end up changing quite a bit, but it’s helpful to have at least a first draft. And as for what you shouldn’t plan for:

DON'T start booking all your accommodation ahead of time, nor any transportation except for your flight to your initial starting point. Well, there might be just one exception: booking your very first one or two nights of accommodation is a good idea, as you’re still just settling in and you’ll probably want to know exactly where you’re going after you’ve landed. Beyond that, I think it’s usually better to take things one step at a time. DON'T go looking for detailed restaurant or hotel recommendations before your trip has even started. It’s not worth it yet, and you will probably waste a lot of time. You’ll have better information once you’re on the ground, and I think it’s much more efficient to research these things as you go. Staff at hostel or guesthouse reception often have great local tips for places to eat. DON'T break your whole trip down into individual days (e.g. 1½ days in such-and-such, then 3 days in something-or-other). Maybe you end up loving

a place, so why not spend a few more days there? Maybe a place is not what you hoped it would be, and then you can simply move on. If you’re one of the lucky ones planning a very big trip (like going roundthe-world in a year) then you may find this quickly becomes overwhelming, as there are just so many moving parts and so many details to get lost in. If you find yourself fretting over, say, transportation options for a part on your journey that’s three months in, you should probably back yourself out of this rabbit hole. Chances are that once you get closer to that part of your journey, someone can tell you exactly how to do this, or it will be easy for you to find out. For example, I spent all through Central America wondering just how the hell I was going to go overland from Panama to Colombia, as there are no roads between them at all (only vast impenetrable jungles filled with armed smugglers and jaguars). Then I got to Panama City and it took me literally 20 minutes to book passage on a sailing boat to Cartagena. Turned out I wasn’t the first ever person to end up there wanting to make this trip. Fear of the unknown can easily make you want to plan too much. Try to resist this urge, because winging it (at least to some degree) is one of the great pleasures of backpacking. It helps to have a clear itinerary for your first couple of days, but beyond this it’s nice to plan with a pencil and eraser in hand, rather than writing everything in ink.

Why your plans will totally change If there’s one thing I learned about travel, it’s that nothing ever quite goes according to plan. Well, almost never. It’s just one of those annoying things about travelling, but it’s also what makes it so much fun. (Although sometimes only in hindsight.) I once planned a trip through Croatia with a friend of mine. We had blocked out our time in what we thought was a very sensible manner, allocating just the right amount of time for each place while travelling in a north-to-south direction. But... as soon as we emerged from a tunnel through the Dinaric Alps, we were caught in a storm of truly epic proportions. When we stepped out of our car at the ferry port to Krk Island, our intended first destination, we nearly fell off our feet. We fought doggedly against the wind, moving almost diagonically while—I’m pretty sure—ripples formed on our cheeks like when dogs stick their heads out of a moving car. When we asked

the burly boatman if his ferry was still going, he pointed at the sky and laughed straight in our faces. Yeah, fair enough. So there went our perfect plan. We looked at a weather map, and then decided to drive 7 hours straight to Dubrovnik in the very south tip of Croatia, which was the only place not affected by that crazy storm. In a twist of fate, the ancient city of Dubrovnik was abuzz with activity when we arrived there, as scenes were being shot for the latest Star Wars film. It was cool to see Dubrovnik dressed up as a sci-fi planet (yeah, I’m a geek) and we even got to hang out with a bunch of the film crew in a bar later that night. We had a total blast, and later resumed our trip in south-to-north direction while avoiding the bad weather. That’s just one random anecdote to illustrate that travel can be unpredictable, but I could have chosen from hundreds more. The main point here, I guess, is that it’s sometimes just not worth fighting stubbornly against the wind. It might work out just as well to let yourself be blown in a different direction (in our case, back to the car, and onto a different route). Anyway, plans often change. Here are a few reasons why this might happen: It’s easy to be overconfident. You probably think you can achieve more than is realistic. I remember this well from planning a backpacking through Peru with that same friend. We had prepared an itinerary while still at home, sitting comfortably with our feet up in our local pub drinking cold beers with our laptops and travel guides out. We had planned some of our steps just by casually tracing some roads on a hugely zoomed-out Google Maps, not realizing how bad some of these roads truly were or how we might get boiled alive by the desert sun while sitting inside a cramped bus for hours. We inevitably slowed down our plans a little as to not wear ourselves out. You don’t know what cool stuff you’ll find. When your plans are flexible, you can still take little detours to interesting places, synchronize your plans with other travellers you meet, or just stay a day longer when you feel like it. You might get unexpected invitations, learn of exciting places you had never even heard of before, or discover a brand new passion. (When I first traveled through Southeast Asia, I fell in love with scuba diving. For a while, I went to many places more so for their subaquatic wonders than for anything at the surface, and I could have never predicted this would become a new travel goal of mine.) You never have perfect information. What will the weather be like? You won’t know exactly for sure. How will you feel several weeks into your

journey? It’s impossible to say. Maybe you’ll be a little tired at that point, or maybe you will still be as hungry as at the start of your trip. Or maybe you get sick or miss a bus somewhere, causing delays. There are always some bumps along the way.

Avoiding annoying immovable dates Okay, I’ll shut up about this whole ‘staying flexible and improvising’ thing in a moment, as I’m sure you get the point already. But I still want to mention a few last things that you might not want to set into stone too much.

Meeting up with friends It can be awesome to link up with friends or family for part of your trip or agree to meet a friend who lives locally at the destination. This does unfortunately put a stake in the ground that you cannot move at all. It could mean having to rush to the meeting point and abandon other travel opportunities just to make it there in time. If possible, schedule any meetups or temporary link-ups with friends or family near the beginning or end of your trip, or keep them somewhat flexible. Perhaps your friend can agree to book a flight to where you happen to be at the time. Or, if you are meeting an expat or local friend, don’t lock in the dates until you know for sure when you’ll be passing through the area. It’s not always possible or convenient to do this, but I’ve met my share of frustrated travellers who had to drop what they were doing so they could be at a certain meeting point in time.

The return flight It depends on how open-ended you want your trip to be, but a one-way ticket to your initial destination can be an interesting option. That way you can start your trip in one place and buy your return from an-as-yet-undetermined endpoint. Or it lets you stay longer than you originally planned, if your finances and circumstances allow. For this to work, keep in mind that some countries have stricter entry requirements for visitors flying on a one-way ticket. For instance, the immigration office may need to see a copy of your bank statement or a plane or bus ticket out of the country, to assure them you won’t be staying illegally or won’t be trapped without a way home. Check the immigration rules of your starting country to see if this is the case, as it varies per country.

Sometimes the easy solution for this is to book the cheapest possible bus or train you can find out of the country and present your booking to immigration. Bizarrely, this is often enough proof that you won’t be overstaying your visa. Sites like Best Onward Ticket (bestonwardticket.com) let you temporarily ‘borrow’ a ticket just for immigration purposes, though the legality of this is probably in some kind of grey zone.

Pre-booked activities You can usually book most experiences or tours while you travel, but visits to certain world-famous sites are restricted and must be booked well in advance. An example of this is the Inca Trail leading up to Machu Picchu in Peru. You can’t just show up for this; there’s a strict limit to the number of permits issued every month and so pre-booking is absolutely necessary. Volunteering assignments are another example of something that usually must be pre-arranged with an agreed starting date. If possible, put any such locked dates near the beginning of your trip, or consider carefully about how much time you truly need to reach these places. Having to quickly make a beeline through several countries just to make it in time for that Inca Trail trek can really mess with the overall flow of your journey.

Choosing the best time to travel Besides figuring out where to travel, another big question is when. Most countries have high and low seasons, often coinciding with the weather during particular times of the year. Travel guides can tell you when it is the best time to visit a country, but know that you can still have a great trip outside of the supposed best months. If you are travelling long-term, it can actually be an impossible puzzle to be in every country exactly at the ‘best’ time, and you might have to compromise. The good news, however, is that you don’t need to be so hung up on going to every country exactly in peak season. Very broadly speaking, there are often 3 months in the year that the weather is quite bad, 6 months in which it’s basically fine, and 3 months in which it is supposed to be ideal. Try to aim for anywhere in the latter 9 months and you will already be doing quite well. In the shoulder or low season, accommodation may be easier to find and a little cheaper. The weather might not be 100% perfect constantly, but if you are spending a lot of time there anyway, there will be less of a risk than if you

are spending only a week. You can deal with a few rainy days if you’re in a country for a month overall, but if you’re so unlucky to suffer 4 rainy days on a one-week holiday, you’ll surely feel like half your holiday got ruined. Most tropical countries have a rainy season, but this doesn’t necessarily mean it rains all the time. Tropical rain showers are usually intense but shortlived. You can take shelter for an hour and wait for it to pass, and if you get wet, the sun will dry you very quickly. The landscapes will also look lusher and greener, though you might not have sunshine all day or every day—so everything has its pros and cons. Some countries do have a typhoon or hurricane season, and in this case, it is a good idea to either visit outside these times or at least to keep a close eye on weather reports. Sometimes I’ve ended up in places during the wrong time of year and it didn’t quite work out. Northern Argentina in winter really blows; I felt like all the cities there were just made for visiting in spring or summer, and it felt like a missed opportunity to be there in winter. I quickly went to Brazil seeking higher temperatures. Other times, it worked out well. Myanmar in the hottest month of the year is, umm, challenging to be sure. Temperatures on the plains exceed 40s°C at times (125°F) and in the afternoons I couldn’t do anything but take a long siesta. But the epic temples of Bagan were virtually deserted — and exploring them in early morning without the usual throngs of tourists was simply magnificent. On a longer journey, the climate and weather will inevitably become a little hit-and-miss. You just can’t be everywhere at the perfect time. Just keep in mind you can often still have a great time in a country well outside those two or three months of the year that travel guides are supposedly the best.

How to use travel guides well So, how to get some ideas for where to go? Well, call me old fashioned, but I think paper travel guides are still great tools for planning a trip. Sure, there may be an unending supply of free information out there on the interwebs. But travel guides—like those published by Lonely Planet, Frommer’s, or Rough Guide—often give you a more in-depth take than the average blog post or hastily compiled ‘top places to see’ listicle. But as insightful and useful as travel guides often are, they can also be incredibly frustrating to use and even misleading at times. You often have to read between the lines or take certain things with a fair pinch of salt.

You see, travel guides are incredibly good at painting a rose-tinted picture. This can lead your imagination into overdrive, which can be fun… so long as you can manage your expectations. Right now, I have a Lonely Planet guide for Morocco in my backpack. It paints beautiful scenes, speaking of fertile plains, royal dynasties, and ancient caravan routes. Cities are described as an “assault on the senses”, and mountain villages have a pace of life that is “seductively slow”. This might all be true, but you can see they have a way with words. Descriptions are wonderfully poetic throughout. “On elegantly wrecked seafronts, sip a mint tea and gaze at the wild Atlantic coast.” Hmm yeah, tell me more… “Miles of glorious sands peppered with small fishing villages, historic ports, and fortified towns weave along Morocco’s blustery coast.” Oh yeah, say it just like that… “Berbers with light robes flutter under desert skies, their dark herds dotting the rocky hillsides”. Yes, whisper it in my ears… I should probably stop here before things get out of hand. But let’s be honest about what this is: it’s travel porn. And you know what? There is nothing wrong with a little, uhh, stimulation. It’s fun to fantasize about exotic places and feeling like you’re already there. As overly romantic as some of the descriptions might be, if you squint your eyes a little you might still recognize them in reality. The difference between imagination and reality can be a little jarring though. I remember Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand with a nearmystical reputation, being kind of a bummer at first. The travel guides made me imagine some kind of shimmering Shangri-La amid rolling green hills—a peaceful place with Buddhist calm where people go to better themselves through yoga, cooking classes, and muay thai. Turns out it’s just a regular city where people work and study, with honking traffic, a dozen Starbucks cafés, and restaurants filled with as many farang (foreigners) as Thai locals. But sometimes the places that make a jarring impression at first end up becoming your favourites. Chiang Mai is actually a super fun and cosmopolitan place; if you dig below the surface, you’ll also find some great bits of local Thai culture. The real Chiang Mai may have even been better, in its own way, than the fake ethereal version from my imagination. But while some places get glorified in guidebooks, other times they will tip-toe around what they really want to say as to not offend the people who are from there. Euphemisms and diplomatic language will give you clues. If a

guidebook says, “this remote town may not be instantly charming, but the dedicated traveller might wish to spend a day here” it is actually code for, “Umm, you know what? Don’t bother.” If your guidebook is a couple of years old, clearly the restaurant and accommodation recommendations might not be totally reliable anymore. Such listings are especially volatile in nature: prices change, owners change, and what was once a great place could now just be coasting on its past reputation. This stuff, I think, is better looked up online or simply discovered by yourself. By the way, I used to think travel guides were written by people who spend many months on end exploring every nook and cranny of a destination, but it turns out that’s not exactly how it works. Guide authors are often on just a two-week assignment to hit up some specific spots, while most information is carried over from previous editions. The authors don’t personally stay in every hotel, as there simply isn’t enough time. According to one writer I spoke with, they stay in about a third of the hotels (on many visits over many years), often do a quick 20-minute visit for about another third, and add another third based on online reviews or reader feedback. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The economics of travel guide publishing don’t allow for unlimited research, and so it’s wise think of your guide as a guide and not the ultimate truth. Travellers who clutch their Lonely Planet a little too tightly do get made fun of sometimes. Don’t feel as though you can never veer off from what the guidebooks recommend!

How to find the best info online Travel guides may be imperfect sources of information, but using online information is often equally tricky in other ways. As a travel blogger, I might have some particular insights into this. Sadly, there’s a lot of lazy copying on the internet. The dirty secret of many travel sites is that they employ cheap outsourcers from the Philippines or India who simply rewrite information scraped from other sites and then repackage it into easily digestible listicles. Some sites openly admit to never having visited the places they write about. For instance, Touropia.com and Thecrazytourist.com show up at the top of so many search results, but their about pages essentially state their information is sourced from the web and not from experience. Touropia even cautions their articles are for “entertainment purposes” and not to be used as travel advice. Ha.

Even a glossy site like The Culture Trip is known to assign articles to writers who have absolutely no personal experience with the subject matter at all, relying mostly on online research to crank out high volumes of content every month. These copycat sites do occasionally get it sorta-kinda right. And if you haven’t been somewhere before, the info might seem reliable. But... the devil is in the details. For instance, currently the first result on Google for ‘top places to visit in Southeast Asia’ is a listicle telling you the number 1 place to go is Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Anyone who’s been can tell you that Vientiane is objectively a snoozefest, and no one in their right mind would ever think to rank it number one. The same list then goes on to recommend the Cambodian resort town of Sihanoukville, a wretched place where old Western men go to find prostitutes and where sewage spills directly onto the beach. Hmm. I’m just cautioning here to avoid the obvious listicle-style content mills out there, as there are much better places to get your tips. Not to toot my own horn, but I do think travel bloggers often do a better job. Most of the time, anyway. At least we have physically been there—and we have the photos to prove it. While some bloggers glamorize places in the same way as travel magazines or guides do, for the most part I think we just try to share honest and useful information from a personal perspective. It’s not too difficult to spot the travel blogs that truly aim to help their readers. That’s why one of my favorite search queries for trip research is ‘[thing I want to know about] + travel blog’. Another good one is ‘[search query] + backpacking’. I think these queries often work a little better than ‘best places in X’ or ‘top things to do in Y’, which more often lead to larger content aggregators. Or... simply scroll down to the bottom of the Google results and click on a random page. Be weird and start at, say, Page 9 instead of Page 1. The stuff down there might not be as well-polished or as optimized, but I’ve often found some great tips among the lower-ranked results. As someone who deals with search statistics all the time, I highly encourage you to get creative with your search queries. Don’t just type in ‘best’ or ‘must-see’. Try instead to search for ‘alternative’, ‘off the beaten track’, ‘little known’, ‘unusual things to do’, or whatever else you can think of. You might be surprised by all the cool stuff you’ll find. Maybe that seems obvious, but search data show very few people do this, despite it being an amazing way of finding destinations that are little different or less spoiled.

Another way to slice things is to filter results to the past year only, to get most recent take on a subject. (In Google results, click Tools and then on the dropdown that defaults to ‘Any time’). Again, this is something only very few people do, but it’s a great technique that you can use. Besides scouring the travel blogs for information, another way to get great tips online is to simply ask. There are some some great online communities where you can get excellent advice from other travellers. I’ll mention a few in a moment. When asking these communities, always be specific. If you go in with a general question, like “hey there, i'm just a regular guy going to thailand. Any tips??? thnx!” you’ll get very few replies. But if you can give some context (e.g. your budget or specific interests), show that you’ve already done some basic research, and have a few targeted questions, people are much more inclined to help you out.

The must-have apps and tools So far, we’ve covered travel guides and blogs, but there are also a ton of apps and other resources that can help you in your planning phase—and make your life on the road so much easier. The following are ones I think everyone should know about.

1. MAPS.ME You probably already have something like Google Maps or Apple Maps, but MAPS.ME is much better for travelling. In fact, stop reading this and put this app on your phone right now. Installed it? Good. Now here’s why this app is so awesome. Firstly, you can always use it offline. That’s a biggie, as you don’t always have internet available when you travel. It's also based on the crowdsourced Open Street Maps, which means it has details that no other maps have. I often find tiny things on there like narrow hiking trails, hidden waterfalls, etc. where other maps just show you an empty void. People can also add their own markers to MAPS.ME, which can sometimes give it a bit of a treasure-map feel. One label that I saw in Panama City said, 'GREAT street food try the avocado'. In Bangkok, one pin said, 'washing machines ONLY 30 BAHT!!!'. I love the excitement. While the mapping purists try to delete or edit these scribbles, to me they are just so charming—kind of like hobo signs telling other wanderers where it's good.

2. WikiVoyage WikiVoyage (wikivoyage.org) is basically the Wikipedia of travel information, though it’s much more fun and casual than its encyclopedic sibling. Unlike commercial travel guides, WikiVoyage can at times be a little inconsistent as it relies only on disparate user contributions. Some lesstravelled destinations also get little coverage, as there’s no editor to assign them. But it’s still super useful, especially to get the broad strokes. The “Get in” section often gives you an excellent independent summary of all the transportation options available, and most entries have highly usable bulletpoint lists of things to do. There is another similar site called WikiTravel, though this is a commercial version with lots of advertisements, and despite still regularly showing up in search engine results it has been largely abandoned by the travel community. WikiVoyage is the open, free, and better version.

Make your own free travel guide WikiVoyage has an amazing but easily overlooked feature allowing you to compile entries into your very own customized travel guide. In the sidebar, click “Create a book”. Then for any WikiVoyage entry you wish to include, click “Add this page to your book” at the top of the page. You can then view your book, download it as a PDF complete with book layout, or have it sent to you as a physical book through a print-ondemand service (typically for around $10, depending on how many pages there are). If you want to save just one page, you can also click “Download as PDF” in the sidebar of any entry.

3. Rome2Rio Not sure how to get from one place to another? Just put both destinations into Rome2Rio (rome2rio.com) and you’ll see what your options are... easy peasy! It doesn’t quite list everything—especially in developing countries where there are often many unscheduled connections—but it will at least give you a good sense of what types of option exist and roughly how long they will take.

4. Reddit The brainy community at Reddit is amazing for getting all kinds of personal advice from other travellers and locals. The subreddits /r/travel and /r/backpacking are excellent resources for general and destination-specific travel tips. /r/travel regularly nominates a Destination of the Week, and by looking up these country-specific threads in the archives you can unlock a gigantic wealth of information. Depending on your trip, other useful subreddits may include /r/shoestring, /r/solotravel, /r/roadtrip, /r/longtermtravel, /r/languagelearning, /r/couchsurfing, /r/digitalnomad, and many others.

5. Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree While social media has turned web forums into a bit of an anachronism, they’re still very handy for gathering travel information. The Thorn Tree (lonelyplanet.com/thorntree) is a discussion board that’s been hosted by

Lonely Planet since 1996. I think the community is not as newbie-friendly as Nomadic Matt’s forums or Reddit, but it still serves as a key information exchange for world travellers. Thorn Tree has been around since the dinosaur times of the internet, so sometimes you might realize you’re reading a post from 14 years ago. The veterans will also surely groan if you’re the umpteenth person to ask about, say, “some fun stuff to do in Bangkok”. But if you have a specific or, umm, thorny question, you often get replies within hours if not minutes. Despite its deep archives and some apparent neglect from Lonely Planet in recent years, Thorn Tree remains highly active to this day.

6. Nomadic Matt's Forums Matt Kepnes runs one of the biggest and longest-running travel blogs. Since 2015, it’s also been home to a forum community (forums.nomadicmatt.com) where you can ask tips and advice to other travellers. It’s a friendly and well-moderated place, and thanks to its positive and more helpful tone I think it might well be the heir to Thorn Tree’s throne (whoa, try saying that three times fast).

7. TripAdvisor You surely already know TripAdvisor; this is the place where pretty much anything gets reviewed: restaurants, hotels, sights, museums, and things to do. While it can be a good resource, I‘ve sometimes had mixed results. Some reviewers seem to have unreasonable expectations for comfort or luxury, or they’re a little too happy to recommend generic tourist food instead of the local cuisines. I suppose this is what happens when you simply lump together every review from any kind of traveller and reduce it to an average. Still, it’s a good port of call if you just need some high-level info.

8. Booking.com Booking.com is easily the best platform for finding local and smaller-scale accommodation. That’s because it works a bit differently from most other booking sites. A traditional booking site like Expedia or Priceline works mostly in bulk: they call up a hotel chain and go “yo, how many thousands of beds can you get us?”, and then try to fill as many of those as they can. (I'm simplifying here.) Booking.com instead works on commission, letting hotels create their own profiles after some vetting. This makes it a goldmine for smaller independent

hotels, family-run guesthouses, or budget-friendly hostels. Unfortunately, Booking also uses a ton of annoying tricks to create a false sense of urgency and to get you to book right away. They often pretend someone else JUST!!! booked a room at the same hotel, so you should hurry before the other ones go. Discounts are seemingly always just about to expire. And, most annoyingly, only the positive aspects from reviews are mentioned at first; you need to click through go to the reviews pages to see any of the negatives. But keep a cool head, remember to always filter the results by user review score, and you can find some real gems on Booking.com. Its sister site Agoda (agoda.com) is similar but specializes in the Asia market. It has a particularly good inventory for the Southeast Asia region, although they’ve been gradually combining their inventories.

9. Hostelworld Staying in hostels instead of hotels can save you a lot of money, and they are amazing places to meet other travellers as well. But how do you find the world’s best backpacker hostels? Look no further than Hostelworld (hostelworld.com). This booking site has achieved a near-monopoly within its niche (it also owns former competitor Hostelbookers.com). Many hostel owners don’t like their dominance and the fees they charge hostels, but as a customer I think they’re fantastic. Hostelworld lists not just hostels but also bed & breakfasts, homestays, guesthouses, and some low-cost hotels. Most listings are in the $10 - $25 per night range. You usually pay a 10% booking fee up front and the rest of the money will be paid at reception upon arrival. They’re pretty chill about cancellations, so if you have to change your plans at the last minute you normally don’t lose more than just the booking fee. That’s great news if your plans often change on a whim. Be sure to always filter by rating, as hostels can pay extra to be shown first even if they aren’t rated that highly. Look in particular at a hostel’s atmosphere rating; if it’s very high (say, anywhere above 85%) then this will invariably be the cool go-to hostel where you can make a lot of friends. These top-rated hostels often become meeting places even for people who are staying elsewhere. By the way, many hostels do not take bookings on Hostelworld if it’s within the next 24 hours. So, if it’s around midnight and you’re trying to book something for the next day, most if not all hostels will be displayed as ‘full’'.

Often, they are not actually full, so you can still try showing up in person without a booking or giving them a call. No guarantees, but it’s worth a shot. Every year, Hostelworld awards their ‘Hoscars’ for the world’s best hostels (hostelworld.com/hoscars). These hostels are known for having some of the world’s best hospitality and atmosphere, and I’ve found that staying in any of these can give you an especially memorable time.

10. Wikiloc & Walkopedia These fantastic wikis (at wikiloc.com and walkopedia.net) help you easily find walking trails. They are especially useful for developing countries where good trail info is often missing or hard to find, as they'll try to get you to pay for a private guide instead. Wikiloc also has an app that helps you navigate the trails via GPS, as well as sort trails by rating and difficulty.

11. WikiOverland WikiOverland (wikioverland.org) is a superb resource for planning any extended overland trips. It also goes into a lot of the gnarly details of planning a multi-country road trip, such as dealing with the paperwork at the borders, getting an international driving license, and so on.

12. Atlas Obscura Finally, I like checking this site (atlasobscura.com) every now and then as it does an amazing job of cataloguing weird and quirky sights around the world. It’s the place to learn about mysterious underground tunnels used by the Templar Knights, a bamboo forest that makes strange meditative crackling sounds, a shop selling only time travel equipment, or an island entirely ruled by thousands of cats. (That’s Tashirojima in Japan—look it up!).

Using word-of-mouth tips And yet… despite what the previous sections might suggest, the best travel information does not usually come from guidebooks, wikis, or booking sites. By far your best sources, at least in my experience, are the people you meet while travelling. Backpackers are always eager to share their impressions of where they have been. After all, who doesn’t want to talk about their most fun travel experiences? Exchanging tips is almost like a ritual: it’s not just a way of sharing knowledge, but also of making new friends. Get into a habit of

speaking with other travellers and maintain a curious attitude, and you will unlock a wealth of travel information wherever you go. I like personal recommendations a lot because they are honest and real. You can easily tell from the spark in someone’s eye (or lack thereof) what a place was really like. Often, I’ve gone to places merely because there was something in the air about them, having heard little whispers all along the backpacker trail. Of course, not every personal recommendation is equally helpful, as every person is different. For instance, a travelling party bro living entirely on cheap beer and banana pancakes might not have the most informed opinions about the local cultural highlights in Asia. Still, I’ve generally come to rely on wordof-mouth very often. Locals can be great sources of information, and hostel staff and café or restaurant owners are particularly good people to ask. Taxi drivers may be biased however as they often receive commission for delivering clients to specific establishments. Locals spontaneously offering you to help you find accommodation may also have a stake in this in the form of a commission, which they collect after you have checked in. This doesn’t mean they won’t try to find you some decent accommodation, just that they won’t recommend any places they won’t get money from. Expats are often the best sources of local knowledge. As fellow foreigners they can see things from your outsider’s perspective, but as locals they will also have extensive and unbiased knowledge of the area. If you meet an expat, always be sure to ask them for some tips!

Finding places to stay If you’ve not travelled much before, perhaps the thought of having to find a new place to stay every few days can give you some anxiety. You might be thinking of nightmare scenarios of not being able to find a bed at all, perhaps being forced to sleep on the street while bear-hugging your backpack and fending off the homeless trying to join you for a spoon. Rest assured, such scenarios never happen, and finding a place to stay every night quickly becomes routine. In fact, it’s only becoming easier these days, as a hotel or hostel booking is often just a tap of the finger away. Some travellers opt to simply book all their accommodation online, through sites like Hostelworld or Booking.com. This obviously works well whenever you have WiFi or mobile data available. But booking online is not always an option – and some travellers prefer not to buy a local SIM card,

either to save costs or just to avoid being connected all the time. In these cases, you’ll have to rely on some of the old school in-person methods for finding places to stay. Those offline ways can save you money, too. Not all hotels or hostels are listed online and having a look in person can often land you some great deals, especially in developing countries where not every hotel might know how to promote themselves on all the apps and booking platforms that are out there. In case you’re wondering, it is totally possible to wing it entirely. You could just show up to places without a reservation and look around for accommodation there and then. This free-styling approach is often associated with backpacker travel, though at first it can certainly give you peace of mind to book things ahead. If you do, try to book your next stay no more than two or three days in advance, so that you do maintain some flexibility. The idea is to book things only one step at a time as you travel, not to book everything for many days or weeks ahead, or even when you’re still at home. As you gain more confidence, you might want to try free-styling it more. This approach is especially workable along popular backpacker routes, as travellers are always flowing through these places day in day out, so you know there’s going to be quite a few options around. Cities that are known to be major traveller hubs often have an informal backpacker district where lots of hostels and other budget accommodation are concentrated, making it easy to check a few places quickly.

The main benefit of looking around in person is that you can have a look at the rooms or beds in each place and compare them directly. Sometimes it lets you find super cheap local places that aren’t listed anywhere online. When you show up in person (and have the option to walk away), it may also be possible to bargain down the price. Always ask to see the room before checking in just to make sure you’re happy with it. If you arrive sometime earlier in the day (i.e. closer to noon check-out time), there will of course probably be more vacancies than later in the day. Winging it is easiest when you’re with a group. Someone can guard everyone’s backpacks, while others can fan out and check out some places. It’s also easiest when you’re in a small and walkable town, or when you’re in a touristy part of a city where you know there’ll be lots of options. In some of the more well-trodden places in the developing world, you might be greeted by dozens of touts at your bus terminal, all promoting a different hostel or hotel, although this becomes less common as countries develop. Dealing with such a deluge of attention can be a little overwhelming. Just keep your cool and ignore all the shouting and the waving of laminated pictures of hotel rooms. See if there’s a place you might like and remember you can still walk away if the hotel isn’t what you’d hoped.

There are times when the improvised approach is less advisable. Major holidays can cause lots of places to be booked out. Be mindful of Easter and Christmas, and of local festivities such as carnivals in South America or water festivals in Asia. You can probably still find a place in a pinch, but it just might not be the best place (or it might just be overpriced). If you are dead set on going to the most happening hostel in town you probably also need to book ahead. In major travel hubs there’s often a few hostels that everyone wants to go to, and these do fill up quickly. If arriving somewhere very late, you might also want to have a reservation (or at least have a solid plan for where to go), as it’s not ideal to be roaming the streets with your backpack late at night. When I make a booking, I typically go for two nights, or maybe three if I already know a place is going to be worth staying for a while. I then like to play it by ear: if I later feel like I want to stay a few more nights, I simply extend my stay. Unless it’s at the peak of high season, most hostels can easily extend your stay if you ask them a day or two in advance. Obviously, this impromptu approach is a lot more difficult when staying in hotels, Airbnbs or other accommodation that might have a more rigid reservation system. Hostels and smaller guesthouses will usually give you the most flexibility. It’s also easiest in countries where cheap accommodation is in ample supply. To summarize, here’s how you can go about finding places to stay: Ask other travellers you meet along the way (and who came the opposite way). Someone might tell you “oh, in the next town just turn right after the bus stop, walk 100 meters, and then you’ll find an amazing guesthouse with two friendly dogs and a lovely old lady who makes you free breakfast in the morning”. Blammo, that can be your plan right there. If you don’t have such a recommendation, open a travel guide or online resource such as Wikivoyage.org, and look at the recommended hostels or guesthouses. Alternatively, go to a booking site such as Hostelworld.com or Booking.com and reserve a bed at a hostel with a good rating. Or simply head to your destination and figure things out when you get there. If your backpack is not too heavy (it shouldn’t be!), you can walk around and look for signs offering rooms or dorm beds. Seems complicated? Then just start by making reservations online — but try to do it one step at a time, as you travel.

Regardless of whether you booked ahead, arriving somewhere new is always going to be ever so slightly stressful. Navigating an unfamiliar place demands your full attention, but you’re usually tired from the journey and desperate for a shower, a nap, or just a cold beer. You might feel excited to be in a new environment, but also impatient to get that darned bag off your back. Fortunately, you’re never that far away from a place where you can check in, relax, and get settled in again. Beware of copycats In South- and Southeast Asia, guesthouses and restaurants often shamelessly steal the names of other successful businesses. Trademark law is a little lax around these parts! Sometimes they just put a tiny barely-noticeable ‘2’ at the end to avoid infringement… those sneaky little gits. Pay attention so that you actually end up at the place you were looking for, and not some horrible fleapit that’s just riding their coattails.

Getting from point A to B Moving between places is (usually) much easier than it might seem. You can find timetables for regularly scheduled services in travel guides, at bus- or train stations, or the hotel or hostel staff at reception can help you out. In developing countries, you can usually find lots of little mom-and-pop travel agencies sprinkled around the place where you can book onward travel. Besides scheduled services, there are also often more informal transit options in many countries, such as hop-on-hop-off minivan services that run along certain routes unscheduled throughout the day. In a Western or advanced economy, it’s often easiest to get tickets for trains and buses online. In developing countries, you might not want to bother with this. The websites (if they have one) are often confusing, might not be in a language you understand, or might not accept international payment methods. In these cases, it’s much better to just pay in cash at a travel agency, at a ticket booth, or to get the hotel reception to arrange a reservation for you. As you travel around the world, you could end up using many types of transportation, such as... Buses: wherever you go chances are there’ll be buses, and so this becomes the main mode of transportation for many travellers. The quality of service will depend highly on where you are. In some countries, buses seemingly have no suspension and are barely able to drive up a hill (though this does have its

charm). Arrival times for these types of buses are often more than a little optimistic; expect a long journey in south or southeast Asia to take an hour or two longer than stated. Maybe it does miraculously arrive on time, but it’s better not to count on this. On the other hand, buses are extremely comfortable and even luxurious across many parts of Latin America, probably because there are fewer affordable flights there. Book a first class seat (still quite cheap) and you may feel as though you are travelling by private jet, complete with personal entertainment systems and a row of attendants in formal uniforms welcoming you aboard. (One of my buses in Argentina even had a mini-bar!) Planes: maybe not quite as authentic as travelling overland, but low-cost airlines can certainly help you cover more ground cheaply. North America, Europe and Asia have fantastic low-budget carrier networks. Africa, and Central- and South America sadly lack such prominent low-budget carriers with large networks, and so domestic or regional flights tend to be a lot more expensive there. Taxis: Useful in particular for your journeys from an airport into the city, at least if there isn’t an easy public transit connection available. Just be wary of being overcharged, as taxi drivers are masters of deception. For a worldwide guide on taxis with details on fares, tips on dealing with drivers or touts, and so on, go to www.ihatetaxis.com. It’s a pretty old school site, but it offers a wealth of information. Of course, ride-sharing apps are becoming more and more popular these days (although not yet everywhere in the world), and these let you avoid many of the headaches. Metro/Subway/Overground: an extremely low-cost and comfortable option in any city that has them. There are often day or weekend passes available providing unlimited subway travel, which is a great way to hop around a city freely for a while. Boats: Shorter ferries and water taxis aside, boats are usually not the most obvious mode of transportation for longer routes (as they just plain slow). But some specific boat trips are extremely popular with backpackers. The 2-day Mekong river slow boat in Laos, the 5-day sailing trip between Panama and Colombia, or the 4-day boat trip from Lombok to Flores in Indonesia are just a few examples of boat trips that are popular with the backpacker crowd. Another iconic boat trip is the 6-day trip from Peru to Brazil by riverboat through the Amazon rainforest, though it seems a lot more arduous. My friend did it and still complains that all he ate for an entire week

was plantains boiled in river water and a mystery meat known only as “jungle pig”. Hmm. The best thing about boats is that you’ll be stuck with a bunch of other passengers for a while, so you inevitably get to know them well. While your boat may be going slower than a seahorse, these trips can be phenomenal for making new friends (solo travellers, take note!). Minivans: you can often find private minivan services throughout the developing world. They are possibly the worst way to move around! Don’t be surprised if they manage to cram up to 20 people into a van that would normally seat 8. You’ll have barely any legroom, and the suspension will be so bad that everyone gets constantly tossed like a salad. If you have to go up a windy mountain road in a minivan, you might well get sick from all the swerving back and forth. Some minivans will pick up every passenger individually from different locations, causing endless delay. While not so comfortable, minivans are often unavoidable as there might not be any other easy options around. They usually do have way more departure times than larger buses, and for shorter legs they’re honestly not too bad. Trains: A delightful way to travel! There’s a kind of romance to train travel that’s impossible to beat. You also get plenty of legroom, you can move around the cabin if you want, and you can daydream while the landscape passes you by. Sleeper trains are brilliant, and if as you don’t mind that steady kathunk-kathunk of the wheels you can actually get you some solid sleep at night.

Europe is arguably the best continent for train travel as it has the biggest rail network. Some train rides around the world are simply exhilarating. For me, taking a train in Myanmar was an unforgettable experience as you’ll be bouncing all over the cabin once the train picks up some speed (unlike with those minivans, in this case it’s a lot of fun). In northern Mexico, an amazing journey is the Pacific Railway that passes through the jaw-dropping Copper Canyon, which rivals the Grand Canyon in the US. I also loved travelling by sleeper train through the Caucasus, where the Soviet-era carriages still have old red carpet and wooden panels. Be sure to check out the amazing site seat61.com for tons of info on rail travel around the world. Local transportation: one of the fun things about world travel is just to see all the different flavours of local transportation. The likes of Uber may be taking over the world, and one day we’ll maybe be zipping around in selfdriving cars, but those days will still seem distant while you trot the globe in all sorts of rinky-dink vehicles.

Tuk-tuks are the most common; these small motorized tricycles are an essential form of urban transport in many developing countries. Tuk-tuks can drive you around for shorter distances at prices much lower than taxis. You see them all over South- and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and occasionally in Mediterranean Europe when there’s towns with very narrow streets. In the Philippines you also have Jeepneys, former US Army Jeeps converted into local pick-up buses. Sometimes golf carts are used on smaller tropical islands where the roads are too narrow for anything bigger. All over Central America you’ll find so-called chicken buses, which are converted former US school buses, often very colourfully painted or decorated. If you’re very lucky, you might get on a chicken bus with a massive sound system and disco lights, and where the driver doubles as a DJ. It’s fun and inexpensive to take these local forms of transportation, and they can help you immerse in the local culture. Do always keep an eye on your belongings when travelling in crowded local buses. Your own transportation: while most backpackers travel by public transportation, it’s clearly also possible to travel with your own car or motorbike. There are advantages to this: you’ll see more of your surroundings, you can stop anywhere, go easily off the beaten track, and even camp. But it

can also be a real pain in the neck: self-driving is more tiring, borders involve way more paperwork, and road trips somehow always follow Murphy's law (make sure you know a bit about car repair and bring spares). A great resource to start out with is wikioverland.org, as well as drivetheamericas.com for driving the Pan-American Highway. Of course, it’s easier to just rent a vehicle for some parts of your trip. Having your own vehicle can be hugely liberating as suddenly you can just go anywhere you want. Car rentals are pretty neat, especially if you can split the cost among multiple people. And everytime I go to Southeast Asia, I end up renting scooter motorbikes—as they’re truly everywhere, cost as little as $5 a day, and even in the smallest of villages, they can usually pour you a tank of petrol from a hand-pump or an old coca-cola bottle for a dollar or so. It seems many first-timers in Asia miss out on using scooters, perhaps feeling intimidated to ride on foreign roads, but I think they truly help you get out of the backpacker bubble and see places that many others don’t get to see.

Dealing with travel visas If you wish to visit a country as a tourist, it’s possible that you will have to get a visa. This is a permit allowing you to be in a country for a specified period. A visa comes in the form of a stamp in your passport or, less commonly, a small document that is stuck onto an empty page in your passport. The terminology around visas can get a bit complicated. Even as an experienced traveller, I still get confused sometimes! Many countries have electronic visa, visa waiver, or visa-on-arrival programs that essentially provide automatic entry to many foreign passport holders. Sometimes such entry stamps are still called ‘visas’, though other times this is referred to as ‘visa-free entry’. Huh? It’s honestly all a bit convoluted. There are also a lot of “if”s and “but”s around visas that will be different for everyone depending on your nationality, so I’m going to just stick to some generalities here.

If you have a passport from a Western country, then consider yourself very lucky. Such passports allow easy tourist access to a huge number of countries around the world. All you often need to do is simply show your passport at the border immigration desk, maybe fill out a brief form, get a stamp, and off you go. How long you will be permitted to stay will depend on the country you’re visiting, generally ranging from 14 days all the way up to 90 days. It’s not always so easy, though. To visit some countries, you will have to arrange a visa prior to arrival. This is currently the case with Russia, China, Vietnam and Myanmar, just to name a few. To get such a visa, you will have to apply for one at the country’s embassy, either in your home country or in another country while you are travelling. There are also third party agencies and websites (like visahq.com) that can arrange your visa for a fee, which could be worth it if you want to save yourself some hassle. You can find visa information in travel guides or on your ministry of foreign affairs or state department website. Another very easy way is to go to VisaHQ.com: just select where you are from and where you are going, and you will immediately get a clear answer as to your specific visa requirements. When visiting countries as a tourist, there is always a certain maximum length of stay. If you wish to stay any longer, this is not always possible, but there are two things you can try.

One is to get a visa extension, if these are available. This requires going to an immigration office — of which there are usually many spread around the country — and paying for an extension. If a country offers extensions, there is usually a limit to the number of times you can do it. Another option may be to leave a country briefly only to return for a new visa-on-arrival (a so-called visa run). This is a popular strategy with longterm travellers in Indonesia for instance, where the typical maximum length of stay is 30 days. By flying out to Bangkok or Singapore and coming straight back the same or the next day, they get themselves another 30 days. Visa runs are a tolerated practice in some places, though other times this little trick is discouraged; for instance, if your 90 days Schengen visa runs out when visiting Europe, you will have to wait another 90 days before you can re-enter. It is wise not to overstay your visa. While some countries will be lenient if it is just a couple of days (for instance, Thailand is known to be quite accepting of minor transgressions, only giving you a small fine), other countries may not be so forgiving. I accidentally overstayed by one day in Vietnam and got into some annoying bureaucratic issues at the border. It took a highly dubious payment of $80, plus signing a handwritten agreement that I “wouldn’t sue anybody” about this bribe, for immigration officials to let me off with a warning. The situation could have been easily avoided had I not messed up the dates. Some countries are extremely stringent when it comes to overstaying, and might have you deported or blacklisted, so it’s best to stick to the rules. Some countries may have some additional paperwork requirements before you can enter. For instance, they might require evidence of onward travel (like a plane ticket or bus ticket out of the country) or a print-out of a recent bank statement (to prove that you have enough funds to leave the country). Such requirements are not hugely common, but specific countries can be extremely fussy about this (I’m looking at you, Costa Rica). Entering a country is not always free. Proper visas (ones you have to get in advance) almost always cost money. Visa-on-arrivals are more often free of charge, though from time to time these also require some kind of fee. Clearly, the situation around visas differs a lot on a case-by-case basis. Again, if you are unsure of any visa requirements, the fastest way to check this is at VisaHQ.com—as it will just take 5 seconds to find out. (Another recently launched site where you can easily find kind of information is Visalist.io) Visas can be a bit of a pain to deal with, but they are a necessary evil. The only nice thing about visas is that by the end of a long trip, your passport will

be full of cool stamps. Keep in mind that a tourist visa will not allow you to work legally in the country, as this would officially require a work visa or working holiday visa.

Making your day-to-day decisions One of the amazing things about travelling independently is that you’re always in complete control. There isn’t some tour operator deciding for you where to go! The other of that coin is that you’re always responsible for your decisions—and making the right one isn’t always so easy. You might find yourself at a juncture with many different options available to you. This can feel like being on a TV game show where there’s multiple doors with different prizes behind them. What door should you open? What if you pick the wrong one? You can find yourself sitting there staring at that thoroughly dog-eared travel guide or having loads of tabs open in your internet browser, just agonizing over your next destination. If that happens to you, it might help to get some second opinions from other travellers. Ask someone else what they’d do in your shoes. You can also try laying it all down, having a beer, having some sleep, and deciding in the morning. Often the right answer will come to you. Travel can be full of little setbacks. Maybe you miss a transit connection, arrive somewhere late and hungry, not sleep properly because of lingering jetlag, and end up in a grumpy mood that seriously clouds your judgement. Often a good night’s rest can give you a whole new set of eyes on the world. I’ve often arrived at places at night and found them to be eerie ghost towns—with all the shutters down, shops closed, and the streets deserted. But then you wake up in the morning to the sound of church bells and children heading to school and find that you’re in an utterly charming place. Sometimes you get a sinking feeling that things aren’t as fun right now as they were a while ago. If that happens, maybe you just need to move on the next place and re-roll the dice. On a short trip, you may wish to keep momentum throughout. But if your trip is very open ended, you might well decide to linger somewhere for a while. Doing so can be a great way to connect with the culture, take time out to work, volunteer, take classes, or just to take a break from packing and unpacking every few days. While sticking around somewhere for a while is nice, it’s also very easy to get a little too comfortable and end up being ‘stuck’. You might not even notice this at first, until one day you wake up suddenly realizing you’ve

chewed all the flavour out of a place and urgently need to move on. Fortunately, it’s easy to shift gears quickly. For example, a couple of months into my first Southeast Asia trip I arrived on the Gili islands in Indonesia, thinking I would stay for only a few days before heading on to climb a nearby volcano. Instead, I quickly realized that months of continuous nomadic life had left me utterly exhausted. And so I lingered on the island for weeks on end in what was mostly a sloth-like existence, and while I sometimes felt I was maybe missing out on other things, it also felt good to stay put for a while. That is, until I met this girl I really liked… who unfortunately already had to leave the island just two days later. The morning after we’d said goodbye, I felt terrible. I sat on the beach, just staring at the horizon. Why wasn’t I with her on Bali? We hadn’t discussed such a plan, but it’s where I really wanted to be. I realized I’d made a huge mistake. I suddenly sprang into action and went through what seemed like a jump-cut montage from a movie: I grabbed all my stuff, chucked it into my bag, checked out, sent her a message that I was coming, quickly said goodbye to everyone in my hostel, and got on the first speedboat out of there. After weeks of inertia, it took just 15 minutes to kick myself back into gear. I didn’t know if things would pan out, but I knew that it was time to go in any case. (It turned out to be a good decision, as we combined our travel plans and ended up travelling through all of Myanmar together. But even if that hadn’t happened, I would have still been happy to be on the move again.) Sometimes it isn’t clear what you should be doing next, and sometimes it’s completely obvious. If you don’t know what to do, always go with your gut… even when your gut isn’t full of butterflies.

Dealing with travel fatigue I know, travel fatigue is surely the epitome of a 1st world problem. Oh, poor you, so tired of travelling! Still, it’s an issue that some long-term travellers face. “Another church? Ugh, I’ve already seen dozens of churches.” “Join you on a trip to a waterfall? Sighhh… how far is it exactly? I’ve already been to Iguazu Falls in Brazil, so I probably won’t be that impressed.” Yep, even the most excitable traveller can become jaded eventually, especially as certain types of experiences begin to repeat. But sometimes there are other reasons for tiring of travel. Meeting so many people along the way can be fun, but the inevitable goodbyes can take an

emotional toll. Perhaps after experiencing so much freedom, you just crave a clearer sense of purpose again. Or maybe you just get a little homesick. The obvious solution? Well... you might have to start thinking about going home. But maybe all you need is to recharge your batteries. A good cure for travel fatigue is take a vacation from your vacation, so to speak. Perhaps it’s been a long time since you’ve last had that Sunday-afternoon-in-bed feeling, when you don’t feel obligated to do much at all. Consider booking a nice room, having breakfast in bed, and just staying in and watching movies all day. On a longer trip, it’s a good idea to have some longer breaks as well. After about three months of travelling through Central America, I was really craving a time-out. Somewhere along the coast of Nicaragua I simply stopped moving for a while. For a few weeks my routine consisted of taking Spanish classes, some flailing attempts at learning to surf, and reading books on the beach. I slept better, ate on a more consistent schedule, and regained a lot of energy. Soon I was ready for the next chapter. Sometimes you get a big second wind just from arriving in a new place that has a totally different vibe. And after a while your interest in seeing just the ‘tourist sights’ might begin to wane, but then you discover a whole new level to your journey by slowing down and really soaking in the cultures. Travel can be like a party that never stops, so it’s not that strange if you have a bit of a crash at some point. These feelings are often temporary, but if you find yourself stuck in a rut repeatedly, it might be a sign that your journey is nearing its natural end.

Key points from this chapter Try to balance planning ahead with improvising as you go. A big trip can give you the freedom to follow your whims and discover things as you go. Do research things like safety issues, weather/climate, visas, national holidays, and some potential places to visit. Expect your plans to change. You can’t exactly anticipate everything, so keep your plans flexible. Don’t book all your accommodation ahead of time but try booking a few days ahead as you travel. You can’t be everywhere at the ‘best’ time. It’s okay to be somewhere in the shoulder season, outside of the months that travel guides say you should go. These other months are usually still totally great. Travel guides paint rose-tinted pictures, but they can still be hugely valuable resources. Just use them as a guide.

Use online resources to help plan your trip and book accommodation while you are travelling. Avoid the generic listicle sites and get your information from forums, travel blogs, or wikis. For more interesting results, try alternative search queries, not just ‘top places to see’. Be sure to use word-of-mouth tips. Be specific when asking questions online. You can book tickets for buses, trains, minivans, and so on at your place of accommodation, at the bus or train station, or at travel agencies. Make sure you have a visa. Overstaying is a bad idea! You can try getting a visa extension or doing a visa run if you want to stay in a country longer. You might have to make difficult decisions about where to go, how long to stay somewhere, or what route to take. If you don’t know what to do, follow your heart. If a place ends up being disappointing, you can always move on.

CHAPTER FIVE

How to save money and travel cheaply When it comes to money-saving techniques and travel hacks, it’s best to ignore the clickbait articles. Some of them might claim you can “travel the world for free”, but there is almost always a catch! That said, it is possible to make significant savings throughout your trip by being just a little savvier with your spending. Earlier, we talked about how you can budget a trip and save up the funds. Now we’ll take a deeper dive into how you can keep your costs under control while you travel. Whether it’s saving money on airfare, accommodation, food, banking, or travel activities, a little knowledge will go a long way in letting you travel longer for less.

The money-saving mindset Firstly, you can make huge savings by changing some of your attitudes. By sometimes going the extra mile (literally and figuratively), or by having a willingness to adjust to the local lifestyle, you can end up spending far less money on your travels.

Giving fewer f*%ks Giving too many fucks can get expensive, so try to make do giving less of them. While it’s nice to have certain conveniences or luxuries sometimes, it’s easy to overspend by being just a bit too picky. For example, those on a holiday often want the most stylish or appealing place to stay. But if you’re a traveller, you could probably make do with a cheaper room that maybe doesn’t look as pretty or as modern but is just as functional a place for you to sleep.

Some tourists insist on always booking accommodation in the most obvious or desirable central location, but there are almost always some cheaper alternatives. If you’re not in a hurry, then you probably won’t mind taking that 15-minute tuk-tuk ride into town if that means spending just half as much on your room.

Travelling like a local As they say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” So, eat rice in rice country, potatoes in potato country. If a country is famous for its wine, then drink that instead of beer. Conversely, a pint of locally produced Bia h ơ i beer in Vietnam costs at most about $0.40 (yeah, no joke), while a glass of imported wine will cost you a small fortune there. Just get the local stuff. In tropical countries, try to wean yourself off air-conditioning and get used to sleeping in fan-only rooms. The locals can do without A.C. and so, probably, can you. If you give it some time, your body will adjust to the heat. At least, I used to struggle sleeping in the heat at first but got totally accustomed to it after a while. Doing without A.C. rooms can shave off as much as 50% from your accommodation costs. A good way to transition into this is to lower the setting of your A.C. by a few degrees every night until you no longer need it.

Avoiding flights Despite deregulation in many markets leading to a seemingly unstoppable expansion of low-cost airlines, travelling overland is still often cheaper than flying. While an eight-hour bus journey is clearly not as fast or as comfortable as a one-hour flight, by trading in some convenience you will earn yourself some savings that will let you travel longer. Besides, you will see more of a country by travelling through it instead of flying over it! It’s much better for the environment too; a plane typically emits 20 times more CO2 than taking an equivalent train journey.

Staying in hostels Even if you think hostels aren’t your thing, it’s still worth considering them, as they can really help you cut costs. Dorm beds are super cheap, especially if you are travelling alone and can’t split the cost of a room among multiple people. When travelling together, you can still stay in cheap private rooms in hostels while benefiting from the great atmosphere and the costsaving amenities that hostels provide.

Since hostels are squarely targeted at backpackers—many of whom may be on the road for a while—much more effort is spent on creating a welcoming and communal atmosphere. Often there is an on-site kitchen, a common room where you can browse the internet or watch movies, or a bar area where you can grab a drink, chat with other guests, or play some cards. There is usually information about local activities, city maps, a book exchange, or other helpful services and resources. Hostels can be a great way to save money, but there are still lingering misconceptions about them. The old “youth hostels” of yore were rather grubby places that sometimes didn’t even provide any sheets or bedding. But modern hostels are usually pleasant and comfortable places to stay, often offering dorms as well as private rooms, with proper showers and clean bedsheets, free WiFi, and sometimes other amenities as well. Hostel dorm rooms do come in all shapes and sizes. The most modern ones offer custom-built private sleeping cabins with individual reading lights and USB charging points, while the most basic ones might just have some old creaky bunk beds and some lockers. It all depends on where you are travelling and what sort of hostel you’re looking at. I’ve heard people say things like, “Ughh, I would never stay in a hostel”, which makes me think they haven’t ever stayed in a proper one, or maybe they’re just basing their opinion on a bad ‘youth hostel’ they once stayed in with their school soccer team or something. Modern backpacker hostels cater to various ages and markets and are often wonderful places to stay at a low cost. While you might have to give just slightly fewer f%$ks when staying in hostels than you might in a hotel, if you pick them wisely you can drastically reduce your costs without compromising too much on convenience.

Using the sharing economy Another great way to reduce costs is by using popular sharing platforms. These not only get you things cheaper, but they often offer a chance of having increased contact with locals as well. One of the best-known sharing platforms is Airbnb (airbnb.com), which let you rent someone’s spare apartment or room. Similar services include Wimdu, HomeAway, and Roomorama. The website Campinmygarden (campinmygarden.com) is like Airbnb but for… you guessed it, camping in people's garden. By the way, if you’re slow-travelling or intending to stay somewhere for a while longer, it’s good to know that many rooms and apartments on Airbnb

offer significant discounts for stays of 2 weeks or longer. You can browse these discounted options directly at airbnb.com/sublets. You can also try negotiating directly with the owners for additional discounts. A number of platforms exist allowing you to book a home cooked meal with locals, including Eatwith (eatwith.com) and Colunching (colunching.com). For ride sharing, the current big players are Uber (uber.com) and Lyft (lyft.com). At the current time of writing, local ride sharing apps dominate some specific territories, such as Ola Cabs in India, MyTaxi in Spain, EasyTaxi in South America, and Grab in Southeast Asia. If you’re reading this several years from now, this could all have changed as the market evolves and consolidates. Car sharing sites let you connect with people who have an empty seat available in their car. BlaBlaCar (blablacar.com) is big in Europe and Liftshare) is pretty big in the United Kingdom. These platforms are different from the likes of Uber in that they are for trips covering long distances – such as between cities, or even between countries. Hospitality exchange websites facilitate the sharing of a bed or couch for free. The biggest of these by far is Couchsurfing (couchsurfing.com), though you can also check out TrustRoots (trustroots.org) or GuesttoGuest (guesttoguest.com). While these sites can get you free accommodation, this doesn’t mean you have to be a cheapskate: it’s nice to bring something to eat, drink or share with your host, and it’s common to spend some time with your host unless there explicitly isn't such an expectation. Another way to keep costs down is to essentially work for your accommodation. House-swapping or housesitting is a way of staying in someone’s house for free, often for a couple of months, in exchange for looking after the house while its owners are away. Check out Trusted Housesitters (trustedhousesitters.com) or HouseCarers (housecarers.com). Farmstays let you sleep and eat for free on a farm in exchange for doing chores around the farm. The main platform for finding farmstays is WWOOF (wwoof.net). Another one is WorkAway (workaway.info). While the sharing economy can help reduce your expenses, you will usually find the best opportunities mostly in urban and well-connected places (with the obvious exception of WWOOF). While you will have no problem, say, finding Couchsurfing hosts in Berlin, you will surely struggle to find any in rural Bolivia, where no one would even think of providing a place to sleep

without charging at least something for it. If you’re going somewhere a bit more adventurous, it’s best not to rely on these platforms completely.

Finding cheap flights The cost of your flights can make up a big slice of your expenditures, but if you dig around a bit you can often make incredible savings. The differences in ticket price can be so huge sometimes that they can easily pay for weeks of additional travelling. For instance, I was once searching for flights from Miami International to Bogota in Colombia which were all in the €500 range, until I discovered flights leaving from nearby Fort Lauderdale airport costing as little as €120. That €380 saved could be worth two weeks of travelling in Colombia. There is unfortunately no silver bullet for finding cheap flights: often it just requires trying different search queries and seeing what comes up. But there are still some tips and tricks you can use to increase your chances of finding that amazing deal.

Finding cheap destinations to fly into If you are not yet fully decided on where you are going, and you just want to know what countries or cities are cheap to fly into, then check out Google Flights (google.com/flights). Hit the Explore Destinations link, set your home airport, and you’ll get a map filled with price estimates for flights. Another great way to research cheap destinations is to select ‘Anywhere’ within the search box on Skyscanner (skyscanner.net) as this will show you a long list of rough cost estimates.

Finding cheap flight options To find the best deals, it is best to use a dedicated flight search engine. Skyscanner (skyscanner.net), Momondo (momondo.com), and Kiwi (kiwi.com) are currently three of the most popular and best ones. These sites are all independent aggregators combining the databases of many different booking sites, and so they give you more complete results than just one booking site will give on its own. You can use the following tips to find the best flight options using these search engines: Flexibility is key. If you are not married to any particular departure date, you can achieve some huge savings. Do some random experiments with your departure and return dates; add a few days

here, subtract a few days there. Most search engines also let you tick a box indicating you are flexible on the dates. Just keep playing with the dates. The search calendar is your friend! It’s usually cheaper to fly earlier in the week than on weekends. When experimenting with different dates, try Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays for best results. Time your booking well. According to research published by both Skyscanner and Momondo, the optimal time frame to buy tickets is usually 5 to 6 weeks ahead of departure. Include alternative nearby airports as this can sometimes save you money. Search engines can often automatically include nearby airports within a small radius (e.g. including all London airports) but you’ll have to manually look for alternative airports that are a bit further away. Secondary airports are sometimes much cheaper as they charge less tax to the airlines for using them. That said, sometimes a smaller secondary airport also has a hidden cost if it is very far from the city, as you will be paying more for your ground transportation out of there. Look beyond borders. For example, if you’re going to the southern coast of Thailand, the obvious way to get there is from the capital Bangkok, but you could just as easily get there from Singapore or from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Maybe that seems odd, but these airports are about as equally far from the islands as Bangkok is. So, have a look at your destination on a map and see what other options might be nearby; sometimes that better option might be somewhere that’s not immediately obvious. The cheapest way to get to Albania, for instance, might be to fly to the Greek island of Corfu and then take a ferry (as their own airports are pretty bad). Use Search Radius on Kiwi to help you find airports to fly into within a certain area. This feature is killer, as it lets you draw a circle on the map within which the search engine will find the latest prices. (If you can’t figure out how to do this, search for a tutorial.) Use Flight Insight on Momondo to get a big picture view of price factors on a route (this will answer questions like “what time of year is the cheapest?” or “when is the peak season?”). For shorter or domestic flights — especially in less touristy parts of the world — you sometimes need to do a bit of manual research. This is because smaller carriers are not always included in the search engines.

If you are looking for a flight from one remote place to another, it can help to look up the origin airport on Wikipedia. There’s often a complete table of airlines that operate from there along with their destinations. It’s great for finding smaller local carriers. For example, when I was travelling domestically in the Philippines, I found some great flights with local carriers Cebu Pacific and Zest Airways that were not listed on any search engine. I found them by looking up the airports on Wikipedia or Wikivoyage and then visiting the carriers’ websites. Not all flights are always listed in search engines as some data feeds may be incompatible with their systems, or the airlines don’t participate in online referral schemes.

Avoiding unnecessary fees Before you book your flight, make sure you are not paying for extras you don’t need. Upselling is the name of the game for low-cost carriers! Check if your flight already includes baggage allowance. If it doesn’t, you will have to pay extra. (Baggage fees are a good reason to pack light.) Some low-cost airlines charge extra for checking in at the airport instead of online. Others charge extra for the in-flight meal, which you could skip by bringing your own snacks instead. Finally, never tick the insurance box if you already have travel insurance yourself.

Saving money with reward programmes Signing up to airline loyalty programs can be beneficial, as collecting enough airmiles (or similar reward points) lets you book cheap reward flights. These flights are in theory free, but you still need to pay all the airport taxes, so this usually works out to about a third of the normal price. Due to thinning margins in the airline industry many reward programs have been stripped down significantly. The number of miles you need to fly before you can actually book a reward flight has increased dramatically across nearly all airlines. It can still make sense to collect points, but the rewards nowadays are sadly not what travel hackers once obsessed over. Unless you are George Clooney in Up In The Air, it can take you a long while to gain anything substantial. If you do collect miles, try to collect them within same alliance as much as possible. That way you consolidate your points into one reward program. Some credit cards (especially in the US) also let you save up airmiles with every purchase you make. If you use such a credit card regularly for a long

time you can make some decent savings this way. If you want to go really deep on this you should probably check out The Points Guy (thepointsguy.com), which has in-depth guides on how to wring every last benefit from your credit card or airmiles account.

Booking a round-the-world trip If your plan is to travel round-the-world, you may want to look at special tickets designed especially for round-the-world (RTW) travel. RTW tickets are multi-stop airline tickets which take you around the world, and sometimes they’re cheaper than when purchasing the flights individually. Your journey typically has to start and end in the same country and has to go either east-to-west or west-to-east around the globe. While you need to choose your stops in advance, you usually still have flexibility on your flight dates. In most cases, your trip can last up to a maximum of one year. Your minimum or maximum number of allowed stops depends on the type of RTW ticket, as well as how you go about booking your trip. Various multi-stop RTW packages are offered by the airline alliances, like Star Alliance, One World, and Sky Team. Besides these alliances, Air New Zealand, Virgin Atlantic and Singapore Airlines also offer RTW trips through a shared brand called The Great Escapade. Emirates, which is not part of any alliance, offers some round-the-world tickets in collaboration with other companies. If you’re going to Australia, then Quantas may also have some RTW offers for you as well. In my own research, I’ve sadly often found that these off-the-shelf RTW packages from the airlines rarely turn out to be cheaper than just booking individual flights yourself using sites like Momondo or Skyscanner. Each airline alliance’s RTW offering will have different rules with regards to backtracking, the total number of stops allowed, varying constraints on overland segments (called “surface sectors”), and varying degrees of global coverage. It can honestly give you a bit of a headache just trying to untangle all of this. Instead of the standardized RTW packages, it might be more interesting to have a custom RTW itinerary created for you by an independent agency specializing in this type of travel. Some of the established travel agencies in this niche are AirTreks and Bootsnall in North America, Travel Nation in the UK & Europe, and Roundabout in Australia. I’m normally a do-it-yourself kind of guy, and for point-to-point flights I do believe you can easily search them yourself. But I once sat next to a travel

agent specialized in RTW tickets, during my brief stint working in the travel industry, and was amazed by all the tricks they could use. They have tools unavailable to the public and can spend hours finding the optimal itinerary for you. For example, they’ll know how to best use so-called surface sectors (overland segments) to reduce your costs and optimize your itinerary to go via cheaper routes. Sometimes staying an extra night somewhere or taking a brief overland journey can shave off a huge chunk of your airfare costs. They can also advise you on unique RTW opportunities—for example, stopping by Easter Island or Polynesia, which might normally be prohibitively expensive to fly to just on their own. If you’re planning an RTW trip, then it might still be worth having a quick look at some of the standard packages out there—though they might not be all that much cheaper. For much more flexibility, it’s probably better to do it yourself. For building a highly customized and totally optimized itinerary, the specialist companies mentioned earlier can definitely help you out.

Travelling at night When journeying overland you will, at times, have the option of travelling at night. There are some good arguments in favour of this: you won’t waste your day sitting in a bus doing nothing, and you’ll avoid having to pay the cost of one night of accommodation. Then again, it can be draining. If you are anything like me, you may struggle to get any decent sleep on a night bus, and it sucks to arrive all cranky and weary. Even if you do catch a few ZZzz’s, you may still be woken up every few hours during regular stops and toilet breaks. This is a classic problem in less-developed parts of Asia, as the old buses there don’t have any on-board toilets. On the other hand, in South America the buses are amazing, especially if you get a fully reclining seat (tickets called “full cama”). You might even feel more or less fully rested on arrival. Sleeper trains are much more comfortable than buses, and there’s a certain romance to travelling this way as well. Since you can lie down fully horizontally you can usually get some decent shut-eye, and the rhythmic movements of the train may even cradle you to sleep. If you find that you can sleep well on trains, then the savings in time and money are almost certainly worth it. Some travellers opt to spend a night at the airport in between flights instead of staying at a hotel for one night only. There is even a website

dedicated to sleeping in airports, complete with tips and tricks on where to find some quiet sleeping spots (aptly named sleepinginairports.net). I did this once at Lima Airport, but let’s just say that night wasn’t my favourite. My buddy and I managed to find a spot in a seemingly quiet corridor, yet we were still constantly woken up by cleaning staff, people opening and shutting shops, and loud echoing speaker announcements. Since we couldn’t find any chairs or benches, we were forced to sleep on the floor while resting our heads on our backpacks… and as it turns out floors at airports with AC become absolutely freezing after a while. That night just seemed to take forever. A year later, I briefly considered spending the night at Jakarta International, but nightmarish flashbacks from Lima made me quickly abort that plan. I found a cab driver who knew a nearby budget hotel, and for $30 (including the ride) I got myself five glorious hours of sleep. I slept like a baby. It was totally worth it. Sleeping at airports to save money isn’t exactly a lot of fun (or maybe I am just not hardcore enough!), though it is often possible. If you’re on a shoestring budget, it might well be worth the trouble.

Paying a fair price for taxis Ugh... taxis. They are often such a pain in the neck. As soon as the driver knows you’re a tourist, they’ll inevitably try to overcharge you, or turn off the meter, or use some other lame trick. While the rise of ride-sharing apps has made this problem easier to avoid, they’re still not an option everywhere—and so a savvy traveller still has to know how to deal with dishonest drivers. You’re at most risk of overcharging when you have just arrived in a new place and you don’t yet know the local currency or prices. Find out beforehand what a reasonable fare is by checking online or asking around, and let the driver know that you’re aware of the actual prices. If during your ride the driver says something like “heeeey my friend, is this your first time in [name of whatever city you arrived]?”, then you should go to yellow alert. While they may just be making some friendly chit chat, it is often a sign they’re trying to figure out just how much you really know. Drivers prefer to use their tricks on tourists who are fresh off the boat, so to speak, as they are less likely to notice any overcharging or taking the scenic route. If the driver seems at all evasive about the price or the meter or is just way too friendly to you and trying to distract you, go to red alert and scramble all

jets… they’re definitely going to overcharge you. Be clear and insist on the meter or get out and find another cab that will charge you an honest price. Being firm but fair with drivers can save a lot of money. If someone is unwilling to drive you at a reasonable rate, there is almost always someone else who will. Sometimes I like to pretend that I am an expat or have been to a city many times before, as this almost guarantees a fair price and avoids the taxi driving you around in circles.

Saving money through haggling Sellers at markets, street stalls or in local shops will often quote you prices that are way higher than the actual fair price. In this case they are not necessarily trying to screw you over, but entirely expect you to make a counter proposal. I didn’t like haggling at first. I wished everyone just used sticker prices so that we wouldn’t have to go through this silly bidding ritual, but I was forced to accept it as the way transactions work in some places. Now that I am used to haggling, I actually enjoy it. Haggling is a game in which both parties know they are bullshitting each other a bit, but it’s all in good fun. A salesman will surely not respect you for accepting the initial price, but a good haggle will result in a dignified transaction that leaves both parties happy. Here’s how it works. The salesperson will first propose a price he knows to be extremely high. This is your cue to go into improvisational theatre mode: act like you are truly shocked at the price or devastated that you cannot afford it. Say that you are sorry but that it is too much, or claim you’ve seen the same item for much less somewhere else. Now you should propose a price that you know to be way too low. It is the seller’s turn to put on their best acting face, as they will need to respond with complete incredulity. They will claim such a price would put him out of business… but then propose another price that is somewhere in the middle. Usually, this is the price that will still get them a very healthy margin but is much fairer to you. If you aren’t hearing a better price, walk away. Pretend you are no longer interested while keeping a straight face. Move to the shop next door, or just turn around and walk away a few steps. Chances are they’ll ask you to come back and will offer you a more reasonable price.

You can choose to stop haggling here—the seller will be more than happy, and you are probably getting a good price. You could still try to nudge it down further, but you might be pushing it, unless maybe you’re negotiating over a very expensive purchase. While haggling is expected in many parts of the world it is clearly rude to take it too far, as then you will just be a jerk trying to systematically ruin someone’s profit margin. There are a few additional techniques you can use to bargain down prices:

Technique 1: Pleasing the boss This is a sort of Bad Cop, Good Cop scenario. In mid-negotiation, have your partner or travel buddy play the role of the unimpressed money manager advising you not to make the purchase. You would like to buy the item, but the boss is saying no. Salesmen will find this funny and are likely to lower the price.

Technique 2: Making them like you Showing a salesman you have made the effort to learn a few local words, or that you are interested in their culture, will get you on their good side. They will stop seeing you as a typical tourist and will be more inclined to give you a good price. Approach the haggling as a kind of social ritual.

Technique 3: The group haggle If you are with a group, let one person do the talking. If you are not that person you have one task, and one task only: to stay in a holding pattern, ready to leave. For example, if someone is negotiating the price of a tuk-tuk ride, don’t undermine the process by already getting on board the vehicle… just loiter around for a minute while your friend does the talking. The designated negotiator may, at some point, pretend to be conferring with you about the price, but in this case, you should always just shake your head initially. If it’s necessary to walk away from the deal, your task is to walk away as a group. By the way, haggling does not typically apply to food or drinks or items with fixed prices. Don’t try to talk down the price of your sandwich or that ticket for a regular scheduled bus, as you would no doubt get some serious blank stares.

Advanced lowballing I used to ask cab or tuk-tuk drivers and market salesmen and the like how much something costs, but I realized later that this is clearly a rookie mistake. I mean, why would you ever do something as stupid as ask for the price? Presenting them with such an open question is just a big invitation for them to make something up on the spot. They’ll often just tell you the highest price

they think they can get away with, and from there it can take a long time to walk things back to a reasonable price. (We are talking here, of course, about any country where there is a big income disparity between locals and tourists.) What I often do now is to not even give them an opportunity to name their price at all. Instead I will flip the script and immediately suggest the lowest possible price that I can think of. Even when I don’t know the actual price at all, I will just suggest one that’s extremely low—really any price that seems just a hair short of being plain offensively low. Saying “I need to get to the station. That’s 10 Baht, right?” is much more likely to get you the actual local price of 30 Baht than saying “how much is it to the station?”, as then negotiations will surely start at 150. While this technique can be very effective, it does still follow that good service should be rewarded. If someone is willing to charge you an honest price, you might want to also leave them a nice tip.

Booking online versus offline You might think the best deals are always found online, and for some things this is certainly true. If you’re trying to buy some travel gear, it might be cheaper on Amazon. Or if you’re looking for travel insurance, then you should probably look at a price comparison website and buy it online. But when it comes to less developed countries, and especially when it comes to booking tours and activities there, you will often find that the you can get the best deals in person. In fact, some of the prices you find online for activities you can do in popular backpacking countries (such as guided treks, zip-lining, sailing trips, surfing lessons, and so on) are complete rip-offs. Often you will end up with the tour company that figured out how to be internet savvy and make a nicelooking website, and not necessarily the tour company that is the best or the cheapest. If they can get people to pull out their credit card while still at home, they can still charge multiple times of what it costs locally. The same is true for online booking platforms like Withlocals or Getyourguide. For example, on Withlocals.com a tour of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam costs 189 Euro, while locally that would cost you at most 30 Euro. On these platforms I try to cherry pick experiences with real added value, such as a dinner at someone’s home or a local showing you the best street food. The more generic tours are often better booked from a local agency. When you are there making a booking in person during your trip, and you’re already accustomed to and aware of the local prices, you’re in a much

better position to get a fair price. Don’t worry about this too much if going to a Western country of course, as there the online prices are usually just fine.

Reducing banking fees Using your bank or credit card abroad usually means you must pay a foreign transaction fee as well as (usually) a currency exchange fee. These can add up over time. If you’re travelling in places far away it’s usually best to get local cash out in batches from ATMs. Get a larger amount of money out a few times instead of paying for lots of smaller purchases constantly, as many cards have a minimum transaction fee. Paying for individual purchases by card might not even be possible, as many local economies around the world are still very much reliant on cash transactions. That goes for developing countries but also for some advanced economies; Japan, for example, is still almost entirely cash-based. Using ATMs abroad is not free in most cases. The charges can be terribly complex (and some are hidden), but usually you pay at least 2 to 3% in conversion fees, and another 2% or so in ATM fees. It may not seem like much, but travel a while and it will definitely add up. I once did a back-of-anapkin calculation based on my bank in the UK at the time and concluded that taking out 1000 GBP a month abroad for a year would lose me around 500 GBP in fees. That’s not nothing! Fortunately, you can reduce the money you waste on any transaction fees. Firstly, be sure to use ATMs from reputable commercial banks. If you use smaller ATMs at airports, inside convenience stores and other locations, these will often slap an additional fee on top. In Europe, avoid such ATMs by a company called Euronet, as they add sneaky unnecessary currency conversions that end up costing much more. If the ATM asks if you want your money ‘with conversion’ or ‘without conversion’, always select without. This way your bank at home will be doing the currency conversion, which usually gets you a fair rate. Otherwise the ATM will do it for you, which can add more hidden fees. Another method to reduce fees is to open an account with a bank that doesn’t charge any fees for foreign withdrawals. Some smaller independent banks promote themselves by offering this feature. In the United States, the Charles Schwab bank has a checking/debit account that doesn’t charge ATM fees abroad. In the United Kingdom, the little-known Metro Bank offers a

similar deal. Signing up for a whole new bank account only makes sense if you’re going to travel a lot, of course. A much easier way is to use prepaid debit cards. Two popular ones have emerged in recent years: Revolut (revolut.com) and Transferwise (transferwise.com) both offer debit cards that let you take out up to €200 a month (or your equivalent) from foreign ATMs without any fees. They also guarantee currency conversions at interbank rates, without adding additional fees on top. What’s also super handy about these cards is that you get a phone notification whenever you use them, letting you easily monitor your transactions. If any transactions seem fishy or if you happen to lose your card abroad, you can block it with just a tap. There are premium versions of their cards that offer even more benefits, such as travel insurance and a much higher limit for fee-less ATM use. When exchanging currencies in cash, avoid doing so at airports as the rates there are often quite bad. If you have a smartphone, download a currency conversion app (such as XE) to help you check if an exchange rate is fair. These often show the midmarket rate though which you won’t get at an exchange, but at least it gives you a rough idea. Whenever you enter a new country, be sure to immediately familiarize yourself with the new currency. I usually write down the exchange rate and a few conversions on a piece of paper as a cheat-sheet for the first few days. It also helps to memorize the colours and shapes of the bills—some currencies are not very well designed and have two bills with very similar colours, which can lead to mistakes.

Before you leave a country, try to convert any cash you have left and spend your loose change. Some currencies are considered very obscure in international markets and cannot be easily exchanged outside of their country of origin (for instance Vietnamese Dong or Bolivian Bolivianos). Try to spend any leftover money before you leave, or just keep some of those leftover bills as a souvenir.

Dealing with fussy ATMs Getting money out from ATMs is usually easy and convenient. But from time to time, an ATM might give you some trouble. I’ve had error messages thrown at me that made absolutely no sense. Once an ATM said, “wrong number” (presumably referring to PIN) when I definitely typed in the right PIN. I’ve had ATMs say I exceeded my overdraft limit even when there were still plenty of funds left in the account. Sometimes an ATM will simply tell you a transaction cannot be authorized and just spit your card back out. If you get an unusual error message, don’t panic. Try a few other ATMs first or try the same one the next day (as it might have been restocked with money in the meantime). If problems persist, you may want to try calling your

bank to see if any anti-fraud measures may have been triggered, as sometimes this happens by mistake.

A few more money saving tips Here are a few more quick tips on how you can save money on your trip: Avoid eating Western style food all the time and try the cheaper local fare. Eat away from the tourist hotspots where the food is less expensive, and often yummier as well. Look for any spots with a lot of local customers. Drink local alcoholic drinks instead of imported brands and adjust to whatever is produced in the country you are in. Buy a local SIM for your mobile phone to reduce any call or data fees. Some phones even let you store two SIMs, so that you can switch between your home connection and your temporary travel SIM on the fly. Bring an ISIC student card if you are a student. You can get this at www.isic.org and it can often get you all sorts of discounts. Major cities are always more expensive, so you can try to spend more time in smaller towns or the countryside. Resist buying trinkets everywhere you go. People will try to sell you souvenirs constantly but try to limit yourself to buying only a few that you really like. If you are travelling in country where inexpensive food is not so widely available, stay in a hostel with kitchen facilities and cook your own food. Prices are often lower when travelling out of season. Always be curious and ask people you meet where they booked things and how much they paid for it!

Thinking in averages While you should keep an eye on your spending, make sure you also take the long view; don’t worry too much about temporary spikes in costs. Prices can fluctuate a lot as you travel. One day you may be in a touristy location where something costs $10, the next day you may be in a remote little village where that exact same thing costs just $2. Whole countries can vary in cost depending on the strength of their currency, their overall wealth, and even their tax regimes (e.g. alcohol can be dirt cheap in some countries and taxed

heavily in others). Sometimes you will be on a two-hour flight that costs as much as your last ten bus journeys or having a Western-style meal that costs as much as five local meals. Focusing on this too much can drive you nuts, which is why it helps to think in averages. You will feel better about spending a little more sometimes if you remember that you are still not spending a lot overall. Even on a tight budget, it’s maybe okay to spend a little more from time to time. Eating local food is by far the cheapest, but every now and then you might just crave some Western food. A few local meals later and much of that cost has flattened out. For every night you stay in a dirt-cheap hostel, imagine you’re collecting imaginary points towards staying in a nice hotel occasionally. It’s not so much about how much you are spending in a given day, but how much you are spending in total.

Tracking your expenses If your budget is tight, or if managing your expenses doesn’t always come easy to you, then it might help to keep track of your spending while you travel. Try writing down your expenses in a small notebook or use an app. For iOS check out Trail Wallet. For iOS or Android, check out the Bon Voyage app or Conmigo. These apps allow you to set budgets, manage multiple currencies, categorize your expenses and, of course, let you check whether you’ve been blowing the budget or been overly frugal. There are also some apps specifically designed for divvying up expenses among multiple people: check out Splittr, Trip Splitter, Venmo or Splitwise. These can also be valuable tools in lowering your spending at home while you’re still saving up. Seeing some actual pie charts of where your money is going can help you adapt your behaviour and find more savings in your dayto-day life, which can then go into to your travel fund.

The Angel’s Share Even if you’re some kind of master traveller, you won’t be able to avoid at least some money going to waste on your journey. This used to leave me quite frustrated, until I toured a whiskey distillery in Scotland where I first heard of the Angels’ Share – and immediately realized it might make for a decent metaphor for this section of the book. You see, a percentage of all the raw stuff they put in a whiskey barrel for ageing evaporates over the years, which is said to go to the angels. About 10%

of a barrel of whiskey disappears into thin air before it has finished maturing, and there’s nothing even the most skilled distiller can do to stop this. It’s simply the cost of making a great whiskey. Similarly, I think the cost of going on a great journey is that you will inevitably lose some money along the way. Expect that at least some small part of your budget will evaporate due to dumb or unforeseen things. It’s simply what happens. Maybe you find out, just after booking, that you could have gotten the same ticket cheaper somewhere else. Maybe you left your phone charger at your last hostel and now need to buy a new one. Maybe someone rips you off and you end up spending more on a ride than you should have. This sort of thing happens all the time. It’s the Angel’s Share of travel. As much as you might wish to be amazingly frugal all the time, there will always be some inefficiencies. Try to manage your spending as well as you can, but also shrug off any minor setbacks. There’s always plenty of opportunities to earn them back later.

Key points from this chapter Saving money starts with having the right attitude. Don’t spend as though you are on holiday and adjust to the local ways. Hostels can help you keep costs down, are great places to meet other travellers, and have all sorts of services and facilities that make your life on the road a little easier. The sharing economy can get you a lot of things free or cheaper than usual. You can use a ton of techniques to find cheap flights! Sometimes you can save money by spending the night in transit, for instance by taking a night bus or night train or sleeping at an airport. Not always that comfortable, though. You can save money on cab fares by avoiding any overcharging and by always insisting on using the meter. You can save money through haggling, a somewhat theatrical negotiation process that you sometimes need to go through when purchasing at a market, or when agreeing on a price for, say, a tuk-tuk or boat ride. Booking things offline is often cheaper when travelling in the developing world.

You can reduce banking fees by using your debit card only. If you’re going to travel a lot, consider getting an account with a bank that doesn’t charge overseas ATM withdrawal fees, or getting a prepaid debit card (like Revolut or Transferwise). Always get money from ATMs by selecting ‘without conversion’. A frugal attitude should not get in the way of enjoying your trip! It’s a good idea to think in terms of averages rather than agonising over every last cent that you’re spending.

CHAPTER SIX

How to pack like a pro and travel light Have you ever done your packing just hours before a trip? Suddenly you’re running around like a headless chicken, constantly worrying you forgot something, and stuffing your bag like it’s the last thing you’ll ever own in your life. Packing for a trip gets weirdly stressful for a lot of people. Maybe it’s because it usually happens just before departure, when all that resfeber (pretrip anxiety) is at its peak. It might also have to do with having only one shot at packing your things, so you don’t want to mess it up. Okay, so let’s take a deep breath. Packing doesn’t have to be so complicated; in fact, the more you travel, the more you realize just how much you can get away with packing a very basic set of things. In this chapter, we’ll look at how to pack in a way that ensures you won’t run into any issues on the road, but don’t end up overpacking either. Oh, and by the way, always be sure to pack the day before and not in the last hours before departure. It will save you a ton of stress!

The art of packing less It’s all too easy to overpack. You often see inexperienced travellers walking around with big bulking backpacks designed not for travelling but for long-distance trekking. They fill these to the brim with an outsize wardrobe, way too many pairs of shoes, unnecessary equipment and a plethora of travel gadgets brought just-in-case… but most of which end up never leaving that bag at all. They sweat, they toil, they curse. This is not a great way to travel. The more items you bring, the more you will burden yourself with carrying, storing, and looking after those items all

the time. Packing less is much better. After all, you want to feel free like a bird, not packed like a mule. This is doubly true for an adventurous trip where you’ll be moving from place to place a lot. If you’re just staying in one resort the entire time, then maybe it’s fine to arrive with a giant suitcase—or heck, why not two or three? Sure, it may be pain to carry your luggage the taxi to your room, but then you’re all set. But if you’re going to travel around, then big bulky luggage is going to hold you back constantly. It seems that, inevitably, every traveller learns this eventually. I once had to help carry people’s bags onto a boat in Panama when one nearly did my back in, surely weighing at least 30 kilograms. It required two people to get the bag on board, hoisting it up as though it was a body bag containing some monstrous cadaver. Its owner confessed that it had been doing her back in for weeks and swore she would never pack so much again. On Bali, I met a guy so frustrated with carrying too much stuff around that he donated half his clothes to a local charity. Before he had arrived at this decision, he told me he despised his heavy bag so much he wanted to burn it in a fire. This is why it is better to err on the side of packing less and not packing more. Try to get into the mind-set that everything you bring has a hidden cost: that of you having to physically drag it everywhere. Pack light enough, and you may even get away with flying with carry-on luggage only. This not only saves time at arrival, but it can sometimes save you money too, as certain airlines charge extra for checked-in luggage. Backpacks, by the way, offer many advantages over suitcases—at least for the type of travel discussed here. Suitcases may be fine when going to comfortable tourist hotspots or sticking to modern and easy-to-navigate cities. But things get awkward once you’re dealing with any dirt roads, cobblestone streets, or sandy beaches. And good luck putting your fancy hard-shell suitcase in the luggage rack of a ramshackle bus in Kathmandu. I once thought the whole backpack thing might be just for appearances— but it turns out it has some real practical advantages. It keeps you mobile and light on your feet. You can still run to catch a last train, wade through shallow waters to board a catamaran, or chuck that bag onto the back of a pickup truck where it can sit wedged between some potato sacks and possibly a goat. While travel plans can remain quite fluid — and figuring out the precise details of your trip is arguably better done on the ground than at home — the opposite is true for getting your luggage. Getting it right is far easier before than during your trip, so it’s worth giving it a bit of time and thought.

Why a smaller backpack is awesome The iconic image of the backpacker is that of someone with a bulging 70+ litre bag on their back, so huge that it towers above their head. While there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with using such bags, they are not always the best option, and they are certainly not a requirement for being a ‘real traveller’. If you are planning to go wilderness hiking you might well need such a large backpack. You’ll need the extra space to store a sleeping bag, tent, and all sorts of other camping gear. But if you are planning to sleep in hostels, guesthouses or hotels, you will almost certainly be fine with something smaller. Before my first backpacking trip, someone recommended I get the biggest bag possible because “you never know when you’ll need that extra space”. So, I bought a 70 litre bag with a 15 litre day-pack expansion. After a quick packing test, I realized this was terrible advice. The frame alone weighed several kilos, and I soon realized all that space was total overkill for my needs. I went back to the store and exchanged it for a smaller 40 litre bag. I’m happy I did. Luggage size is typically expressed in litres of volume which may not be the most intuitive thing. Imagine a 40 litre bag sitting somewhere between the really big trekking backpacks and smaller 15-25 litre daypacks or school backpacks. A 40 litre or so bag is usually carry-on size and can be taken on board an airplane, saving you time and sometimes money on additional checkin fees.

(Image: on the left is a 70+10 liter backpack, on the right a 40 liter backpack.) The strange thing about using a large backpack, like those 60, 70 or even 90 litre ones, is that you will inevitably find a way to fill it completely. Much like air sucking into a vacuum, the availability of space can somehow compel you to use it. A smaller bag forces you to pack smarter. It also makes you stick out less in a crowd, and it is easier to keep your belongings organized when you are carrying less stuff. A smaller bag will, of course, also be easier to walk around with. When you arrive in a new place you won’t be compelled to just take the first accommodation option available, because you can walk around more easily to find the place you really want to stay. A bag with a capacity of around 40 litres isn’t exactly small but it is smaller than most. When my 40 litre bag is filled with clothes, toiletries, laptop, books and shoes it weighs about 12 kilos (26 pounds). I have seen people travel even lighter, but then you’ll need to go truly minimalist. Personally, I do like to pack light, but I still want to have a variety of clothes to wear (and regular fresh underwear, thank you very much).

Though if a 40-liter bag seems a little too tight, try going for something like 50 or 55 liters before jumping straight away to the mega huge ones.

Travelling with two bags It’s worth considering having two bags: your main mothership bag that contains most if not nearly all your stuff, along with a much smaller daypack detachment that you can use during hikes, day-trips, or when exploring a city. Having a second bag can give you a bit more versatility, as it lets you store one bag in a cargo hold or locker while keeping the other one closer with you. A daypack can also provide quick access to a book, snacks, or a rain poncho while you are out and about. Some backpacks come with integrated detachable daypacks (for example the Osprey Farpoint 55). There are also lightweight mini daypacks that can be compressed and stored when you’re not using them. You could also just get a small (e.g. 10-15 litre) second backpack. You can carry this on your chest while your main bag is on your back (the “turtle shell” method of carrying two bags) or you can carry the daypack alongside you as though it is a briefcase. That probably sounds awkward, and it is a little bit, but it’s worth it just for having a bit more flexibility.

Finding the right backpack for you If you’re on a very tight budget, then obviously just travel with whatever luggage you’ve got. But otherwise, investing a bit in a good backpack that will last you a while is a good idea. At Indie Traveller, I keep an up-to-date list of recommended travel bags at indietraveller.co/best-backpacks-for-travel. Here I’ll just stick to sharing some general tips. Firstly, consider exactly how you will be taking your belongings in and out of the bag, especially if it is top-loading. It’s frustrating to have to take everything out just to get something from the bottom. This is where it really helps to have a side-loading or clamshell-style backpack that opens much like a suitcase. If possible, get a backpack with doesn’t just have two shoulder straps, but also a full suspension system. That includes a sternum strap, a padded hip belt and, ideally, two load lifter straps on the top. (Load lifters attach the top of your backpack to the shoulder straps, letting you ‘tuck in’ the top of the backpack closer towards your body.) If you use all these correctly, you’ll relieve a ton of pressure on your shoulders. 80% of the weight of a backpack

should actually be carried by your back, and using a hip belt and sternum strap correctly will help you do this. Check if the zippers have little rings on them for attaching a padlock or wire lock. This won’t stop a determined thief but does add an extra layer of security by preventing quick access to the most important contents of your bag. Make sure the bag has a water-resistant coating. Nearly all proper travel bags do, but keep in mind this coating will wear down over the years. A new water-resistant bag will usually be fine in (at least light to medium) rain, but you might need to get a separate rain cover after some years of use. Take the bag home (or have it delivered online) and leave the tags on it. Try out it by filling it with your essential items. Imagine using and carrying this for the next however many months you are travelling. If it doesn’t feel right, you can still exchange it for a more suitable one. When it comes to your bag, quality does matter. Making a small investment will reward you with comfort and convenience. Something in the €100 to €200 range ($100 - $200) will usually get you something good. Keep in mind that while you’re on the road, your bag is basically ‘your everything’, and you’ll use it every single day.

The 100% essential items to bring Okay, got your bag? Great! So now let’s start packing. First, let’s think about the items that are absolutely essential and that could ruin your trip if you happened to forget them. Clearly, access to money and your ability to cross borders are paramount, so the absolute key items not to ever forget are these: Your ID(s) (passport, driving license, ID card) Any entry visas you may have arranged in advance Bank or credit cards Any PIN devices needed to access your internet banking (if applicable) Be sure to store these essential items securely! If you have multiple bank or credit cards, split them across multiple pockets or hiding places. If you are travelling with a partner, carry different bank cards in both your bags in case one person’s card(s) will get lost or stolen. Email yourself copies of your passport and other important documents. For additional backup, you might want to bring some emergency cash that you can use in a pinch (for instance if ATMs are being uncooperative). US

dollars are preferable as they are accepted or exchanged virtually anywhere. Around $50 to $100 is probably a good amount to have as a cash reserve per person, in addition to any local currency you might be carrying. This has saved my butt quite a few times. While you should take the most care in storing your passport and bank cards, the situation isn’t quite hopeless if you were to lose them. Don’t get me wrong, it sucks to lose your passport. A lot. You might have to pay a lot of money and have to wait weeks for a replacement from an embassy. Your movement will often be limited while you wait for the replacement and your travel plans will get disrupted. If you lose your passport, be sure to report it to your country’s authorities so they can immediately block it and get a new one from an embassy or consulate of your country. And what about losing your bank cards? Well, it happened to me and it’s not much fun. The first thing you can try is to get a replacement sent to you by mail by your bank. This only works if you can stick around for a while, as it can take weeks for mail to arrive to more remote places. Often banks can’t even arrange this unless you’re in your home country. If everything fails, you can still get money sent to you via a Western Union branch. Either you send money to Western Union yourself via internet banking or have your family at home help with this. Western Union branches can be found pretty much all over the planet. Getting money via this route is a lot more cumbersome than simply walking to an ATM though as it involves some passport and other paperwork shenanigans. While you can still survive in the worst-case scenario, clearly you will want to look after your identification and your bank card(s) carefully, so always keep them in a consistent place.

The pitfalls of packing lists Now that we have talked about the utmost essential items to pack, let’s start tackling the entire category of “everything else”. This is where things get tricky. I like to use a minimalist approach to packing, as it keeps me light on my feet. But when you’re packing for an epic trip, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of bringing too many things. Once you start telling yourself to pack a few extra things “just in case”, you are already on a slippery slope to overpacking. Packing lists on the internet aren’t always so helpful. What often happens is that they try to list everything anyone might ever pack—for any climate,

type of trip, or destination. There are so many ridiculously huge lists out there with hundreds of items that it’s not even funny. Another problem is the potential confusion around the term backpacking, as it can mean both independent travel and wilderness hiking. Many ‘backpacking’ packing lists are intended for hikers and trekkers, who do need their own camping gear, food supplies, and so on. And that’s a whole different thing. If you’re out camping in a forest without access to drinking water then having a water-purification system is unquestionably useful, for example. But if you’re travelling and staying in hostels, hotels or guesthouses, you will virtually always have safe drinking water nearby… and that water-purification system will never end up being used. If you do want to climb mountains on your own, hike totally independently, or camp in the wild, then be sure to find specific advice for this. The whole process will be different, and certain items might be essential for your safety or survival. But if you’re just travelling and staying more-or-less in or near civilization, then it’s fine to leave the survival or trekking gear at home. This can take a lot of weight off your shoulders—literally. Keep in mind you can still have awesome outdoors- and adventure activities during your trip without needing to take your own gear with you. You can often rent equipment locally or find organized tours and treks with professional guides. You can climb mountains, venture deep into rainforests, or dive the world’s biggest reefs without ever packing anything specifically for it. Want to do a multi-day hike to the fabled Lost City in Colombia? There are a plenty of reputable local guides and trekking companies that can take you there—and they can even set you up with hammocks, shelters, food, and so on. Want to go hiking on your own in the Nepalese Himalayas? Then there’s a whole system of lodges where you sleep for the night, and even a blind person can find walking sticks, boots, or windbreakers (either to rent or to buy) in the popular trekker base of Pokhara. Sure, these may not be the ultimate versions of such experiences, and the more hardcore adventurers will surely roll their eyes at doing anything that’s pre-organized with guides. What I’m merely saying is that these activities are often well catered for even if you don’t bring any specific gear. And it might not be worth hauling a bunch of stuff around if you’re only going to use it on a trek once.

That said, it’s always useful to pack good walking shoes, some clothes that can get dirty, and rain cover.

Packing your clothes Could you imagine wearing the same shirt or top twice in a row at school or at work? Oh, the horror! Everyone would surely be wondering what you were up to last night. This just goes so show that we care a lot about what we wear, or what others think about what we wear. At home you have the luxury of a full wardrobe with countless possible outfits. When you are packing clothes for your travels you are likely still in the same mindset, making it very easy to pack too much. Chances are that when you are travelling you won’t quite care as much about having a huge wardrobe, nor will other people be overly concerned with whether you dressed to impress. You can get by with less, while still being comfortable and having something nice to wear every day. It’s different for everyone, but I think you might not need to pack more than about 7 to 10 days’ worth of clothing when travelling. Dealing with laundry while travelling is actually fairly easy—meaning it’s not such an issue to cycle through a smaller set of clothes. Hostels in Western countries often have a washing machine that you can use, or their staff can point you to nearby coin-up washing machines. Some use a universal plug stopper and some hand-wash soap, so they can do their own laundry using any sink. Laundry service is usually very cheap in developing regions such as in Asia or Latin America, sometimes costing as little as a dollar or two per kilo. Many hostels or guesthouses will happily take your dirty laundry at reception and will get it back to you clean the next day. If you are okay with dealing with laundry occasionally, then you won’t need to pack many weeks worth of clothes. Try to plan your travel wardrobe in a way that everything fits with everything else. That way you can always put something nice together even as your options decrease as laundry day approaches. Avoid non-versatile clothing items, such as a dress or a shirt you would only wear on specific occasions. Avoid high-maintenance clothing as well, i.e. anything with non-standard washing instructions. Finally, go easy on packing white clothes as these tend not to stay white for very long (due to active or outdoors situations, or laundry services that can’t always be relied on for washing these separately). Darker shades or colours are less delicate.

Ideally, most of your items of clothing should go happily together with most other items. Choose clothes that you are comfortable with, that you can wear most of the time, and that combine easily. If you plan to travel through multiple climates, consider buying some clothes locally at the time that you need them. You could spend a lot of time in a warm climate, then buy some long trousers and sweaters only when you transition into a colder climate. For instance, many travellers following the Latin American “Gringo Trail” will happily travel with just a basic selection of summer clothes, then buy some warm alpaca wool clothing only once they hit the colder Andes mountain range in Peru, Bolivia or Chile. A nice sweater made of alpaca wool costs about $8 in Bolivia, so it’s hardly going to break the bank. When packing for any cold weather, the adage “don’t pack wool, pack layers” is a good one to follow. Instead of wearing just one extremely thick wool jumper, you will benefit more from layering—for instance, having a sweater on top of a long-sleeve and t-shirt with a lightweight windbreaker on top. Using individual layers keeps you warm while giving you more flexibility.

Jeans or no jeans? Personally, I like packing jeans because they look nice and can make you seem less like a traveller. But if you’re going to tropical climates or summer destinations, you might honestly not wear them at all. They are also bulky and slow to dry, so many travellers recommend bringing only lightweight quickdrying travel trousers. I still like jeans as they let you blend in a bit more from time to time. Even in tropical countries, locals in cities will still usually wear jeans — and so it can be nice not to look so much like a tourist at times. While backpacking around Southeast Asia, I once met up with an expat friend in Singapore who took me out to some upmarket cocktail bars. It was a fun change of scene after spending months in grungy low-budget hostels. It was also nice not to have to wear those convertible zip-off khaki hiking trousers to a fancy bar. Rain can quickly make jeans smell like wet dog though, and your travel schedule may not let you dry or wash them immediately, so they can be very impractical depending on where you’ll be travelling. If you’re not sure you’ll wear them, you could leave your jeans at home. Women are lucky to often

have a few more style choices in this department, with leggings, dresses, and skirts being additional options that don’t weigh nearly as much.

Travel footwear It seems there are as many opinions about travel footwear as there are travellers. Everyone seems to swear by a different type of footwear. There clearly isn’t a “best” type of footwear for travel—because it all depends on what you find most comfortable—but it is fair to say that some types of shoes are more suitable than others. Let’s walk through some of them.

High-top hiking or mountain boots Are you planning to hike the Himalayas for several weeks? Then these may be a worthy investment. But boots are not that versatile for more general travel use and will take up a lot of space. As these shoes are rather specialized and very bulky at the same time, they don’t make for the most practical type of footwear for extended travel.

Low-top walking shoes A simple pair of low-cut walking shoes can be used in many scenarios, including hikes, walking around towns or cities, and other everyday use, making it a great option for travel. Look for soles with good grip. A waterresistant and breathable mesh is another helpful feature. Don’t get shoes with Gore-Tex for hot countries as this material is meant for cold places, not the tropics — it’ll trap your sweat inside your shoes, turning them into a stinky sauna.

Running shoes A decent option, but not ideal. Running shoes can be comfortable, though they are ultimately designed for running and not for walking. One potential issue with running shoes from sports brands (especially ones like ASICS and Adidas) is that this might achieve a look that’s strongly associated with a certain type of American tourist, which could attract more touts and the like. Sneakers Low-top canvas shoes (such as those by Converse) are easy to fold up and tuck into a backpack. They are maybe not the most versatile travel shoes, but they can be suitable for city activities or even for a night out, and they can make for a decent general backup option. A similar case can be made for desert boots made of suede or soft leather: because of their flexible material they are easy to compress and store in your bag. They’re not so suitable for all terrain, they can be of good use in cities.

Flip-flops (a.k.a. thongs, slippers or jandals)

Flip-flops seem to be the staple footwear for backpacking in warmer climates. You may be surprised by how quickly you can adjust to wearing these nearly all the time. Not everyone takes a liking to them equally though, and much depends on whether you have flip-flops with the right fit. You can usually pick up a half-decent pair for under $5 in many Asian or Latin American countries (just regular foam soles and fabric straps). You can wear these out in a month or two, but they’re not a bad idea if you’re on a budget or not wanting to ruin a fashionable pair of Havaianas. In many Asian cultures it’s customary to take off your shoes before entering a shop or a home, and this is easiest when wearing some sort of flipflops.

Sandals Sandals range from the highly fashionable to the purely practical. For travel, many swear by sandals by brands such as Teva, Chaco, or Taos, which are often water resistant and have good soles suitable for walking on multiple surfaces. Sandals can be a little bit of everything. Like flip-flops, they let your feet breathe easily. Like shoes, many sandals offer good arch support. And some types of sandals, much like hiking shoes, have ribbed soles and other such features making them very useful for outdoor activities. It’s no wonder that so many travellers swear by sandals: they are clearly the most versatile footwear you can buy for warm climates.

Flats Women also have the wonderful option of wearing flats, which take up nearly no weight or space. They may not be appropriate footwear for all uses, but since they are so light you can’t go wrong with throwing a pair into your backpack.

Barefoot Sometimes the best footwear is no footwear at all. If you’re found your perfect deserted island, it may be all you need!

So… what footwear is best? I sometimes get questions like “what’s the best footwear for travelling in XYZ” and, umm, it’s just whatever will be most comfortable to you in each climate. Breathable or open footwear is clearly preferable in hot and humid places, while something a little more closed and sturdy works well for colder places.

Try to pick two pairs of footwear or maybe three at most. If you can, avoid high top shoes or bulky boots that take up a lot of space needlessly, or (for women) heels if you’re not going to places where you’d dress up. I tend to travel with flip-flops (wherever practical) combined with a pair of good low-cut walking shoes. With colder weather, I might go for a pair of walking shoes and a pair of canvas sneakers. This is totally personal, of course. For example, I have a purely irrational fashion aversion to sandals which has kept me travelling with flip-flops, despite knowing that sandals are a lot more comfortable. I guess I’m just a stubborn bastard.

Suggested clothing list The following are some suggested sets of clothing intended to cover approximately a week’s worth of use and based on different weather conditions. Obviously, adjust these examples based on your preferences.

Hot climates 7x underwear 2 pair of socks (there is no need for more as you'll probably be wearing flip flops or sandals much of the time) 5 t-shirts or tank tops 1 long-sleeve or button-up shirt 1 hoodie or jumper (you'll need this for air-conditioned environments or when at higher elevations where it can be significantly colder) 1 pair of long trousers (based on your preference) 2 pairs of shorts (men might opt for short trousers or cargo shorts, women also have the options of pack cut-off jeans and/or short dresses). Swimming gear Sunglasses Nightwear (don't overthink this for hot climates – many end up sleeping in just sports- or boxer shorts along with a tank top) 1 pair of flip-flops or sandals 1 pair of good walking shoes

Temperate climates 7x underwear 7 pairs of socks 3 t-shirts

2 long-sleeve or button up shirts 1 hoodie or jumper 2x pairs of long trousers Coat Nightwear 1 pair of walking shoes 1 alternate footwear option (e.g. some canvas sneakers)

Cold climates All of the above plus... Scarf, hat, mittens, etc. Long-johns or heat-tech undergarment Windbreaker jacket 1 pair of warm comfortable boots 1 alternate pair of footwear Of course, I’m a male traveller, so if you are a woman you may want to make some obvious additions and changes. Needless to say, if your trip involves travelling only in one climate, pack only for this climate. Round-the-world travellers, on the other hand, will be faced with having to potentially cover many different weather scenarios. Consider getting some compression bags, which let you tightly pack clothes you don’t need for your current climate without any excess air. Air conditioning: not always your friend! Even in tropical countries you will, at times, still be thankful for having a warm jumper or sweater with you. That’s not only because of colder higher altitude areas. Air-conditioning is often considered a luxury in hot countries, and so to provide the ‘best service’ it sometimes gets cranked up to truly arctic levels. Cinemas in South- and Southeast Asia can be utterly freezing; don’t watch a movie any longer than two hours or you will certainly die of frostbite. Buses in South America will sometimes set the AC to ridiculous levels—even to a point where, bizarrely, the locals will cover themselves in wool blankets to stay warm. Bring at least one warm and comfy layer with you, even if the climate doesn’t seem to require it.

Do I really need…? Besides clothing and footwear, what else should you pack? Rather than providing a boilerplate list, let’s just look at some common travel items and discuss their usefulness (or lack thereof), so that you can figure out your own packing list.

Universal Travel adaptor—Verdict: YES! This is surely the most useful gadget ever made. Universal travel adaptors can transform into any kind of plug type, ensuring that you can get always a charge anywhere in the world. Some universal adaptors also have USB ports, allowing you to charge multiple devices or batteries at once.

Flashlight—Verdict: YES (BUT...) It can be tough finding your way through the dark in poorly lit places and some countries regularly suffer from power cuts, so it's a great idea to bring a flashlight. Night buses also often shut their lights early and may not have reading lights. A regular flashlight might well suffice (as could a flashlight app on your smartphone, though these do drain the battery quickly). But better yet, bring a small LED head torch. These allow you to a shine a light on things while still having both your hands available. This is ideal for reading, digging through your backpack in the dark, or for use on caving trips or night hikes.

Lightweight microfiber travel towel—Verdict: YES! Everything Douglas Adams ever wrote about towels is true. Don’t leave home without one! Plenty of backpacker hostels (and some budget guesthouses) do not offer towels. You could bring a regular towel, though they are heavy and slow to dry. Ultralight travel towels don’t feel as nice to the touch, but they dry more quickly and take up very little space.

Padlock—Verdict: YES! Extremely useful if you are expecting at all to stay in hostels. Lockers are the main way to keep your belongings secure in their shared spaces, and you’ll usually be expected to bring your own lock. Buy one with a combination lock so you don’t have to worry about losing the key.

Antibacterial gel—Verdict: POSSIBLY Hygiene standards vary hugely around the world, and they are particularly poor in developing countries, so it’s great to have this as a backup. You may just find yourself at a grungy bus station toilet without any soap.

First aid kit—Verdict: YES, BUT… There’s no need to pack a huge first-aid box with enough supplies to patch up a whole platoon of wounded soldiers. It doesn’t hurt to bring along a small first-aid kit, though. Some key items you may want to bring include plasters/bandages, ibuprofen (painkillers) and loperamide (anti-diarrhoea pills). Other items that could be useful include some gauze and some antiseptic cream.

Obviously if you are on any specific prescriptions at home, make sure these medicines are available at your destination or bring an adequate supply.

Camera—Verdict: YAAAS! Essential for keeping memories of your trip. What size of camera to bring depends on your level of enthusiasm for photography and your ability to use a camera well. A dedicated DSLR or mirrorless camera doesn’t automatically make your photos amazing; if you have never ventured outside of the AUTO setting it may be worth sticking with a lighter and more compact camera for the occasional casual snaps. Phone cameras are rivaling the quality of some of the compact cameras out there, and so your camera phone may well be all you need. If you’re serious about your photography, it might be a good idea to bring along a spare battery or two, so you can keep shooting even through long days, or even in remote locations where you can’t easily recharge the battery. I always bring a few spares for use on longer excursions.

Tripod—Verdict: PROBABLY NOT If you are a semi-pro or enthusiast photographer and love using long exposures, or if you need photos to be razor sharp for commercial use, then a tripod is a great tool for you. Otherwise, it’s probably not worth the hassle, even if using one makes you look more professional. If you must bring one, consider getting an ultralight GorrilaPod.

Water purifying tablets or UV purifiers—Verdict: NO. If we’re speaking of regular world travel and not remote hiking expeditions, you will find that safe bottled drinking water is available virtually everywhere. Do avoid drinking water from taps in developing countries as this can easily get you sick; buy bottled water in stores or get water from watercoolers where these are provided.

A piano—Verdict: HELL NO. If you were thinking of travelling around the world with a 125 kg piano, I’m sorry to tell you that this has already been done. You can follow a German guy’s ordeal of travelling the world with a huge piano at mytravellingpiano.com. If you need a travel instrument, I would suggest a harmonica, or perhaps at most a ukulele.

Hammock—Verdict: NO (unless…) It’s an undeniably romantic idea to bring a hammock, but I think in practice they are only useful in very particular situations. They can be a real waste of space, especially when affordable accommodation is easy to find.

A hammock can in some cases be a good way to seriously cut down on costs. If you are travelling on the shortest of shoestrings, a hammock may enable you to sleep in gardens or on beaches. Hammocks can also come in handy in the Amazon where they are used on the river boats, or in the rarelyvisited and more expensive South American countries like French Guyana and Suriname, where you may wish to pay $10 for a place to hang your hammock instead of forking out $70 a night for a hotel. These are special cases though, so unless you have some specifically in mind, a hammock will probably to take up space needlessly.

Sewing Kit—Verdict: NOT ESSENTIAL This comes up in packing lists all the time, but to me there seem to be only limited opportunities to use this. Worn clothes can be replaced, and minor repairs are surely so rare as to not require a dedicated sewing kit.

Swiss army knife—Verdict: MEH This obviously has some utility, though knives can also prevent you from flying with carry-on luggage only as they are usually not allowed on board. If some extreme MacGyvering is required on your trip, see if you can borrow tools from the hostel or hotel you are staying. The manager, janitor, or cleaner probably has just the thing you need.

Mosquito net—Verdict: NO. Broadly speaking, a mosquito net is not required for most normal travel. Where mosquito nets are necessary, such as in jungle huts or homestays in remote villages, they will already have them. One exception can be subSaharan Africa, as this is the world’s highest-risk region for malaria. In other parts of the world, a mosquito net is more likely to be a waste of money and space. (Admittedly this is still a bit of a generalization. Exceptions may also include some of the more remote parts of the world, such as the heart of the Amazon, the backwaters of Borneo or the furthest reaches of Papua New Guinea, though these are not places you’ll easily end up in.)

Mosquito repellent—Verdict: YES Yep, take this to any tropical destinations. Be sure to get repellent containing DEET. Many lotions and sprays have 10% or higher DEET content, with a concentration of around 50% usually the highest available— this is so strong you can feel it slightly burn your skin. Mosquito repellent is widely available everywhere, though not always at the higher tropical strengths, so you may want to buy a bottle while still at home. Some countries, for instance Malaysia, only allow the sale of weaker citronella-based repellent.

Umbrella—Verdict: NO. Bulky, so leave at home. Bring a plastic poncho or a lightweight rain jacket if you need any rain cover.

Earplugs—Verdict: YES Essential. Blocks out the noise from bus and train engines, snorers, street noise, and long-winded travel stories. It’s best to buy some good ones at home; while you can buy extra earplugs at a local pharmacy or supermarket while on the road, the quality can sometimes really suck. Foam earplugs are the most common and provide good noise reduction. A nifty newer type of earplug is made of soft silicone, which you can mould with your fingers and then insert in your ear, enclosing it perfectly.

Travel pillow—Verdict: MAYBE A travel pillow makes night journeys a lot more tolerable, though the normal ones are bulky. If you need to rest your head while in transit, rolling up a hoodie can turn this into a not-entirely-terrible improvised pillow. If you want something a little better, get an inflatable travel pillow that weighs little and is easy to store. I have one that crunches up to the size of a large apple but can be inflated within a few seconds by pressing a button. Cool.

Sleeping bag—Verdict: NO Absolutely not needed. Even the lowest-budget accommodation will offer bed sheets and covers. Unless you plan on sleeping in a tent, leave your sleeping bag at home. There are admittedly some very rare exceptions of youth hostels in Europe and North America with rock-bottom prices not offering bedding, but generally a sleeping bag is not at all necessary. If your main concern is just to have a layer between you and any bedsheets provided, maybe bring a sleeping bag liner. This is much lighter than a full sleeping bag and can easily act as an extra layer of bedding if needed.

Sarong: better than a Swiss army knife A sarong can function as a neat multi-purpose travel accessory. Sarongs are typically used as a skirt, but they can be so much more. Need a picnic blanket? You’ve got one. Going to the beach? There’s your beach mat. Need a nap? Just wrap some clothes in your sarong, tie it up, and you will have fashioned yourself a primitive pillow. Too hot? Turn it into a bandana. Too cold? You have a scarf. Not bad for just a single item. You might want to pick one up at a market during your travels.

Packing and organization tips You have probably noticed this chapter’s mantra of “less is more”. Beyond what’s been already discussed, there are a few other quick ways to reduce packing weight and volume. When it comes to toiletries, pare down the number of gels, crèmes, and so on. Women usually bring a more basic set of makeup than they use at home. Many toiletries are available in a convenient smaller travel size, which have the bonus of being allowed as part of carry-on luggage on flights. One thing to note for women is that sanitary items (particularly tampons) are not common in some countries, especially Muslim countries. This is more of a problem in remote areas rather than in cities, but it may be wise to bring a supply. For entertainment, be sure to load up plenty of reading or listening material on your phone. Don’t feel the need to bring a whole library of books with you; in popular traveller hubs you will typically find second-hand book stores where you can pick up a good read. Many hostels have book exchanges where you can top up your reading material as well, though you may find it’s all just James Patterson and Dan Brown fare. Of course, you can eliminate a lot of weight by bringing an e-book reader or reading books on a tablet. The reading experience isn’t always as good, but the weight savings are pretty awesome. A few other ways to minimize weight (or maximize your available space): Wear your bulkiest shoes whenever you are moving between places, so that you don’t have to keep them in your bag. Shoes can also be tied to the outside of your bag by their laces.

Avoid buying too many souvenirs or gifts, at least until the final stages of your trip. Don’t bring a paper guidebook for a country you won’t be visiting until much later. You can usually buy new or used guidebooks in major cities or find used guidebooks in book exchanges or secondhand stores. Sell or exchange guidebooks when you no longer need them. There is, of course, also the internet. You can send home any stuff you are no longer using. For instance, if you have just left a cold climate, box up your scarves, mittens, snowmobile, etc. and send it back. If you won’t be home for another while, you can make perfect use of some slow but cheap shipping options. Try to leave at least a quarter of your bag empty, for easier packing and unpacking (and for potentially storing souvenirs, gifts or other additional items you buy along the way). If packing your bag feels like an advanced game of Tetris, your bag is too full. For separating and organizing your bag’s contents, a basic and free method is to simply use some shopping- or tote bags. But products specifically designed for this purpose are a bit nicer, like packing cubes or stuff sacks. Compression bags are a neat solution for deep storage. They can reduce the volume of clothes by up to 80% by letting excess air out through a special valve. It is not very practical to take items in and out of a compression bag all the time, so you wouldn’t want to use one for things you need every day. However, it can save you a lot of space when storing items longer-term. For instance, you can compress your cold climate clothes when travelling in a hot climate. Transparent zip-lock bags are useful for keeping smaller items organized, such as small toiletries or camera accessories and batteries. Zip-lock bags can also serve as basic dry bags for your passport or other key items that you don’t want to accidentally get wet. It’s a good precaution to put any liquids (such as shampoo or body wash) in a separate bag or container as leakage accidents can happen during transit. Finding your bag entirely drenched in soap after a bus journey because a cap came unscrewed can make you a grumpy traveller.

Packing and unpacking: how not to lose stuff Since you will probably be on the move again every few days, it’s good to stick to a regular packing regimen. Find a suitable place for each item and then

try to keep it there throughout your journey. This makes it easier to find things, and easier to do a quick survey of your bag before checking out of your hotel. Sounds obvious, but it works. If you need to get up and leave in the early morning, it’s better to pack your bag the night before, as it’s easy to lose things when it’s dark or when you are still half-asleep. This is doubly true when staying in dorms as other people’s items may be scattered around the room which can easily lead to mistakes. I once lost my favourite t-shirt and gained some random women’s underwear only because I had packed hastily in a poorly lit dormitory. Always do a double take before you leave your room: check your bed, check the floor, check the bathroom. Make that an actual routine. When travelling for many weeks or months on end, chances are that you will lose something somewhere down the line, but you can reduce these chances a lot by getting into this habit.

You can always buy it there Do you live in fear of forgetting to pack something or losing it somewhere along the way? Don’t let the thought stress you out too much. If you do at least a semi-decent job of packing and, of course, remember to bring the absolute essentials (passport, money, and so on) then you can always correct any minor oversight. Perhaps you do forget to pack, say, that nail clipper you desperately need, but this is clearly not the end of the world. Little things like this can always be purchased at your destination when you need them. This is not trying to advocate wasting money or having a disposable attitude: the point is not to let a nail clipper keep you up at night.

Preparing your digital devices There are many benefits to bringing a computer or smartphone on your trip, whether it’s for staying connected, typing up travel journals, copying and editing photos, or simply having some entertainment during long journeys. Of course, it is also perfectly possible to travel—gasp—without a computer, tablet or any other other digital device. In fact, staying away from the digital world can help you immerse in your journey all the more. Going analogue for a while and staying far away from all the Facebooks and Instagrams of this world, can give you a chance to reboot and refocus. Turning a trip into a digital-free retreat is maybe not for everyone though, and many people bring at least one digital device with them on their journey.

Keep in mind that streaming and downloading may not really be such an easy thing abroad, either because of low download speeds or regional content restrictions. If you need some entertainment for long journeys, you might want to add an extra SD card to your phone or pair it with a portable hard drive via USB (if you have an Android phone that lets you do this), so you can fill up before you go. While this chapter is all about being minimalist when packing, you can take the complete opposite approach with anything digital. Whether it’s ebooks, TV shows, movies, podcasts or music, just stock up on as much material as you can. It’s far easier to download or transfer these materials at home while you still have reliable internet. If you need to do any work, blogging, etc. while on the road, then it’s clearly also worth carrying a lightweight laptop. I have some up-to-date recommendations for good travel laptops on my blog (indietraveller.co/besttravel-laptops). If you need occasional access to a computer but don’t want to carry a whole laptop, you could use public or shared computers at hostels, coworking offices, or internet cafes (yep, those are still around!).

Bring some good music! Speaking of all things digital, special mention should be made for bringing some music along on your trip, as the music you listen to will inevitably become deeply associated with your journey. Bring your favourite tunes or some new material you know you will love. A quick way to stock up on some additional travel music is to subscribe to Spotify (or a similar service) and follow playlists with names such as “mood: travelling” or “road trip music”. Soundtracks can make for great listening material as well. When I first went to Tokyo I listened to the soundtrack of Lost in Translation, enhancing my Tokyo experience immeasurably. When riding the Pacific Express through the Copper Canyon in Mexico I happened to listen to the soundtrack of Red Dead Redemption, a video game set in the Wild West. When the main theme came on, I got some serious goosebumps, as it fit so perfectly with the desert landscapes passing me by. There may be some cool soundtracks to think of for the places you are going as well.

Key points from this chapter Pack light. PACK LIGHT!!! (ROAR!!!) A good way to force yourself to do this is to use a smaller backpack. Less space simply means you’ll have to prioritize more. Be suspicious of overly lengthy packing lists! Many of them are just trying to be the most complete instead of paring it down to the essentials. Many packing lists are for wilderness hiking and not for travelling. Invest in a good quality backpack if you haven’t already. This will reward you with increased comfort throughout your trip. (That said, if you’re on a super tight shoestring budget, you could still go for something cheap and spend that money saved on having more travel experiences instead.) Bring footwear that’s appropriate to your activities and destination. This is not too complicated. The most important items to bring are your passport and visas (if any), driving license, and bank and credit cards. Look after them super duper carefully. Don’t worry too much about forgetting a non-essential item, because you can always buy it there. When it comes to bringing anything that’s digital, the sky's the limit. Load up as much movies, music, ebooks, and other files as you think you’ll need.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Surviving abroad: travel health & safety Anyone who has ever been on an airplane will know that familiar phrase from the pre-flight safety instructions: “in the unlikely event…” Even though air travel is, by all statistical accounts, one of the safest methods to travel, merely raising the ever-so-distant possibility of a crash can still make you a little uneasy. It often works the same with information about the safety situation in different countries. There’s clearly some stuff you need to know, some things that need to be mentioned, but doing so can still make you a little uncomfortable. This chapter, too, will have a few mentions of “unlikely events”. You know: things like theft, scams, bank card fraud, diseases, and all sorts of other super fun travel emergencies. This chapter will probably not be as entertaining as some of the ones that came before. Reading it might even feel like a bit of a chore. While I try to keep it light, I sadly couldn’t think of many funny anecdotes about malaria. But if we just get through this stuff together, you’ll hopefully come out of it feeling a little more reassured. (And I promise the rest of this book will go back to talking about some of the happy fun aspect of travel!)

The basic truths about travel safety Let’s start by talking about your personal safety on the road. When I get questions about this from readers of my blog, I often find these the most difficult to answer. Whenever I write my response, I inevitably get into a terrible tug-of-war with myself between not wanting to needlessly increase any fears but also wanting to tell people not to be naive. Ultimately, I believe there are two basic truths about travel safety:

Truth No. 1: The world is not nearly as scary as it might seem. It’s easy to build up completely inaccurate stereotypes of the safety situation in other countries. The media might make you believe the world is full of terrorists and explosions and vicious sharks raining down from the sky… but actually, by and large, not so much. Travelling the world can open your eyes to how different places are to how you might imagine them from a distance. It can even give you an amazing trust in humanity, as even in the seemingly grittiest places you will find the friendliest and most helpful people. Countless people travel the world for years (or even indefinitely) without ever experiencing any serious issues at all. Truth No. 2: Nevertheless, you shouldn’t be naive. While people are often disproportionately worried about travel safety, that doesn’t mean that travel doesn’t come with some risk. To be a responsible traveller, it’s necessary to be well-informed and to always maintain some basic situational awareness. If you do anything willy-nilly without any care for your personal security, your risks will be far greater than when you travel armed with proper knowledge and a sensible attitude. In the end, it’s all about striking a balance between being careful and adventurous. While some healthy vigilance is good, constant paranoia is clearly also not.

Finding your comfort level Travel safety is often as much about how safe you feel as it is about the objective reality. If you have less travel experience then you might approach some parts of the world with less confidence, even though they are totally safe enough for you to go. Sometimes it helps to have travelled in more familiar places before going into less familiar territory. Over time, you develop a higher tolerance for unfamiliarity and a greater comfort level in places that maybe look a little run down (but which aren’t necessarily dangerous). Countries in the developed world, such as the United States, Canada, Japan, members of the European Union, Australia and New Zealand, are very safe overall and you should clearly not think twice about travelling there. That said, they’re hardly utopias and you could clearly still find plenty of sketchy places if you tried. Most countries in the middle-income and developing world are also very safe, or at least sufficiently safe for visitors. If you apply common sense and

travel responsibly, you will find that personal safety is often less of an issue than you might have imagined (keep in mind that tourists don’t typically get tangled up in local issues). Just be sure to research the situation in each country, so you can avoid key trouble-spots if necessary or, in some very rare cases, avoid a country entirely if it is not recommended to travel there currently. Just don’t judge a book by its cover. Some countries used to get a bad rap but have improved dramatically in recent years. For instance, Colombia used to be closely associated only with terrible things, but it is a much-loved backpacking destination today. When I spent some time with locals in Medellin and asked if they’d ever been robbed there, they pretty much laughed in my face. Then again, the only place where my bag ever got stolen was in Lisbon, known as one of the safest cities in Europe. So it goes.

How to read a safety advisory Okay, so how can you know if a place is safe? Well, you can of course start by getting some general info from travel guides or from reputable online guides. But for more up-to-date information, including any updates based on recent developments, it’s always wise to check the travel advisories on your State Department or Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website. It’s worth taking these travel advisories seriously, but don’t let them make you totally paranoid either. Many travellers consider these reports way too alarmist. Unless you read them with the right mindset, they could give you totally the wrong impression. For example: looking at the advisories for Thailand, the first thing I see is a red triangular warning sign with an exclamation mark, which certainly gets my attention. It says the political situation is currently “relatively stable” but there’s “still potential for political unrest”, and that I should avoid being near demonstrations of any kind. I am also told that areas along the Malaysian border are labelled as “no go” due to potential military skirmishes. Demonstrations? No go areas? Military skirmishes? Sounds like a hot mess! Who in their right mind would go there? And yet tens of millions of tourists go to Thailand every year, and anyone who has been will attest that it is very safe. Of course, technically everything in the advisory is true. Thailand suffers from turbulent politics. There is a low-intensity conflict in the remote province of Pattani near the Malaysian border, though this region is rarely visited by

tourists, and you should probably simply heed the advice and not go there. Not that you would get past the security checkpoints anyway. This is a key issue with travel advisories: often the warnings are about some easily avoidable specific areas, while the rest of the country is just fine. Your takeaway, more often than not, should be “right, so I clearly shouldn’t go to that sketchy area”, and not necessarily write off the entire country as a whole. Keep in mind that a government travel advisory will never tell you “it’s mostly just fine to go here, go on then and have a good time, yaaaaay!”. There would clearly be repercussions for that government if someone very unlucky does run into trouble after reading that. So, think of travel advisories as coming from someone who desperately does not want to get sued. Consider also that travel advisories are not just written for tourists but also for diplomats, NGO workers, business travellers and so on, who might face very different issues than someone just coming to soak up the local culture. Make sure you take in all the safety information, but then turn the volume knob down from about 10 to about a 6. Read enough to make you avoid that questionable neighbourhood, but not so much that you’re travelling with constant cold sweats. By the way, an imperfect but good alternative source for safety information is the Global Peace Index (at visionofhumanity.org). Besides their overall score assigned to each country, be sure to also filter their maps by ‘Perceptions of Criminality’. Keep in mind this includes crime involving locals (who tend to move in different circles) and not necessarily travellers, but I’ve found the color coding of countries to usually line up with my own subjective impressions very well. The travel cost and cost-of-living website Numbeo also has an extensive crime survey (numbeo.com/crime) that includes some specific crowdsourced data on the local perceptions of crime and safety.

Terrible news While travel guides and travel safety reports can be useful sources, don’t be misled by what you might hear in the news media. Reports often focus on extreme individual incidents, not broader trends. And they often tell you very little about what it’s like just to travel there. What we hear about faraway places tends to be only the bad news, as “not much of note happened here, all is fine once again today in Farawayistan” just doesn’t make for an interesting report. If you live in the United States, you

might get a particularly skewed impression. Research has shown that US news media spends some of the least time on foreign news, and when foreign news is covered it is almost always the most extreme and scary stuff (e.g. terrorism in the Middle East). Fear sells: 24/7 cable news relies on loud, scary, and sensationalist news to keep people tuning in. The same effect can also be seen in the news media in other countries. All this only helps to feed preconceptions which can create caricatures of entire countries. For example, many think that Iran must be a super dangerous and evil place, yet travellers keep coming back from this Iran with heartwarming stories of incredible hospitality. Of course, it’s unwise to go into active conflict zones. These clearly don’t make for ideal travel destinations. But even stable countries are sometimes portrayed in quite an unflattering light, when the reality of merely travelling through them can be totally different.

Essential ways to stay safe The following points may strike you as common sense, and they basically are. Travel safety advice often boils down to acting in responsible and sensible ways. These are just a few examples. Ask locals about safety. No one knows better than the people who live there. For instance, ask the receptionist at your hostel or hotel. Typically, you will be told that it’s all fine, though sometimes you will be given a vital tip about not venturing into a particular area. Get safety information from a guidebook. This will also help you avoid any particularly sketchy areas, if they exist. Don’t divulge information unless truly necessary. That random person you just met doesn’t really have to know what hotel or hostel you are staying. You don’t have to tell people details that you don’t want to share. Don’t follow a stranger somewhere (unless you trust them). Anyone trying to get you to follow them somewhere should be treated with suspicion. Okay, so maybe not your tour guide—they’re legit. But if a stranger spontaneously singles you out and bends over backwards to try to isolate you, you may be dealing with a scammer or worse. Take taxis at night. This is particularly advisable in cities in developing countries where you might not want to walk the streets at night (unless you know the area is safe). Be sure to take official taxis only or to use ride-sharing apps with trusted drivers.

Don’t get drunk. Don’t go overboard with alcohol, and don’t walk home alone drunk if it’s possible to take a taxi.

Have a plan when arriving at night. Have a place booked or an address to go to so that you are not needlessly roaming the streets at night with your backpack. Trust your instincts. I think our puny human brains actually seem pretty good at intuitively judging whether things are OK or not. If a situation doesn’t feel right, too good to be true, or just plain weird, bail. Never feel bad about bailing from a situation you’re not comfortable with. By the way, if English is not your first language and you want someone to back off, try swearing at them in your own native language. This is often much easier, and it will truly come from the gut. While your words might not be understood, they’ll surely get the point.

Travelling as a woman Anyone who thinks there aren’t differences between travelling as a man or as a woman surely suffers from a lack of imagination. Sadly, there are. Not only do women have to consider all the usual safety issues, but there are additional issues like the threat of harassment or even assault. The advice given to female travellers typically isn’t that different from the advice given in general though. E.g. do your research, watch your stuff, be aware of your surroundings and avoid, say, walking around alone at night in sketchy areas. Some female travellers advocate specific safety measures such as bringing a safety whistle, or a doorstop that can be used to prevent people from entering your room at night. Apart from any safety issues, female travellers may also have to grapple with cultural issues as there are hugely varying degrees of gender equality around the world. Macho behaviour and catcalling is common in Latin America and some Mediterranean countries for example, which if not threatening can be irritating or inappropriate. In some countries men will give foreign women excessive levels of attention unless you say you’re married or that your husband will be joining you soon. Some female travellers recommend wearing a wedding ring for this purpose even if you aren’t married. I have yet to meet a traveller who has done this, but it seems like it could be a good trick. One common piece of advice is to dress appropriately, i.e. not wearing anything too revealing in cultures where this is not accepted. Wearing a

headscarf in Morocco or a longyi in Burma, for example, will not only prevent unwanted attention but will gain much goodwill with locals in general. While you might find the idea of having to “cover up” offensive, the way of life is simply different in some parts of the world. It should be said that women are travelling (solo or otherwise) all over the world all the time, and most countries are safe to visit for women and men alike. The following articles are well worth reading for some personal views on the subject from experienced female travellers. They can provide some great anecdotes that yours truly, a dude, cannot: adventurouskate.com/never-compromise-your-travel-ideals theblondeabroad.com/ten-essential-tips-solo-female-travelers adventurouskate.com/why-you-no-have-boyfriend nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/solo-female-travel-differences

Dealing with worried family Much of the email I receive about travel safety doesn’t actually come from travellers, but from their mothers. “My son has advised me he is leaving for Asia”, one email began. “I just want to cry all the time. I’m so worried.” Another mother writes: “I’m basically scared out of my mind. I want to support my daughter, but I don’t think it’s responsible for her to do this right now. Am I crazy? I’m hoping you can tell me some good news so I’m able to sleep.” Oof… clearly, leaving for a trip can be a super big deal to anyone who’s staying behind. If you’re young and wanting to travel, this can be especially a sticking point, as not all parents are equally understanding or supportive. Of course, maybe their fears are overblown. Some parents can be overprotective. They were also born in a different time, and some countries might have been much more dangerous back then than they are today. Maybe they haven’t travelled much themselves. Then again, parents could have a point. They might know you better than you know yourself. Who knows — maybe you’re being a bit reckless or biting off more than you can chew. Could it worth trying an easier country first, before leveling up to the trip you really want to do? It always depends on the person, of course. Either way, one thing you can do to ease their fears though is to simply share information. Let them know you’ve truly done your research, as this will show you’re not just doing something impulsive or crazy. You can also keep

parents in the loop during your journey, for instance by sending a quick text message or e-mail updating them every time you change location. I’m now 35 and I still do this for my parents, and they keep telling me this makes things so much easier for them.

Precautions against theft Travellers can be tempting targets for thieves, particularly in lower-income countries where even the grungiest backpacker may be seen as rich by local standards. Fortunately, most theft is purely opportunistic, so by taking some basic precautions you can greatly minimize the chances of having anything stolen. Secure your belongings at your hotel Important possessions are usually kept safest at your place of accommodation. Hostels and guesthouses often provide lockers for your valuables, and hotels often have safes. If you have a private room, your stuff is reasonably safe behind a locked door. Hostels and hotels have a reputation to uphold, and while they may not assume responsibility for any theft, they will generally do their best to prevent it. Most hotels and hostels have 24/7 staff on site. Be mindful when in transit Belongings are most vulnerable when you are moving around, so always keep an eye on your bags, especially if you have just arrived somewhere new and you are still orienting yourself. If you really must leave your bags out of sight for a moment, ask your travel partner or someone you trust to keep an eye on it. Be especially careful with storing bags in overhead compartments in buses or trains as someone could swipe your belongings while you are asleep—it’s rare but it’s been known to happen. One way to make this more difficult is to use a retractable wire lock to chain your bag around a bar or pole. Another way is to travel with a bag that is small enough to place next to you or underneath your chair. Hide your most important stuff Put things like your money, bank cards and passports in hiding places. Some travellers like to use a money pouch, which you can keep under your clothes. There are also various gadgets on the market with hidden compartments, including belts, hats and even underwear. I personally find these annoying to use (and overkill), but it may give you a greater sense of security.

Don’t show off your bling Another way to avoid theft is to not make yourself look like a high-value target. Leave watches, expensive jewellery or anything else that says, “I’m rich, pick me, pick me!” at home. Use apps to track your electronics If you are bringing a smartphone, laptop or tablet, have it set up so that you can trace the device if it gets lost or stolen. Some OSes have this feature builtin. You may also want to look at an app called Prey which works for smartphones as well as laptops (preyproject.com). Have backups of important items Make sure you have ideally at least two ways to get money out. For instance, bring both a bank and a credit card, and keep them separate. Keep emergency contact numbers, the details of your travel insurance (like your policy number) and other key details in an email that you’ve sent to yourself or some other safe storage.

Bank card emergencies Money is the lifeblood of your journey; without it, you can’t do anything! So, what if, heaven forbid, you lose your bank cards? It’s a tricky situation, but you might be relieved to know that it’s not yet the end of the world. I was certainly not happy when it happened to me, but then I soon learned there are still some fallbacks you can use. My first bankcard ended up getting blocked because it had been skimmed somewhere in Honduras. Basically, skimming is a way of hacking your card using a counterfeit reader. You might not notice that your card has been skimmed at all, until you take a closer look at your bank statements. I was shocked to find that my card (or rather, a duplicate) was being used in Santiago, Chile to take out a maximum cash withdrawal every day. My account was already down about £3000! I had never even been to Chile, so I immediately called my bank’s 24/7 helpline, who started a fraud investigation. Fortunately, banks are insured against this sort of thing, so I got the money back eventually. This did mean having to block the card to prevent further fraud. Fortunately, I was a well-prepared traveller, and had a back-up bank card. But then, somewhere in Bolivia, I went to get money out in the morning before my first coffee and with my brain not yet at full power. I typed in the PIN of my non-backup card… and did this several times. The ATM then

announced it had had enough of that, and for security reasons would now be kindly destroying my card. Thanks, ATM. It’s obviously very stressful not to have any way of getting money out when you’re in who-knows-where. Fortunately, I still had $30 in cash as backup money stashed in my backpack. Later, some other travellers at my hostel offered to take cash out for me, which I then PayPal-ed to them. That was at least a temporary fix. Sometimes banks can send a replacement card to you, but that’s going to be difficult if you’re in a far-away place. They definitely couldn’t send one to Bolivia. And so that’s when I learned of... Western Union! (Woooo, yaaaay!) Western Union has branches all over the world, even in quite obscure places. To use them you need to send money to them by wire, which you can then pick up in cash at a Western Union affiliated shop, post office, or local bank. If you still have access to your internet banking, or if you can give your bank instructions by phone, then you can set up a Western Union transfer yourself. Otherwise, you may have to rely on your family to transfer money to Western Union for you to pick up. It’s not instant, and you have to deal with a bunch of paperwork, but you’ll eventually have cash in hand. I travelled for several months just using Western Union withdrawals.

Staying safe during activities Besides crime, there are some other areas of safety. And these are ones that are arguably more important, as they are realistically more likely to affect travellers.

Zip-lining, scuba diving, rafting, etc. Health and safety regulations can be quite extreme in the West. Sometimes it feels as though the authorities would want to put us all in totally sealed off protective bubbles. Elsewhere in the world, the attitude might be the total opposite, where no one might care much at all. So, if you are going to participate in any sports or activities, it’s worth checking the reviews online. Always expect a safety briefing and don’t trust shoddy equipment. Of course, usually things will be just fine. A quick look at a site like TripAdvisor is usually enough to get a good idea of a company’s reputation.

Traffic safety

Many countries are lax when it comes to traffic rules and regulations. For instance, in Thailand it is perfectly possible to rent a motorbike without a license, and in practice wearing a helmet is entirely optional. Although I had never driven a motorbike before, I jumped at the opportunity to rent one in Thailand in the town of Pai, as it was simply the best way to get around the area. It took a few moments to figure things out, but before I knew it, I was riding through beautiful landscapes with my head in the wind and a big grin on my face. Sometimes I was accompanied by Rambo, a dog from the hostel that would hitch rides into town by sitting on the floorboard. Good times. Puttering around a sleepy town or riding through quiet paved country roads is probably not a huge issue, even without much prior experience. On the other hand, there are plenty of foreigners blasting around Thailand at hyper speeds of over 100 km/h, even without a helmet or any protective gear. This is… less wise. (By the way, dirt roads can be treacherous even at low speeds!) Throughout Southeast Asia I’ve met travellers with bandages from accidents. Getting wounds or scars is so common as to have nicknames: in Thailand it’s “getting a Thai tattoo”, and in Indonesia it’s a “Bali kiss”. The names are cute but hide the fact that some injuries are serious, and that there are record fatalities each year. Drive slowly, drive carefully, and don’t assume locals to stick to any traffic rules. Traffic safety is truly the no. 1 danger abroad, and a half a billion times more likely to be an issue than any axe murderers and/or sharks. (Seriously.)

Drugs Well, this subject is always a bit interesting — and difficult to write about given people’s often wildly different views on drugs. Let’s just say that certain experiences can be a lot of fun. A tropical beach with a Milky Way sky and blue bioluminescent plankton sparkling in the water can be an utterly enchanting and mesmerizing place to be on magic mushrooms… or, um, so I’ve heard. Then again, I once had to slowly nurse a travel buddy back to sanity in Laos after he’d taken some stuff he hadn’t had before, fled to his room, and then thought that demons were crawling out of the walls. It took a lot of chocolate cake for him to mellow out—and for him to put his shirt and pants back on. Obviously, you can be vulnerable in such a situation in a place you don’t know. Buying or consuming drugs abroad – even just weed – can also be tricky in ways that may not be immediately obvious. Drugs may seem

tolerated in some parts but could in practice still be highly illegal—and cops are always looking for any excuse to extract a bribe. Kids might sell some stuff to a traveller, then run around the corner to tell the cops, who will then shake you down. In some countries, there’s simply a zero-tolerance on drugs, with severe penalties in place. Whatever you do, make sure you know the local situation. When dealers sell drugs to foreign travellers, they also have little incentive to provide good product as return customers are rare. One cautionary tale comes from a guy I met on Koh Phangan in Thailand who bought what he thought was MDMA, but whatever it was, it had no effect on him other than to make him sick like a dog for many days. I’m just sharing these as reminders that things can be different abroad than what you might be used to at home. And while travelling can be a time for new experiences or experimentation, don’t ever feel pressured to try drugs, especially if you don’t know their effects or how to deal with them. Of course, if it’s not your thing in the first place, then all of this is entirely moot.

Hiking safety Hiking independently can be difficult in some countries, as trails are not always marked and hiking maps not always available. Presumably many local authorities avoid setting up a hiking infrastructure so that travellers are forced to hire private guides. Either make sure you know there is a good route to follow or get a guide to show you the way. As a rule of thumb, don’t hike alone—aside from maybe short or very well-marked trails, or trails with loads of other hikers passing through. If you are hiking without a guide, at least let someone know where you are going. This can be the staff at your last hostel, or if you are visiting a well-managed national park with facilities you could check in at the entrance. If you ever get lost, first try to backtrack. Never split up a group to go in different directions: it is always better to stick together. If you are completely and utterly lost, try to find a river, and follow it downstream. Finally, make sure you bring some rain cover, food and especially plenty of water with you.

Avoiding scams If you travel for any significant length of time you will probably encounter a scam or two. While you may not avoid them entirely, you can be better prepared for them by reading up on common scams in your guidebook or on

Wikivoyage. Most scams are just relatively tame ways of tricking you into paying a bit more money, though there are some more villainous ones out there too. One infamous scam involves claiming you have damaged a rented motorbike or other equipment when clearly you have not. They will point to what is clearly a ‘pre-existing condition’, though you will be demanded enormous charges for repair. Sometimes the police are in cahoots with these scammers, offering to mediate towards a lower settlement but secretly getting a slice of the pie. There’s an easy way to avoid this: always take photos or a video of any vehicles or equipment you intend to rent. Another scam I often heard about is the dual menu switch-a-roo in bars and restaurants, where one menu with reasonable prices is swapped for another one with exorbitant ones, while you will still be expected to pay the bill. But to be honest, this has only ever happened to me once, in Vietnam. Don’t feel as though you need to forever stay polite and reasonable just because someone is friendly towards you. Scammers know that most people will avoid confrontation, so they will just keep trying and trying. Don’t feel bad about utterly ignoring someone or firmly telling them off. Be firm with cab drivers. They are the grand masters of overcharging, tampering with meters, and so on. They will also often claim a hotel or attraction you want to go to is closed / too expensive / full / under renovation / eaten by a monster, but they just so happen to know the perfect alternative, which is a dodgy place that they earn commission off. Some scammers will have no qualms preying on people’s goodwill even in the most unethical ways. In Vietnam I was repeatedly approached by someone claiming to be a representative of the Red Cross collecting money for the disabled. (Vietnam still has many disabled people from the war and from land mines.) She had an official-looking badge and was trying to sell toothpicks in exchange for donations. This struck me as rather bizarre, though I chalked it down to some kind of cultural misunderstanding—perhaps toothpicks were a symbol for something? When she got out a little booklet showing handwritten names of donors along with their hefty donations ($15, $40, etc.) alarm bells went off in my head. Surely this is scam territory: she was clearly priming me for making a large donation, which probably isn’t the sort of sales tactic the Red Cross would use. Or maybe I was just being paranoid? After her continued pleading I ended up giving her a bunch of money. Perhaps I was just sick of having to deal with the situation.

Even though I was briefly on to the whole charade I had folded too easily. It was only minutes later that I was kicking myself for it. As I soon found out, the whole thing is a confirmed scam and the badge is totally fake. If you do get stung, don’t be too hard on yourself. You were simply deceived, and your trust or generosity were taken advantage of. Chalk it up to experience and try better next time. Even if you’re royally pissed off, you shouldn’t turn aggressive towards scammers, as this could have unwanted consequences.

Digital security and backups As careful as people usually are with their physical belongings, many forget to apply the same care to their virtual ones. It’s obviously a good idea to have a screen lock and password on your devices. Consider using a password manager such as LastPass (lastpass.com) or 1Password (1password.com) to securely store logins for websites and apps. Set up some device tracking (like ‘Find my iPhone’ on iOS) or use Prey to remotely lock or trace a laptop (preyproject.com). Keep in mind that when you log into sites from abroad, it will often give you additional security questions or ask for e-mail or SMS confirmation, as your new location might be treated as suspicious by the system. If you use any 2-factor authentication, make sure the access key can actually reach you. (I’ve found myself locked out of Paypal and other sites when I couldn’t receive SMSes while roaming abroad.) For the love of all that is holy, enable a backup system. I am so sick of hearing travellers cry about having lost all their photos in some accident or whatnot. It truly happens way more often than necessery. Your phone or camera doesn’t even have to get stolen to lose all your files; you might just drop it in the ocean, or get your files corrupted due to overheating, or your phone might just simply decide to stop working one day. Make sure you set up cloud-based storage such as iCloud or Google Drive for your photos, ideally so they get backed up automatically all the time. It’s not difficult to set up and will insure you against data loss. If you’re not sure how, get a clever friend to do it for you. Put important things on your laptop in a Dropbox, or on Microsoft’s OneDrive, or some other cloud service. If the internet is too slow to upload things as you travel, you can use spare SD cards or USB drives for temporary backups.

Staying healthy on the road

Switching tack here a little, let’s address a different aspect of your wellbeing abroad: your personal health. We’ll dig into a couple of important issues here, but don’t let words like “malaria” or “dengue” give you too much heebie-jeebies. There are only a handful of major health dangers that directly affect travellers, and so long as you’re aware of them and take some precautions, there honestly isn’t that much to worry about. There are two steps you should always take before your departure: 1. Buy travel insurance with comprehensive medical coverage. This is simply a good precaution and will be discussed in a bit more detail later. 2. Visit your doctor and inform them of your travel plans. Do this well in advance; 6 to 8 weeks before planned departure is generally recommended, as this will give enough time for any vaccinations that you potentially need to take effect. It will also provide enough time to test which type of malaria tablets are best suited to you, assuming any malaria prophylaxis is recommended to you for your intended destinations. Obviously, do this if you’re going to Borneo and not if you’re going to Belgium. Before we continue, I should mention I’m not a doctor. The following information is sourced mainly from the UK’s National Health Service and the World Health Organization, as well as some lessons learned from personal experience.

Getting your vaccinations If you are going to Africa, Asia or South America, you may need to get certain vaccinations. Your doctor can advise you based on your travel plans. Make sure you tell your doctor if you expect to be in any sort of unusual circumstance beyond just normal travel—say, volunteering in slum or refugee areas, spending lots of time in paddy fields during monsoon season, or hiking in very remote places—as this can affect what kind of preventative measures you might need. Some vaccinations are totally routine, and you will have usually had these as a child, such as for measles, polio or meningitis C. If you are already insured under a health program these vaccinations are most likely free of charge, so nothing should stop you from getting them if you haven’t already. There are a couple of other diseases that are specifically relevant to travellers, nearly all of which have vaccinations available.

Typhoid Fever An infection caused by bacteria, spread by way of contaminated food or water in areas of poor sanitation. A vaccination will protect you completely for up to 3 years and is standard for travellers.

Hepatitis A A disease spread by way of contaminated food or water. This is also a standard vaccination for travellers. Once fully vaccinated you will be immune for up to 20 years.

Hepatitis B Spread primarily through unprotected sex, or sometimes through needles that were not properly sterilized (e.g. tattoo needles). Not a routine vaccination for travellers, though it is possible you’ll get one in combination with either Hepatitis A or Typhoid.

Yellow Fever Yellow Fever is spread by mosquitoes and is fatal in about 10% of cases. A vaccination will protect you completely for at least 10 years. You should get a Yellow Fever vaccination if you are going to Latin America or Sub-Saharan Africa, but not if you are going to Asia or elsewhere as the disease does not occur there. For some countries, you (officially) need proof of Yellow Fever vaccination to enter them. When you get vaccinated, they give you a little booklet that you can staple into your passport.

Rabies Rabies is a disease transmitted from animals to humans, most often through a bite from an infected dog. A vaccine is not routinely given to travellers but might still be recommended if you are particularly at risk in some way, for example if you will be trekking extensively in areas where rabies occurs or if you are going to regions where there is no access to prompt medical care. A rabies shot can be expensive: I was once quoted about £150 in the UK (which is about $200) and this is perhaps one reason not everyone chooses to get it. The vaccination also does not make you immune: it only buys you some additional time in the unlikely event that you get rabies and cannot receive medical attention within a few days.

Dengue Fever Dengue is an increasingly common infection that knows, at this time, no vaccination or cure. It is a tropical disease spread by mosquitoes that bite during the day (as opposed to malaria, which is spread by another type of

mosquito that bites between dusk and dawn). Symptoms include high fever, headache, pain behind the eyes, and bone, muscle and joint pain. The good news is that it’s normally not life threatening, and you can recover from it within a couple of weeks. It is however an extremely painful disease and a terrible experience to go through, as I’ve been told in no uncertain terms by people who’ve had it. While rare, dengue fever is another good reason to avoid mosquito bites; use mosquito repellent and sleep under mosquito nets where necessary.

Malaria Finally, there is malaria—one of the more talked about travel health issues. It is a serious disease, as it’s sometimes fatal if it is not diagnosed and treated promptly. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, sweats and chills, muscle pains, headaches and diarrhoea. These symptoms develop some time after being bitten by an infected mosquito—anywhere ranging from 7 days to up to a year after infection. That said, it is also a completely curable disease if it’s diagnosed and treated promptly. There is currently still no vaccine, though preventative antimalarial medication does exist. This, in addition to using common methods for avoiding mosquito bites, can help protect you against malaria (though no method is 100% effective). Malaria can be highly endemic in some areas and barely existent or nonexistent in others. The middle chunk of the African continent remains the most problematic, and your doctor will probably recommend malaria prophylaxis if you’re going to these parts. The African countries above the Sahara Desert, and the ones in the very south, are relatively low-risk though. Outside of Africa, the threat is generally less severe. High-risk areas are usually found in the more remote parts of the world, including the jungles of Papua New Guinea, Borneo, and the depths of the Amazon. Many countries around the world are working to eradicate malaria and much progress is being made. Malaria maps from 5 or 10 years ago may already be outdated. Consult your doctor 6 to 8 weeks before your trip, as that gives time to potentially try out some antimalarial tablets (they can have side-effects, so it’s good to check). If you get fever or other symptoms after having been in any malarial area, be sure to tell your doctor as this will allow them to investigate. It might not just simply be a cold or a flu. By the way, if it seems like many travellers take malaria prophylaxis, in my experience this isn’t the case. I’ve never taken it and loads of travellers

don’t take it. That’s a personal choice, but given the very low risks in most parts of the world, I prefer not to deal with the cost or the possible side-effects of malaria medication. Avoiding mosquito bites is always a good idea of course. Keep your room’s windows closed if there’s no mosquito gauze, use good repellent containing DEET, and use a fan at night as the mozzies don’t like the wind. Sometimes it’s necessary to sleep under a mosquito net. In my experience, there’s always nets around when you need them, though I’ve heard in subSaharan Africa it can still be good to bring your own.

Minor health issues or annoyances Rest assured, we have now covered the serious diseases you need to know about. Phew! The following are a few other common health issues or annoyances which, while not as serious as infectious diseases, are still good to be aware of.

Altitude sickness As a rough rule of thumb, you can get affected by altitude effects if you are anywhere over 2,400m above sea level. These effects can range from simply being out of breath often, to more severe effects such as persistent headaches or feeling sick to your stomach. One way to experience the effects of altitude change in a dramatic way is to fly straight from Lima in Peru (elevation: sea level) to Cusco (elevation: 3,399 m), as I once did. After landing, you and everyone else on the plane will walk through the terminal in a surreal slow-motion, as though everyone suddenly and inexplicably became extremely stoned. While my brain kept telling my body to walk faster, it just wouldn’t do it. A brief walk up a few steps would leave me huffing and puffing. This phenomenon is caused by the thinner air at higher altitudes: because you take in less oxygen with every breath, you will be out of breath faster. If your body has not had any time to adjust, the effects will be particularly noticeable. If you go to a high altitude, allow yourself some time to acclimatize by taking it easy for a day or two. This will give your body a chance to produce more red blood cells, which help deliver more oxygen to your body tissues. Usually you will begin noticing some improvement after 24 to 48 hours. (Of course, if you have gradually been going higher into the mountains over a period of many days, your body may have already adjusted along the way.)

Bed bugs Bed bugs can be an issue on rare occasions. These tiny bugs are only a few millimetres in size and sometimes live under mattresses. They do not carry disease and are rather harmless, though they will bite humans at night— sucking your blood the same way a mosquito would. You will know you have bed bugs if you find little clusters of red marks on your skin in the morning, like mosquito bites but smaller and closer together. Some travellers get all paranoid and twitchy about bed bugs. If they had to scratch themselves once or twice at night, they’ll immediately claim a hostel is ridden with bugs. Sometimes it seems like the words “bed bugs” are just the default way to punish a hostel for any bad service, whether there really were any or not. While these little vampires are unpleasant to think about, I found them to have been a very rare occurrence. Maybe this is just anecdotal, but after travelling the world for many years, and staying in a different place every couple of days (including some pretty… well, rustic places), I encountered bed bugs only twice. If you do get unlucky, inform the staff as they’ll surely want to get rid of them. You might want to wash any clothes or fabrics that were on your bed at a high temperature (such as 60° C or 140°F), as this will kill any bugs trying to hitch a ride with you.

Food safety and hygiene While travelling you will surely end up eating different food than at home, and due to constantly being on the move you will probably often eat on an irregular schedule as well. As a result, your digestive system may be a little off at times. This is nothing to worry about as it is simply part of being in a new environment. Most people find that it becomes much less of an issue after a while. That said, if you are visiting developing countries where hygiene standards can be poor, you may face more severe issues at some point. We might refer to this as the Traveller’s Curse. There are some other creative euphemisms in use depending on the location: people speak of Delhi Belly in India and Montezuma’s Revenge in Mexico. Getting full-on food poisoning is not fun. But if you are travelling in developing countries for any significant length of time, you might just have to deal with at some point.

The worst situation you could find yourself in is, say, being stuck on a bus without a toilet and feeling like you could be having a severe bowel emergency at any time. For these scenarios it’s a good idea to have some imodium pills with you. Imodium (also known by its non-brand name loperamide) has a constipating effect, and while this doesn’t address the root cause, it can help you stay out of trouble in the short term. If you are so unlucky to get food poisoning, the best thing you can do is to simply take it easy for a while. Stay in your room, maybe read a book, and stay within easy reach of a toilet. Drink plenty of water and try to eat when your body feels up to it again. Things usually get better within 24 to 48 hours. You will probably be cursing “FML!” repeatedly during this time, but it should all pass, and you should be back on your feet soon. There are fortunately some things you can do to prevent an upset stomach, or at least significantly reduce the chances: Drink only bottled water. In many countries there is some risk of tap water being contaminated (at least without boiling it first) and so this is best avoided, though bottled water is almost universally safe to drink. Avoid sketchy-looking food. If you have the choice between a freshly prepared dish and a fly-covered buffet that clearly has been sitting in the sun all day, the choice is clear. Eat where locals eat. If a food stall has many locals waiting in line, or if a restaurant looks lively with many local customers, that’s usually a sign the food will be of a high standard. Those locals don’t want to get sick either, and they know probably the reputations of places better than you do. Avoid drinks with ice cubes. These are often made with potentially contaminated tap water instead of safe/bottled water. Some restaurants and street vendors along the backpacker trails have gotten the message about this though and will clearly state their ice cubes are safe—in this case I think there’s little reason to doubt them. Take it easy on the spicy food. If you are not used to spicy food you may want to gradually build up a tolerance instead of jumping straight in — or avoid it entirely if you are particularly sensitive. Spicy food can cause diarrhoea as it tends to irritate the intestines, which the body responds to by releasing more water to dilute the irritant. Resist the urge to pile on the red chilies if your body is not used to spiciness of such magnitude.

Boil it, cook it, peel it or forget it. This is a common piece of advice for food safety. If it’s been cooked/boiled and made to order, it’s probably safe. If it’s fruit that can be peeled, it’s probably fine too. Severe bowel problems are, fortunately, not quite as common as you might imagine. You could travel for an entire year and get hit maybe once or twice— which certainly isn’t fun but is still manageable. (India might be an exception to this.) Then again, you could be unlucky. If you’re on a short holiday, I think it might make sense to be cautious, as you don’t have that much time and so getting sick could seriously spoil things. As a longer term traveller, probably you can afford to be a little more adventurous with the local food. Don’t be afraid to eat the street food. Countries like Thailand or Mexico have an amazing street food culture, and it’s often at food stalls, food trucks, and little roadside eateries that you can find the really good stuff. Their cooks have often specialized in making the just one dish for years or even decades, and they know to do it just right. If the food passes your basic trust test, go for it. Eating at the more basic local places is all part of the experience! There’s nothing like sitting down on a tiny plastic chair on a roadside in Ho Chi Minh City and getting yourself a nice bowl of steaming hot pho noodles along with all the usual herbs, bean sprouts, limes, and chillies that you can add to taste. It’s pure happiness, and it would be a real shame to miss out.

Getting medical assistance If you do get sick while travelling and it is nothing too severe, simply do as you would at home: rest, take it easy, take appropriate medicine if necessary, and make sure you drink and eat well. If you need a doctor abroad, unless you are very far removed from civilization it is usually not too difficult to find a general practitioner or clinic nearby. Ask at your hotel reception where you can find one. I find that communication with doctors is not usually the biggest issue: they tend to be well-educated and so they will often be able to speak some English even in countries where this is not so common in general. Before you go out to receive medical help, you might want to call your travel insurer’s 24-hour medical helpline or their claims advice hotline. These are not just for extreme emergencies; checking with them could be a precondition for any claims you make later. Keep receipts if you plan to claim anything back from your insurance. When buying medicine in pharmacies, keep in mind that you may know certain medicine by their brand name rather than their medical name. Nurofen or Advil are brand names for ibuprofen painkillers, and Imodium is a brand name for loperamide (constipation pills). Not every pharmacist is aware of

every brand name as these can be different around the world, but if you write down the generic medical name, they will almost definitely be able to help you.

Knowing when to call it off While unlikely, if you do end up having a serious medical issue abroad, consider whether you should… well, change your travel plans! Travellers can be stubborn. One cautionary tale comes from a Scottish guy I met in Indonesia, who hurt his foot so badly in an accident that he had to get 22 stitches. Aid was given at a local clinic on a small island. But instead of backtracking to a city with a proper hospital and more qualified staff and facilities, this traveller refused to change his plans in any way, and so he stuck around a hostel for two weeks while walking around awkwardly on crutches. When the wound got infected due to poor sterilization, he had to be evacuated back to Europe for surgery at great expense. His family was taken by complete surprise as he had failed to mention the whole incident. If something unforeseen does happen, it may be difficult to admit defeat, and it may be disappointing to have to adjust or even abort part of your travel plans. But in the end, it’s best to get things looked after properly, as you can always come back later.

Travel insurance: do you really need it? If you’re travelling abroad, then it makes a lot of sense to get comprehensive travel insurance. This won’t, in itself, help you stay safe or healthy, but it can minimize the considerable financial risks of travelling, particularly in the case of accidents or other unforeseen situations. Sure, there might be some low-risk scenarios where travel insurance is not essential. For instance, you might be on a cultural city trip where you’ll be spending most of your time in museums and restaurants. Or you might be visiting a country that neighbours your own and from which you could easily come back in an emergency. But when you’re travelling far and wide, and especially when you’re going to adventurous countries or doing adventurous activities, it’s a great idea to have travel insurance. I once met someone who had gotten into a serious motorbike accident and had to be treated in a hospital, but because he was uninsured, he had to go into debt to pay his hospital bills. He had to cancel the rest of his trip and was stuck in one place just trying to get enough money together to fly back home.

Another time I went trekking in Nepal and met an Australian guy who’d hurt his foot so badly he couldn’t go up or down. The only way to get out of the Himalayas and back to Kathmandu to get his injury treated was by helicopter, which normally costs more than $10,000 for just a one-way trip. Fortunately, he was ensured, and so after some calls back and forth with his insurer, a helicopter did arrive free of charge. I’m pretty sure I heard him ROFLing his way out of there. Far from just an unnecessary expense, travel insurance really does have its moments of glory. Even if you doubt the need for it yourself, it can at least give some extra peace of mind to any loved ones you have at home. Keep in mind that your existing medical insurance at home most likely will not cover you abroad. Regular medical insurance typically offers domestic coverage only, which is why you will need the additional travel insurance for any potential medical expenses abroad. When setting out to buy travel insurance, be sure to follow these steps first:

1. Check if you already have insurance You may already be covered without realizing, as some credit cards and bank accounts offer annual travel insurance as a free bonus. It’s also possible that another family member has got you covered as part of a family travel insurance package. Do check if the existing insurance covers you for long stay travel or for the specific countries or activities you are planning.

2. Check if your insurance covers long trips Annual travel insurance policies often limit individual trip coverage to 30 or 60 days. Fortunately, there are many catering specifically to globe trotters and adventure travellers who might be going away longer than that. Some backpacker insurance policies even give you the flexibility to extend them while on your trip, should you want to travel longer than planned. Search around for backpacker, long stay, or nomad travel insurance.

Basic terminology explained It’s possible you never had to deal with insurance before, so here is the unabashedly basic explanation: insurance is a system by which you pay a specified amount to the insurer, which in turn gives you a certain level of coverage. This means that if something then were to happen (e.g. loss, damage, illness) and it’s within your coverage, the insurer will have to compensate you financially. For instance, if you become ill and need to see a doctor, you can file a claim with your insurer. Usually this requires sending them a doctor’s report

and other details supporting your claim. If the insurer finds nothing unusual about your claim and has checked that it’s within your coverage, they will compensate you according to the amount specified in your policy. Insurance usually has a specified “excess” (known as a “deductible” in the United States). This is an amount of money you will have to pay yourself if you decide to claim on your policy. So, if your excess for medical expenses is €50, and the treatment you received cost €200, you can claim back only €150. It is not always that simple however: the excess for stolen items could be per item rather than taken together, so read your policy well, as the devil is always in the details. It is often possible to buy an upgraded insurance package with a lower or even no excess, though this will come at a higher cost (also called a higher “premium”).

What are you covered for? What you’re covered for depends entirely on your insurance package. But usually it covers you for scenarios such as theft, loss of passport, cancellation (if you have to cancel your trip for emergency reasons), missed departure, scheduled airline failure, and more. I think these are all nice to have, but the real reason to get travel insurance is for the medical expenses and personal liability coverage. If your phone gets stolen, I suppose that’s still a recoverable setback without insurance. But if you need to be hospitalized abroad, the bills can quickly run into the tens of thousands of Dollars or Euros. So, it’s in these sort of scenarios that travel insurance truly has your back. Medical coverage is not just useful in the case of severe illness or accident but also pretty neat for smaller unforeseen medical issues. Perhaps you will need some emergency dental treatment or be treated for an allergic reaction. I once got inner-ear barotrauma after a week of intense scuba diving and was glad to be able to get some free specialist check-ups. Of course, medical treatment might be cheap to pay for out of pocket in some countries, though the real reason to have the insurance is for any big unexpected emergencies. Most insurers will cover you for up to millions of Dollars/Euros/Pounds of medical expenses. Do check if the insurer covers pre-existing conditions and be sure to disclose any you might have, as failing to do so can invalidate claims even if the pre-existing condition is completely unrelated. If repatriation to your home country is necessary, this is almost always also covered. In serious cases additional accommodation or travel expenses can

sometimes also be claimed. Personal liability insurance is another good one to have as part of your travel insurance package. It will be a real lifesaver if you accidentally damage someone’s property or accidentally injure someone. So, if you happen to, say, walk through a luxury mansion and accidentally knock down an insanely expensive antique Chinese vase (just a ridiculous example), it doesn’t have to bankrupt you for the rest of your life. Personal liability is usually covered up to a humongous amount (often a million or more). Many policies will cover you for any accidents during various sports or activities. These lists contain all sorts of obscure and at times surprising activities. For example, my insurer covers husky sledge driving, falconing, and archaeological digging, but I would have to pay a premium for playing American football, riding ostriches or partaking in historical battle reenactments. Who knew insurance policies could be such a great source of bucket list inspiration? Unless you are planning to engage in particularly injury-prone activities, the standard list will usually have you covered. Activities like hiking, mountain biking, snorkelling, surfing, scuba diving (up to 30 or 40m, the usual limit for recreational diving) as well as various common sports should be expected in any standard package with a reputable insurer. Winter sports like skiing or snowboarding often have to be insured separately though. World Nomads: not the only travel insurance around! If you look online for tips about backpacker travel insurance, you will no doubt find many blogs (including mine) recommending World Nomads. This insurer is, in fact, very good. Their quality of service is high—but so is their price. One reason that World Nomads gets recommended a lot is that they run a successful affiliate program, meaning that travel blogs get commission from any customers they refer to them. While they are definitely a good option, they are far from the only player around—and others may offer similar packages at more competitive prices. It’s always worth shopping around.

Always do these two things Regardless of what travel insurance you end up getting, there are always two things that you absolutely must do:

Read the fine print. I know, it’s boring to read through a bunch of legalese, but to avoid disappointments you should know what’s covered and what isn’t. You might think from the insurer’s marketing page that you’re totally covered for theft, for example, but then when you have to make a claim you could notice some limitations. When it says ‘valuables’ the definition might have excluded cameras and phones — doh! Or there might be a Single Item Limit, meaning you won’t be covered over a certain amount per item. Make sure you truly understand when and to what degree your insurance will help. Always keep documents. Be sure to keep receipts of any expenses you need to claim back later. In the case of a theft or accident, always get a copy of the police report. Why? Well, your insurer always needs to see some paperwork to know that you’re not defrauding them. Insurance is not a way to get free money; you always have to backup your claims with some proof!

Unlikely events If you travel with insurance and you travel in a sensible way, you will already hugely limit any of the risks of travelling. Just keep in mind what we talked about at the start of this chapter: this is ultimately about unlikely events, and chances are that absolutely nothing extraordinary will happen at all on your trip. (Well, nothing bad, anyway!) When you’re researching your destinations, keep in mind you can easily get stuck in an informational rabbit hole. If you’re determined to find scary stories, I’m sure you’ll find them. If you’ve ever looked up medical information online, you’ll know exactly what I mean: you might start just investigating a little cough, but a few clicks later you might think you have only days left to live. While it’s good to do your due diligence before travelling, try not to fall into this trap. For the most part, the world is a pretty safe place for travellers. I don’t want to scare you too much! Everything I’ve talked about in this chapter is merely to be prepared for the worst. Generally, it’s never been a safer time to travel the world. It’s a big, beautiful place… so get out there and experience it.

Key points from this chapter

The world is, by and large, rather quite safe. Don’t rely exclusively on the news to inform you about the safety in different countries, as it can easily give you a very skewed perspective. That said, it’s also important not to be naive. As with many things in life, travel does carry some risk, and so you don’t want to walk into situations blind. Apply common sense precautions. Read safety advisories and ask about the local situation. Check travel guides for mentions of common scams. Most people only think of axe-murderers when it comes to safety, but in reality, there are other scenarios that are a far more likely to actually affect you. Something to be way more mindful of is traffic safety. Remember to make backups of your photos and other files! Visit your doctor well in advance of your trip (6 to 8 weeks) to sort out any vaccinations you need. If you are going to Sub-Saharan Africa or South America, get proof of your Yellow Fever vaccination. Take a common-sense approach to what you eat, but don’t be afraid to try the local food; many veteran traveller will tell you that you can get a stomach bug just as easily from a tourist restaurant as from a street vendor. It’s always a good idea to get comprehensive travel insurance. If you are travelling long term, make sure it covers long or indefinite trips.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Meeting people & diving into the local culture The night was full of stars and the air filled with a cool mountain breeze. We were huddled around a campfire, making marshmallows, drinking rum, and telling tales. We were a typically ragtag bunch of travellers: a 40something couple from New Zealand, a 30-something guy from Germany, a 20-something girl from Sweden, and me. We merrily hummed along to some silly songs the German guy played on his guitar. When he’d finished, he looked around our circle and said, “You know what’s so great about travel? It’s the people.” As cheesy as that might have sounded, it was something we could all easily agree with. And so, under that beautiful Bolivian night sky, we all clinked our glasses and cheered. That guy was right: travel is all about the people. The moments you often end up remembering the most are ones spent with some of those wonderful, interesting, or just plain odd people you meet along the way. Whether it’s your travel companions, random other travellers, or locals that you end up spending time with, the shared experiences and cultural exchanges are a huge part of what makes travel so much fun. This chapter aims to answer such burning questions as: who should you travel with (and how will you work well as a team)? How can you meet other travellers along the way? How do you meet locals? But above all, how can you deal with all the cultural and language barriers you will surely face daily? Let’s dig in…

Who should you travel with?

Who you travel with affects your journey more than anything else. You could be trapped in a terrible thunderstorm for days, but with the right company you can still have a pretty good time. Or you might be visiting the most majestic location on Earth, but not enjoy it at all because you are travelling with a curmudgeon. Some people can be great friends at home but might be terrible travel buddies. The opposite can also be true. When it comes to longer trips, I think there are basically two kinds of ideal travel companion. Obviously, you can travel with someone you already know well — a good friend or a partner. You leave home together and come back together, and any challenges in between are for you to solve as a team. This means for a successful trip you’ll need to be on the same wavelength. If you don’t already have someone to travel with, you could also hit the road solo and travel with people you meet along the way. This is more common than you might think. Backpackers who meet in transit or in hostels or guesthouses often team up in ad hoc fashion, forming groups or duos based purely on their current travel plans. Such serendipitous travel partners can be great because the pressures on you as a team are much lower. Either you hit it off well and you keep travelling together, or if you don’t it’s not unthinkable to go your separate ways. (There’ll be more on solo travel in a next chapter.) Arguably the most challenging for a long-term trip is to travel as a group. That is to say, a group you formed at home and not an ad hoc one that emerged spontaneously on the trail. As a group you are likely to have broader-ranging desires and goals, which can lead to more compromise and potentially frustration over time. The logistics are also more complicated and progress much slower. I think groups often do well on relatively shorter holidays or more clearly defined trips, as together it’s easy to stay in high spirits and fun to bond over a shared goal. (For example, a long nature trek can be awesome with a group of buddies.) But groups can struggle or even fracture when travelling for many months on end, as people’s different priorities begin to create tensions. That’s just been my observation, anyway. If you’re travelling as a (new-ish) couple, keep in mind this can be as big of a thing as moving in together. You’ll be together 24/7. The constant problem-solving you’ll face during a trip will also require a good deal of teamwork. Admittedly, I’m not the world’s greatest authority on this as I’ve done most of my travels either solo or with friend, and not with a significant other. But travelling couples have told me that it’s key to communicate, to

share in all the decisions (on where to go, etc.), to voice your opinion, not to blame the other about any travel decisions, and to make time for yourself as well as for each other.

Embracing the backpacker culture When backpacking, things often work a little differently socially than they do at home. Before I embarked on my first big backpacking trip, I could never have imagined that I would meet hundreds of other travellers on my journey, and even make some lasting friends along the way. I also couldn’t have predicted that I would share large parts of my journey with people I encountered randomly. After I had spent eight months on my first backpacking trip and had arrived back home in London, it truly hit me how different things can be on the trail. As I looked around the all-too-familiar London Overground train, I noticed that every passenger was either fixated on their phone or staring at the ceiling. When a voice on the speakers announced a 15-minute delay to our arrival, it triggered a lovely murmur of British harrumphing around the car. “…Typical” the man next to me said under his breath, visibly annoyed. It occurred to me then that I probably wouldn’t talk to that man, nor anyone else on that train. But let’s imagine that I was incredibly spontaneous and did get into a conversation with any of these strangers around me… would I then suggest we go visit a castle together or travel to Birmingham tomorrow? Would I ask where exactly they will be sleeping tonight, or if they are hungry and would like to join me for food later? It was only because I had just been backpacking that I amused myself with these thoughts, sitting in that dreadfully boring train. I could recall some train rides on my journey that were in every way the polar opposite experience, simply because of a few strangers with similar goals and mindset were heading the same way. If you are travelling anywhere on a known traveller’s circuit, chances are you will quickly spot some fellow souls on your bus, train, or ferry. They probably won’t be looking at their phones or newspaper. Chances are they are in a happy mood, and chances are they will want to hear about where you have been and where you are going. Before you know it, names will have been exchanged, snacks are being shared, and travel stories start flowing. Going on a backpacking trip can be like stepping through a mirror into another world. You will find yourself in a place where social interactions work

differently and where you can meet people seemingly at every turn. Strangers become acquaintances, even friends, much faster than they normally would. If you are hitting it off with people you meet on the trail, don’t be surprised if people invite you along to things (and it won’t be weird for you to extend an invitation to them). This is just how many travellers roll. Not only is this a fun way to travel, but it can also make it easier and reduce costs, for instance by sharing the cost of a cab ride or a tour guide among more people. If you meet people while in transit and they ask you if you have already booked something at the destination, that doesn’t mean they are trying to stalk you; they are probably just going to suggest looking for accommodation together, or are simply curious to know where you’ll be staying as you might bump into each other again. While you don’t necessarily have to take such a free-wheeling approach to meeting other travellers, you should know that you can team up with other people if the right situation arises. Sometimes it can feel as though you are all part of one big travelling community, particularly in well-travelled countries. Ad hoc groups can organically form and disband depending on people’s individual plans. This is obviously great news if you are travelling solo. If you’re travelling as a couple, joining groups can also be fun and avoids being stuck in the couple bubble. Keep in mind that you might seem less approachable as a couple though, so you often have to take the initiative a bit more. Of course, travel is not always all that sociable. Often you might simply be going your own way and don’t want to interact with other travellers—and not everyone finds this interesting. Much also depends on where you are going. You won’t encounter people literally everywhere; some countries or regions are just a bit too far off the map. And the most social forms of travelling tend to be easiest when you’re either young or young-at-heart, as most younger travellers will be more firmly in ‘adventure mode’ instead of ‘family holiday mode’. Although there are always plenty of exceptions. Still, the backpacker culture is typically very open and social. Something I had to learn back when I set off on my first Southeast Asia trip in my 20’s is that things can be a little more fluid on the backpacker trail than they might work at home. At the start of this trip many years ago, I connected with three other travellers at my hostel: a brother and sister from Australia and a girl from the UK. We would often chat over breakfast and eventually took a day-trip

together. At one point we discussed our next destination, which happened to be the same for all of us. The brother mentioned several times which hostel they had booked there, but it was too early for me to recognize this was really him saying, “hey, if you’d like to join us that’s cool, this is where we are staying”. Not yet knowing the backpacker ways, I had booked a different hostel that happened to be on the opposite side of town. I suppose I didn’t want to impose myself not having been explicitly invited, but it turned out that not joining them was the awkward thing to do. We got to the town by shared pick-up truck, and when it came time for me to head into the opposite direction, I immediately regretted my decision. My new travel buddies asked why I hadn’t booked the same place and I didn’t have a good answer. We were having fun together so why was I leaving them? I walked off alone with sad violin music playing in my head, feeling like I had rejected them somehow. The next day I moved to the same hostel where we were happily reunited. We continued hanging out together for another week, riding motorbikes around nearby rice fields, visiting waterfalls, hiking through canyons, and having drinks together in the evenings. Of course, this is not to say that social boundaries don’t exist at all, just that things are a bit looser—and someone you just met on the bus half an hour ago might already suggest visiting some temples with you together tomorrow. If a group isn’t working out or if part of a group would simply like to separate, I find that this usually isn’t said so explicitly. Instead, travellers will usually change their travel pace or direction in order to detach from the group. If you find that people are actively changing their plans from yours or your friend’s, it is a sign they want to go off and do their own thing. The backpacker scene can admittedly be a bit of a self-contained bubble and not every traveller will want to be inside it. But even if you do prefer going entirely your own way, it’s worth having a chat here and there with any folks you bump into. You never know who you’ll meet. Some examples from my own travels include a former Canadian VIP airline pilot, who had a few good stories to tell about flying around rock stars and CEOs in private jets. I once met a girl from the US who worked in a travelling circus. In Cambodia I met a former Dutch marine who fought the Khmer Rouge back in the 1990s, had seen his buddies die in grenade attacks, and had now come back to Cambodia to see what his sacrifices had meant for the country. In Cuba, I met an Olympic boxing champion while asking for directions.

Undoubtedly, if you travel with an open attitude, you will meet many interesting people on your journeys as well.

The Universal Conversation Starter™ But wait, what if you don’t know how to meet people? What if you are unsure how to start a conversation? Well, you’re in luck, because I have developed a secret 100% guaranteed ice breaker that will universally start a conversation with anyone you meet. This conversation starter is so brilliant that I am in the process of patenting it. I will reveal it to you now: As soon as you meet another traveller, say the following words: “hey, where are you from?” That’s it! My patent application is not going so well, by the way. Sure, it may be a bit tired to start with this question, and if you travel a lot you may notice the same conversational patterns repeating themselves. But asking where someone is from is a sure-fire way of starting some chit chat. And if you are meeting a lot of people it can be difficult to remember everyone’s name, so it is actually easier to remember them by their country of origin (at least at first). It may seem a bit out of the blue to ask this question, but many (perhaps even most) interactions between backpackers start out with this phrase. Two other questions that everyone asks each other all the time are “where have you been so far?” and, of course, “where are you going?”. It’s simple, and it works. If you want to put a different spin on it, assume instead of asking. Say, “Hey, you must be from Sweden!” or “You guys must also be heading to Mexico City…”. Even if your assumption is wrong you will have just given someone a chance to correct you, which means you have planted the seed for a more proper introduction.

Getting along with other travellers When travelling the world, you are guaranteed to meet people of all sorts of backgrounds, ages and nationalities, so expect to be reminded of cultural differences every day. These can be small and innocent ones; a great example is how the phrase “are you alright?” can mean two totally different things coming from a Brit or an American (“hey, how’s it going?” versus “are you feeling sick or something?”). Other times you come across fundamental political and cultural differences. Fortunately, in this crazy moveable melting pot, backpackers are usually pretty chill and open-minded.

There are however two things that I have noticed in social interactions between backpackers that can get on some people’s nerves, and I think they are useful to know about: Firstly, because everyone introduces themselves by their nationality, there are just so many opportunities for people to comment on cultural stereotypes. This is not to mean comments that will clearly cause offence (it is common sense to avoid these), but innocent comments that repeatedly come up when a nationality is mentioned. These can get tiring after a while. For instance, the Swedes don’t all want to talk about IKEA, the Dutch don’t all want to talk about smoking weed in coffee shops, and the French don’t even really want to talk about their love for cheese and wine. Such topics come up so often that it is helpful to go easy on them. I find that people often become much more energetic when asking them questions about themselves instead of clichés about their country. (I once met a New Zealander who was so tired of talking about kiwis and Lord of the Rings that he began telling people he was born on a research station on Antarctica. Though that, of course, eventually got old as well… as there is only so much you can say about penguins or fake arctic scientist parents.) Another groaner is when people try to constantly one-up others based on their travel experiences. They might reply with a condescending “that’s nice” to someone who is ‘only’ in their second week of travelling, or they’ll always know some supposedly much better place than the one you went to. Going off the usual trail is sometimes seen as having some cachet in backpacker circles, but there really is no right or wrong way to travel. Ignore the braggards and avoid getting into pointless discussions with them. While I highlight these two little issues here, there’s no doubt that the traveller culture is generally extremely communal, cheerful and inclusive. No one is there not to have fun!

Hostel dorm etiquette If you’re just going to stay in hotels, B&Bs, or guesthouses, then you can happily skip this section. But if you’re at all considering staying in hostel dorms, then there are a few good practices to keep in mind (that is, if you want to be a good roommate!).

Say hello to your roomies No, you don’t need to get everyone’s life story, but it’s nice to at least give people a friendly neighbourly greeting. If new people arrive, be sure to say

hello to them as well, as it’s always nice to feel welcome—and you’ll be sharing the same room!

Keeps things clean and tidy A dorm can get easily disorganized with different bags and piles of clothes around the room, so try to keep your belongings near your bed. If there are bunk beds and you’re sleeping on the lower bed, don’t hang up your towel (or all your laundry) on the ladder as it will surely annoy your upstairs neighbour who needs to use it.

Avoid making noise at night This is a biggie. Keep things like your toiletries within easy reach and not in, say, a noisy plastic bag, as rummaging through your stuff can wake up others. Partying in a dorm room is usually frowned upon as this is a place for resting or sleeping; instead use the hostel common room for any late-night drinking or socializing. If you need to leave early in the morning, make sure you pack your bags the day before (seriously!) and not in the middle of the night. Not only will this be much quieter, but you easily make mistakes when packing your bags in the dark or when you’re only half-awake.

Keep the lights off People want to sleep, so keep the lights off unless absolutely necessary. Use a flashlight or let a bit of light in from the hallway if you have trouble seeing.

Bring earplugs This is not etiquette but simply a practical matter: make sure you have earplugs on standby, in case there’s a snorer.

No place for sex Having sex in a dorm is a bit of a backpacker faux-pas. It normally doesn’t happen unless you’re in some kind of crazy 24/7 party hostel, and even then, it’s kind of super awkward. Your best bet is to simply get a private room. Of course, sometimes you might just have to make hay while the sun shines, in which case you need to get a bit more creative. Maybe there’s a supply closet, rooftop, fire escape or laundry room you can sneak into. A beach can perhaps make for a somewhat more romantic alternative. These places can work in case of emergencies… but in most cases, a room is probably the way to go.

Too old for hostels?

While hostels are popular with younger travellers, that doesn’t mean hostels are just for them. If you’re a bit older and wondering if you should stay in hostels, I can maybe give a bit of a personal perspective, seeing as I’m now in my mid-30ies. It used to be that hostels were just for the ‘youth’. There are still some hostels like that, mainly in Europe, that are mostly used for school trips, visiting youth football teams, and so on. These youth hostels tend to be quite characterless and are probably not ones you should target as a traveller. Backpacker hostels instead cater to a much wider audience. They’re just cheap places to stay for travellers, whether that’s in dorm rooms with bunks or in basic private rooms. That said, there are some backpacker hostels that are age limited, which is normally indicated clearly in their description or on their booking page. A few hostels are also ‘party hostels’. If you don’t quite have the interest or stamina for those anymore, you can luckily avoid them by checking reviews or booking pages in advance. If the description says, “free beer on arrival”, or if the hostel literally advertises itself as a party hostel, then the place is clearly going to be rowdy—and you should not go there expecting many deep conversations or, necessarily, a good night’s rest. Party hostels aside, it’s usually not too difficult to find a hostel with the right vibe and a mix of ages. There’s a huge choice in hostels these days, so chances are there will be ones that you like. Hostels targeting different niches are proliferating all over the world. If you want to travel in a bit more style, you’ll find that boutique hostels offer much better amenities and extra comfort at still-reasonable prices. Surf hostels are awesome places to stay by the beach, even if you don’t surf. And the digital nomad phenomenon has further expanded the concept, with some hostels offering co-working spaces and communal activities in addition to beds. While it’s not at all weird to stay in a hostel as an older traveller, I’ll admit I occasionally had a few lingering doubts. On a solo trip at age 35 I found myself checking into a hostel on a Cambodian island beach and briefly glanced at the guest list; as I scanned the other guests’ dates of birth, it seemed everyone was at least a good 15 years younger than me. “Shit… do I belong here?,” I wondered. “Am I just going to be the awkward hostel dad?!” It turned out those young whippersnappers were actually super chill. And soon enough I also met three other backpackers in their 30’s also staying there. Then I found out the oldest guest was actually a dude in his late 50’s. He had some great stories to tell of when he was a backpacker during the days when

the Full Moon Party in Thailand was still a small beach bonfire attended by just a handful of hippies every month. Our ages really didn’t matter, and we were all mingling over dinner each night. Age barriers, when they exist at all, tend to break down easily on the travel circuit!

Respecting local cultures As a traveller you are obviously a guest in another country. Respecting local culture is not just the right thing to do but prevents places from becoming spoiled by tourism. As a bonus, it also leads to locals being generally more helpful and friendly to you. Here are a few ways in which you can respect the local culture.

Learning some local language You don’t have to learn a lot, but try to know at least how to say Hello, Goodbye, Thank You and Excuse Me in the local language. It will show your good intent and will be much appreciated by locals.

Respecting local customs Make sure you read up a little on local customs to avoid causing unnecessary offence. Travel guides usually have a section with some pointers on this. I was once in a Buddhist temple where a tour guide had just explained that sitting with your back towards a Buddha statue is considered offensive. Moments later a dozen people were taking group pictures in front of a Buddha statue and, having already forgotten what the guide had said, had their backs and feet towards Buddha. The locals did not complain, perhaps not wanting to make a fuss, but they were visibly annoyed; to them it must have felt like a whole group of people collectively flipping the bird. Situations like this can give travellers a bad name. Local customs can be unusual sometimes. In Thailand, any disrespect towards the King is not only offensive but also against the law. If you find yourself in a movie theatre in Thailand, expect to have to stand up out of respect for the king before the movie begins. A short over-the-top propaganda film will be played showing the king greeting farmers, the king being adored by children, the king gloriously saving kittens from trees, etc., etc. All this may seem strange—he is not your king after all—but it’s best to just do as everyone does. (It’s actually pretty fun.) Be respectful when using your camera as well, as not everyone likes having their picture taken. Either do it on the sly with a telelens or ask people for permission. People in traditional villages and such sometimes have to

endure a lot of photography and making a bit of a connection with them first is not only respectful but can get you a better photo too.

Expectations for service When it comes to restaurant or bar service, we are perhaps a bit spoiled in Western countries. If the service is not sufficiently friendly or efficient, we have every right to complain or withhold a tip. It doesn’t work quite the same everywhere. In many emerging economies the standard of service is lower, to the point of feeling improvised and chaotic. If you are ordering food with a group of people, don’t be surprised when the food doesn’t arrive at the same time for everyone. Waiters may seem rude in some countries, but probably they are just trying to get through your orders quickly. Where they are from, their job may be to simply deliver food to customers, and they might not be expected to also play the role of friendly host. Be patient and approach any problems with a sense of humour.

Dressing appropriately There is not much of a dress code to worry about in most countries, though there are certain places where you should be mindful about what you are wearing. When visiting temples or other places of worship you often have to take off your shoes, or you may be denied entry if you wear shorts or a short skirt. In some countries it is considered very rude to walk around shirtless or in a bikini anywhere outside of the immediate vicinity of a beach or pool. As a woman, it may cause offence to dress in a revealing way in some countries. In this case it is a respectful gesture to cover up the legs or arms, or to wear a sarong or headscarf. In many Muslim countries, this is basically a must.

Dealing with culture shock If you are from an advanced economy and travelling in lower-income regions, you may have to deal with some difficult feelings. Seeing people live in poverty can instil strong feelings of guilt. While they are just scraping by, people in established economies are so much more prosperous that they will even waste money on things they don’t really need, or indeed can travel the world just for fun. If you travel long-term, talking about how long your trip is to someone living in a poor country can truly blow their minds. They may immediately see you as an incredibly rich person, which may be correct from their point of

view, but can be very awkward and make it much more difficult to level with them. Sometimes it feels like people have inflated ideas about what Western life is like or how material wealth will lead to happiness. I personally still struggle when responding to questions about the ‘dream life’ in the West—of course, I don’t want to pretend things aren’t comfortable there, but I also don’t want to suggest we live in a paradise. To be honest, I am still not sure how to approach such issues. Perhaps they are just meant to be awkward. In some places you may see homeless people or beggars, and even children begging for money or otherwise used as money makers. It is usually recommended not to give money to children, as painful as this might be, as it incentives the parents to keep their children begging or working instead of sending them to school. If you want to help people in a more meaningful or sustainable way, consider giving money to an appropriate charity. Volunteering can be another way to give back.

Spending time with locals Many travellers wish to meet ordinary locals on their trip, hoping to have more authentic experiences and maybe learn a little bit about another culture. This is an excellent goal to have, though don’t expect to spontaneously meet locals at every turn. Think of it this way: how often do you speak with or hang out with random travellers in your own home town? This is probably rare, or maybe it’s never happened. Your normal life doesn’t necessarily intersect that often with what travellers might be doing. Meeting locals usually requires either a bit of luck, or a bit of determination. You might just unexpectedly stumble into an amazing local experience. It doesn’t happen often, but an opportunity to meet locals could arise at any time, in which case you should jump on it! As a long-term traveller, your chances of hitting the jackpot in this regard are better than for those on a shorter holiday. Meeting locals can be one of the most fun parts of travelling. I still grin ear to ear when I remember some of my favorite encounters. One time in Argentina, I met some locals while watching a football match in a sports bar. The next day I found myself joining them at a BBQ in someone’s garden, which turned into an epic eating marathon lasting an incredible twelve hours. It was a true education on the Argentinians’ unending

love for grilled meat, and a wonderful day shared with some of the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. Once, in a remote little village in The Philippines, I was unexpectedly invited to eat with a local family. We joined in the family prayer and ate rice with pig skin, which they had insisted on sharing (it was delicious—and we later bought them drinks in return). We then spent the evening under a bamboo roof telling each other stories, drinking coconut wine, and singing songs. The kids showed me crabs and frogs they had caught in the river and invited me to come along fishing the next morning. We were later joined by the village fool, a skinny old man who kind of resembled Michael Jackson in the Thriller music video, and who kept boasting about being the world’s biggest ladies' man. It doesn’t get much better than this. It’s awesome to get a window into how people live in another country, and to hang out with locals who aren’t just employed in the tourist industry. When it happens, it’s fun to play the role of cultural ambassador a bit and to take an active interest in everyone. For some locals, meeting travellers might be their way of travelling in a sense; they might not be able to fly all the way to another continent, but they can at least speak to someone who is from there. I find that simply stumbling upon such a local experience is rare though. Fortunately, there are also some other ways in which you won’t leave it to chance and can meet locals in a more deliberate way. Here are some of them:

Finding local guides Many sites have sprung up over the past few years aiming to connect travellers with local amateur guides. The idea is that, for a fee, a local will show you around their hometown. The concept is very similar to room-sharing sites like Airbnb, but for experiences. The three major players at the time of writing are Vayable (vayable.com), GetYourGuide (getyourguide.com) and Withlocals (withlocals.com).

Meeting up with friends-of-friends Why not use your own social network to see if anyone might know a local in a place you are going? See if you can connect with a friend-of-a-friend, maybe offering to take them out for food or drinks so you can ask them for recommendations on cool places to check out.

Hospitality exchanges In hospitality exchanges, locals will share a room or couch with travellers completely for free, with the expectation of cultural exchange, or to build up a profile within the community so they can stay for free when they are travelling in the future. Couchsurfing (couchsurfing.com) is, by far, the biggest

hospitality exchange. There are always certain questions regarding safety, which Couchsurfing addresses well on its own site. Many local Couchsurfing communities also organise free weekly or monthly meet-ups in places all around the world, which are great events for meeting people. TrustRoots (trustroots.org) is another hospitality exchange community focused a little more on hitchhikers and vagabonds. GuesttoGuest (guesttoguest.com) is another similar concept.

Homestays Homestays are a type of paid accommodation connecting guests with livein hosts who open their homes to travellers. It’s the perfect way to stay with a local family and learn a bit about their way of life and taste the local and regional dishes. Sometimes you sleep in a separate annex, or sometimes in a room in the same house as the family. The goal of a homestay is specifically to achieve cultural immersion, and sometimes homestays are offered in combination with language classes. The term homestay is typically used in more rural places than urban ones: think farmhouses, not apartments. There is sometimes a little confusion over what a homestay means. In Indonesia, it seems some hostels call themselves homestays just for tax

reasons, but without offering a family experience. In Vietnam I once stayed in a ‘homestay’ that was just a budget hotel… “Welcome to my home!”, the owner said, as he gestured towards a dozen purpose-built bungalows. Check what is actually being offered to avoid disappointment.

Language exchanges Learning a language can be a perfect excuse for meeting locals as well. Sometimes such exchanges are even organised by hostels, depending on whether there’s strong demand for certain languages. There are many language exchanges organised in Latin America for example—as there are plenty of locals wanting to improve their English as well as plenty of travellers wanted to improve their Spanish.

Volunteering on a farm WWOOF (wwoof.net) is an organisation that places volunteers on organic farms in over 50 countries around the world. 'WWOOFing' has become a popular way to live like a local for a while. You will be expected to do daily chores on a farm for a week up to several months, while receiving meals and a place to sleep for free. In addition to learning about organic farming, you can learn about the local ecology and culture while getting to meet fun and interesting people.

Meetup apps Many apps exist that let you meet up with locals. One such app is by Couchsurfing. No, the app is not actually used to stay in people’s homes (that’s what the website is for). Instead, the app lets you simply scan the area for anyone up for grabbing a coffee, visiting a museum, and so on. Don’t laugh, but location-based dating apps such as Tinder can also be powerful tools to meet locals. Different cultures have different expectations around these apps though. In your profile, make it clear that you are a visitor in town until so-and-so, and be specific about whether you’re dating or just trying to meet locals.

Dealing with language barriers The thought of going to a foreign country where the language is not their own can send some people spiralling into severe anxiety. For others it is no big deal, even if they’re far from language geniuses. Where you come from can hugely affect your attitude towards communicating in foreign places. The Dutch, Germans or Scandinavians for instance, who have lots of mandatory language classes in school and deal

often with people from their neighbouring countries, seem not to care much about language barriers at all. They shrug and get on with it, improvising if necessary. Travellers from many English-speaking countries seem to more commonly experience discomfort with language barriers, to a point where they might avoid certain parts of the world for this reason alone (which is clearly a huge shame). The key to dealing with language barriers is not, as you might think, knowing more languages or being better at languages. That clearly helps, but that’s not the real issue. The key is not to be embarrassed to try. If you can get over yourself a little, you will be amazed by how much you can communicate regardless of the situation.

Communicating in English If English is your first language, or if you can speak it as your second language, then congratulations! You know one of the most useful languages around. You will be able to speak with most people in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, South Africa and 19 other countries in Africa, places all over the Caribbean, India, and a handful of other Asian countries. Not bad for a freebie. Some level of English is also taught and spoken all over the world as it is obviously the international lingua franca. Take Europe, for instance. The percentage of people speaking English as a second language in continental Europe is over 90% in The Netherlands and the Nordic countries, over 50% in Germany, Belgium, Austria, Greece and Switzerland, and somewhere around 30% elsewhere in Europe (and it’s much more among younger generations). Again, not bad! You will be easily able to survive here. Of course, English is not widely spoken as a second language everywhere. Even when people do know some English, they might not always be very good at it. It is up to you to adapt to their level. This seems like an obvious point, but it is often poorly understood. Instead of simplifying their English so the other person can understand them more easily, some travellers will raise their volume or even start shouting. The problem is clearly not that someone is hard of hearing, but that the level of English is too complicated or too fast for them to follow! Such issues show that while knowing English can be useful, you often won’t get far without knowing another ‘language’ as well: that of simplified (Pidgin) English…

A crash course in simplified English

When dealing with people with limited English skills, always keep things simple. Let’s say you are in a cheese shop in a country where English is not commonly spoken. Don’t tell the person behind the counter, “Good day sir, I thought I would infiltrate your place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some cheesy comestibles!” (Yes, that’s from an old Monty Python sketch… my English teacher in high school, who was a big fan, used to recite these all the time.) Of course, this is probably obvious. But even saying, “Hello, me and my friend and I are wondering if you have any cheese for sale” might be equally impenetrable to a basic English speaker. It can sound as verbose and overly complex to them as the earlier sentence is to you! Still getting blank stares? Simplify further: “Hello. We want to buy cheese.” Maybe that sounds a little forward, a little rude even, but it does get straight to the point. Say basic things like want or need, instead of “wish”, “would like to”, or “wondering”. Don’t be afraid to regress all the way down to caveman language if needed (but only if the other person is clearly at the extreme beginner level). Forget about past or future tense or conjugating verbs. Focus on combining a common verb with a common noun. “We buy cheese?”. “Looking for food!” “Need hotel.” “Going to mountain.” Say it with a smile and it will come across as friendly, even if it seems quite blunt. Bear in mind that you are not offending people by speaking in a very basic way—unless they are clearly proficient in English, of course. Another key element of Pidgin English is the ability to slow down your speech. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed for the other person to parse what you’re saying. Never RAISE YOUR VOICE AS THIS IS SUPER RUDE, instead… just try speaking… a little bit slower. You can also try emphasizing a key word. Picture, for a moment, the way a stoner talks. “You know, dude… how… like… everything… is connected, man?” Emulate this rhythm of speech and you will make yourself vastly more understandable. Be sure to also put pauses between sentences to give the other person some time to process. Okay, maybe speed things up slightly from pure stoner level, and you should be golden. If it seems like people are easily following everything you are saying, you can dial up the speed a bit. Simply speaking more slowly can open many doors for you. People with basic English knowledge will love you for it. They will compliment you on

how patient and wonderful a person you are. Make any attempt at learning a few words in their language while you are at it, and you will instantly become their favourite person. (As a side note, if you are single and want to get in with all those sexy foreigners, being patient and speaking a bit more slowly can make you a superstar. Do not underestimate these powers.) Hmmm, maybe that language barrier isn’t so terrible after all…

Non-verbal communication But what if you’re in a situation where English gets you zero mileage at all, even when used in its most basic forms? Fret not, as you can still rely on nonverbal communication. What this requires is, again, a willingness to embarrass yourself just a bit. If using gestures or sound makes you self-conscious at all, know that most people will not find this weird, and at worst will simply find it endearing. If you‘re in a shop, you can obviously express your desire to buy something by pointing at it and looking at the vendor expectantly. Need to communicate a number? Just hold up a certain number of fingers or pretend to write the number with your index finger on the palm of your hand. Hungry? Make a gesture as though you are spooning food into your mouth or pat your stomach. Need a place to sleep? Rest your head sideways on your hand as though you are resting your head on a pillow and look in a few different directions with a quizzical look. Even a child will understand this. Want to express your thanks? Place your hand in your heart or make a respectful little nod. What’s the time? Tap your wrist. Is the food not what you ordered? Point at your food and furrow your brow, then point at the menu. The waiter will no doubt rush to correct their mistake. Of course, these are just some examples. If you approach things with imagination and humour, you will be amazed at how much you can communicate even with limited or no use of language. Ordering food can be difficult when using English is not an option, but sign language is always there in a pinch. In Vietnam, I once ordered chicken soup by clucking like a chicken and pointing at another customer’s bowl of soup. In Guatemala, before I knew the words “huevos fritos”, I ordered my eggs fried by pointing at eggs on the menu and drawing a circle inside another

circle on the tablecloth with my finger (i.e. the yolk and egg-white). The waitress got it immediately. On rare occasions a little more initiative is needed. After repeated failed attempts at ordering food at a small roadside restaurant in Myanmar, I simply walked into the kitchen (to the delight of the cooks) and pointed at anything that smelled good. Another solution is to get another customer who knows some English to order for you—not only will that take care of the ordering, but they will probably know what’s good! Technology has clearly been lowering the language barriers over the years. Google Translate does quite amazing translations these days, even translating certain languages on the fly based on your voice input. But in practice, you’ll often still have to improvise, as internet is not available everywhere — and I think trying to communicate directly is always preferable to using an app.

Learning local languages Finally, a sure-fire way to communicate with locals is to try and learn their language instead of relying on them to use yours. How much time and energy you wish to invest in learning a local language surely depends on how long you are staying, and how useful that language will be elsewhere. Clearly few would make the effort to learn Hungarian on a brief trip to Budapest, but it’s pretty darn handy to learn Spanish, a language that you can use in 21 different countries. Once again, the key to communicating in a new language is to not be embarrassed. Don’t hold out until you think you can deliver beautiful and grammatically perfect sentences, as that could take forever; start using a language in whatever way you can straight away. If you expect people to laugh at you for sounding stupid, know that the reaction you get 99% of the time is simply a smile and an appreciation that, hey, at least you are trying. Here are some ways in which you can learn languages as you travel: Most guidebooks contain phrase lists, which are a decent place to start. Bringing a dedicated phrasebook can help as well. This won’t really help you learn the language, but it can help you memorize some prefab phrases. You can get language classes locally. (For as little as $100 a week, you can get private Spanish tutoring in many Latin American countries.)

Put a dictionary app on your phone and look up any words or phrases that you encounter on your travels. Or use apps like Google Translate. Listen to audio courses. You will be spending a lot of time in transit anyway, so this can be a great time to use for language learning. There are some great language learning podcasts, as well. Go to language exchanges. This can be great for meeting locals as well. Use free interactive learning sites and apps like Duolingo (duolingo.com) or Memrise (memrise.com) A huge resource for language learning is the website Fluent In 3 Months (fluentin3months.com). It is run by a guy who travels to a new country every three months, where he attempts to become conversationally fluent in the local language. The blog is incredibly inspirational and full of advice and resources.

Key points from this chapter Who you travel with (or whether you travel alone) has a huge impact on your travel experience. Make sure you are compatible with your travel companions. The backpacker scene is pretty laidback. Say hi to people, and don’t be afraid to accept invitations or to extend them sooner than you might at home. Avoid harping on cultural stereotypes or competing for who is the most hardcore traveller as this is annoying and usually doesn’t win you any points. Don’t be ‘that person’ if staying in dorms! Keep quiet when necessary, keep the lights off at night, and keep things clean/tidy. Be respectful to local customs and laws. Dress appropriately, learn some local language, and approach any issues with patience and humour. There are many ways to meet locals in the countries you’re visiting. Meeting locals can be a great way to learn more about other cultures and to get out of the traveller bubble. You can often creatively deal with language barriers, for instance by pointing, using gestures, or by using dictionaries or translation tools. Don’t worry about this too much. When speaking English to people with limited English skills, be sure to speak slowly and to simplify your language.

CHAPTER NINE

How to travel solo (without getting lonely) Many people still think of travel as something you only ever do with friends or with a partner. Solo travel, surely, is only for the hardcore vagabonds who play the harmonica and have birds living in their hair. Before I set out on my first solo trip, I admittedly felt a bit self-conscious about it. I expected I would have to explain myself… and tell people why I could not share this trip with a friend or partner, and why I am doing this ‘all on my own’. A few days into that trip, I realized I wasn’t the unique and courageous little snowflake I thought I was. I met other solo travellers virtually everywhere I went; in some places it even seemed like solo was even the default mode of travel. Rather than having to explain myself or having in any way deal with travelling solo, I quickly got to see it as something very normal and accepted, and also very exciting. There is, honestly, nothing weird about travelling solo. But it is a little bit scary. A solo traveller has to be self-reliant. There is only one person responsible for every decision, and that person is you. Fear of loneliness can also be difficult to deal with, and if it’s your first time you might some doubts at the back of your mind. Recognizing that solo travel can be a bit more difficult than travelling together (at least initially), this chapter will go through some steps you can take to make solo travel work for you. It is somewhat of an acquired skill and it’s maybe not for everyone, but I think it’s also not quite as challenging as many people think.

Why solo travel is awesome One of the great advantages of solo travel is that you are no longer dependent on others to travel. Sometimes your friends just can’t join you, or don’t have the same interests when travelling. Or maybe you’re just single and without an obvious a partner to join you. But when the stars don’t quite align to travel with someone else, you’ll be able to still go out on your own. That’s not a bad option to have in life, even if it’s just to keep in your back pocket (though plenty of people even prefer to travel solo). Honestly, it’s also amazing to be free of obligations or compromises. It’s easier to make decisions as there’s only ever yourself to blame. You don’t have to be anything to anybody, so if you want to stop for a while and just relax, there’s no one telling you not to. Or if you want to climb the tallest mountain, go ahead and show that mountain who’s boss. Solo travel also opens you up to try new things. I think over time our personalities develop many defaults that we fall back on, which get reinforced continuously because the people we know already expect us to behave in certain ways. During some of my past solo trips, it felt a lot easier to push against my comfort zone and to do things differently from how I might normally do them. Solo travel can be a great way to reinvent yourself while no one is really watching. It is sometimes suggested that solo travel is a selfish endeavour, and to be honest, on some level it probably is. But solo travel also invites you to connect more with your surroundings, to be more in the moment, and to connect more with the countries you visit. I’ve often had adventures I wouldn’t have had otherwise, or moments of quiet introspection during which I notice things that would have normally passed me by. I also find that solo travel can build character: you become more confident and self-reliant, better able to deal with little setbacks, and you might even learn a thing or two about yourself.

Solo doesn’t have to be alone There is a common misconception that solo travel must be a lonely ordeal. Some people might tell you that you’re “brave” for going solo, but that’s silly. While I do think it is brave to decide to travel solo, I do not think the actual act of solo travel requires that much courage.

To be fair, it can be the kind of isolated ordeal that some people imagine it to be. It depends largely on whether that’s what you want—and where exactly you’re going. A friend of mine went backpacking through Siberia, and her stories made it sound like a very tough place to be on your own. The locals there didn’t appreciate foreigners at all, so much so that ticket-windows at train stations would close for people who didn’t look Russian. My friend didn’t meet other travellers for days, even weeks, in the ice-cold wastelands. She described feeling overwhelmed with euphoria when she finally saw a guy at a train station holding a copy of the Russia Lonely Planet. Even though he was from Italy and didn’t speak English (and she didn’t speak Italian), she was overjoyed to have finally found another lost soul. Solitude can have its own kind of appeal, of course, and some will travel solo deliberately to avoid other people. But the reality in popular backpacking destinations is that you’ll never be alone—unless you want to be. If you use the Universal Conversation Starter™ from the previous chapter, you will quickly find yourself spending time with many other backpackers. So much so, perhaps, that you might want to try and get away from the traveller scene just to have some much-needed me-time. If it’s your first time going solo, then maybe don’t go to the frozen wastelands of Siberia. Pick a well-trodden place, stay in hostels and other traveller hubs, and see how it goes. Regardless of where you choose to travel, going solo is a thousand times easier now than it once used to be. If you were heading off solo to far-away lands in, say, the 70ies, I imagine you would be truly going off the grid. Your family might hear from you only through the occasional postcard, or maybe a brief chat through a costly international landline call. Any problems you encountered on the road would have to be solved there and then. These days, the internet is available pretty much everywhere, so you can always find information or get in touch with someone in a pinch. In popular travel destinations, you will also find an informal support network in all the other people that are travelling. Solo travel, in other words, is not nearly as scary as it may be sometimes depicted. Keep in mind there are countless apps and resources you can use, and you can always call in a helpline if you need to.

How to enjoy being by yourself

Wait, didn’t we just establish that solo travel can be a very fun and social activity, and that you probably are going to meet lots of people given that you pick the right destination? Yes, but… Even if you find it easy to make friends on the road, your ability to enjoy your own company is still key to making solo travel work. I think there are multiple reasons why this is so important: 1) The ability to be on your own will, ironically, help you meet people more easily. If you don’t have to meet people, you will become a whole lot more relaxed about it. It takes a lot of of the pressure off, which makes it more likely for people to strike up a conversation with you, or for you to feel comfortable approaching others. 2) Sometimes there is simply no one else around, in which case you should be able to have fun regardless. 3) There is also simply inherent value in doing things by yourself. For instance, I often love exploring a city on my own, because there is no better way to be notice your surroundings, constantly indulge your curiosity, and see what’s around the next corner. (My travel photography is often way better when I’m shooting by myself as I can really take my time.) Here are a few specific things you can do to make your alone-time more enjoyable: Be in the moment. Allow yourself some time to enjoy that beautiful view of the mountains or grab a drink in a local coffee house and spend some time people-watching. Try to put yourself in a mindful state and suck up the colours of the world through your eyes. Take photos. I find that photography is a wonderful way to engage with my surroundings. When I am taking photos, I notice many things that otherwise I would not have, and often these are things that make me smile. Interact with locals. Try to chat with staff, salespeople and waiters. If you are in a less-travelled area where people don’t often see strangers, you will often be met with a lot of friendly curiosity. Walk through a village in, say, rural Indonesia, and chances are every kid in town will want to high-five you as you pass. Have a little fun with this! Bring a book. When I am travelling with other people, I rarely find any time to read. But when I am on my own, I welcome the chance to dig into a good book. I will take it with me even when I am

sightseeing, so that I can break up my day with a bit of reading if I feel like. Share your stories online. Write something about your adventures and share it with your friends or family back home. This is a great way to process your day. Listen to music. Add a soundtrack to whatever you are doing; it will instantly feel like you are in your own movie. Even walking around town can become a cinematic experience if you listen to some good tunes. You can even literally listen to a movie soundtrack while exploring a place; one of the best things I ever did was to walk around Shibuya district in Tokyo while listening to the soundtrack of Lost in Translation. Eat in restaurants. Being alone should not stop you from sitting down and enjoying some nice food. Don’t feel like you have to go to a fast-food place where you will be entirely anonymous; find a restaurant with a casual atmosphere and plop yourself down. Having a proper meal is a nice time to reflect and you often can use Wifi or read a book while you are waiting. I should stress that for plenty of people, solo travel isn’t about meeting others at all. It can just be a way to quietly enjoy a trip. A visit to a museum can be almost meditative, for example, as you can take all the time you need and let the art just wash over you. People-watching while having a coffee on a street corner cafe can make you notice little things about another culture that might have otherwise passed you by. Or when you are hiking up a mountain, you can stay completely in the zone as you quietly enjoy the spectacular views.

How to quickly make friends If you’re not too terribly shy and you don’t go to too remote of a destination, it’s easy to make friends along the way. There are a few ways in which you can make this even easier: Stay in backpacker hostels This cannot be stressed enough: staying in backpacker hostels is a golden ticket for meeting people, so don’t be a hermit by staying in hotels all the time. Sharing a dorm with others in a sure-fire way of making friends, though even staying in a private room in a hostel will let you meet others in any of the common spaces. You can often sign up for group activities at hostels. It’s

usually the highest-rated hostels on sites like Hostelworld.com where you are bound to meet lots of people.

Pick a hostel with a bar or social space That doesn’t have to mean going to a party hostel. A lot of hostel bars are pretty relaxed places where you will find people casually socializing or playing games. Introduce yourself to someone and before you know it you will be chatting with a whole group of people. If there a ping-pong or pool table, as there so often is, challenge someone to a game. The very best hostels are ones that offer a shared family-style meal every night. These hostels are rare but if you find this listed as a feature, book them without hesitating! Sharing a meal at one big table brings everyone together and makes everyone best buds in no time.

Stay in places rated highly by solo travellers I know that not everyone is necessarily into hostels, despite them being increasingly for all ages and all sorts of travellers these days. Still, if you’re more into hotels or guesthouses, then go with ones that come recommended by solo travellers. Booking.com has a convenient filter for this. Within the search results, select ‘top reviewed by solo travellers’. You’ll find some places that are especially welcoming.

Talk to people when in transit Bus and train journeys can be long and so people will typically be a bit bored, which makes this is a perfect time for a friendly chat. I often meet new people while I am in transit, and sometimes the people I meet on the bus, boat or train will be people I end up staying in the same hostel with. Some longer journeys can be crazy good for meeting people. Boats are always fun, as you’re kind of stuck together and inevitably end up speaking. The same goes for taking overnight trains in Europe, or when taking hop-on hop-off backpacker buses in New Zealand or South Africa; they funnel people together and create a shared experience.

Go on group activities Book a hiking tour, sports activity, cooking class, or literally any other group activity, or go on a free walking tour (found in many cities around the world). Try booking activities through your hostel or guesthouse before trying with a more general travel agency to increase the chances of meeting similar types of travellers.

Go on a bar crawl

Many cities have regular organized bar crawls, often on weekdays, which start at one bar and then move from one bar to the next. Being in a group and a constantly changing setting makes bar crawls perfect for meeting people—if you like to drink of course (these bar crawls can get a little messy!).

Cook for people Many hostels, particularly in Europe or North America, have on-site kitchen facilities that you can use. Offering to cook dinner for people is a surefire way of making some new friends.

Bring a deck of cards Playing card games is another great way to get to know other travellers. This can make a long bus or train ride much more enjoyable, or it can be a great ice-breaker in a hostel common room.

Go to meetups Local meetups can be excellent ways of getting to know a place and its people. CouchSurfing meetups especially are great fun as they typically attract a mix of locals, expats, and travellers. You don’t have to be a Couchsurfer nor a member of their site to attend these. Go to the Couchsurfing site to find the official local meetup, or type ‘Couchsurfing meetup [city name]’ into Facebook to find various loosely affiliated groups. The global digital nomad scene is awesome if you’re intent on staying in a place for a little while. Look for nomad gatherings on Meetup (meetup.com) or check out Nomadlist (nomadlist.com).

Follow popular hiking trails Certain hikes and treks around the world are so ridiculously famous that you’ll be guaranteed to meet other walkers. The pilgrimage route of El Camino de Santiago through Spain and France is a classic example of this. And when hiking the top trails in the Himalayas in Nepal, you’ll inevitably cross paths with other hikers and can hang out with them at lodges and tea houses.

Use social networks Some backpackers will post classifieds or group messages to order to find travel buddies in advance of their trip. On Reddit there is /r/travelpartners, and there are various dedicated platforms that aim to do this (although they keep changing all the time). You may find that this works well for you, though personally I’m always a bit skeptical. The fact that your profiles mention the same favorite movies or that you’re of similar ages doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make the best travel team, which depends on much more subtle things.

On a long-term trip, I think it’s typically much easier to team up with, and part ways with, people you meet serendipitously. Speaking of social networks, it is always a good idea to add people on social platforms who you particularly connect with on your trip. Even if you are taking different routes, there may be opportunities to meet up again later. Making connections can sometimes be difficult, but one connection can quickly lead to another. You may find that a snowballing effect happens especially when you’re on a longer trip and following a popular travel route, as everyone heading the same way gets to know everyone. This does also mean that sometimes you might have to ‘start over’ when arriving somewhere totally new and unconnected to your previous destinations. In these cases, it’s best not to be too hard on yourself and remember that snowball might start rolling again soon.

The downsides of solo travel Solo travel can be amazing, but it’s clearly also not without its drawbacks. The first one is purely financial: you will be paying twice as much for a private room than when sharing as a couple. Transportation and activities are also more expensive when the cost is not divided among multiple people. This can be somewhat offset by sleeping in dorm beds at least part of the time, or by sharing accommodation, transportation and activities with other travellers whenever you can. The other downside is that while you can have many more peak experiences, the emotional valleys can also be deeper, and inevitably you will have some bad days. Maybe you just find yourself in an uninspiring place. Even if you are okay being on your own, and even if you typically do manage to meet other people, you may still feel a bit lonely sometimes. It’s important to accept these days for what they are and to quickly shrug them off. As the saying goes: shit happens. Have faith that the situation can change entirely tomorrow. When I first went to The Philippines by myself, I didn’t manage to really meet anyone. I had parted ways with some long-time travel buddies back in Singapore, and despite trying to make some new backpacker friends my heart just wasn’t in it. Manila had me down at first as it’s not the nicest of places. To make matters worse I got food poisoning and vomited all over the hostel’s brand-new carpet. Fortunately, I knew what was happening; it was just one of those days, and I instead of dwelling on it I decided to spend some time recovering and reading a book. A few days later, I had some of my most

memorable and rewarding travel adventures when visiting the stunning islands around Palawan together with two other backpackers. A bad day can easily be turned around by giving yourself a break. Don’t compare your current situation to how great everything used to be somewhere else as this is entirely pointless: just accept it as inevitable and plan to shake things up tomorrow. Relax, go for a swim or read a book, and focus on what still lies ahead of you.

Getting through the first few days I subscribe to a few travel forums, such as /r/solotravel on Reddit, and every now and then I see a panicked post from someone who is travelling solo for the first time. It’s usually on their first or second day, and usually their feelings were triggered by a minor thing not quite going their way. Maybe it was difficult to find their hotel, maybe they missed a bus, or maybe they just suddenly feel very alone and in over their head. It’s understandable. Going on a big journey on your own can feel a bit like jumping into the deep without yet knowing how to swim. As you step off that plane you may be thinking, “Holy crap, what am I doing?”. The first few days can be a little tough. My first time travelling solo was when went to California for a week when I was 17. I had never been to another continent before and it was only my second time flying. When I arrived at LAX airport, I immediately felt lost. I never had to deal with jetlag before, so I was unfamiliar with that foggy state of mind. On top of that, being in a big city I only knew from the movies felt surreal. What set off my minor freak-out was some whooshing in my ear—I didn’t yet know this happens sometimes when you fly with a cold, and I actually thought I was losing my hearing. I was about to call my parents who were probably asleep at the time, but I stopped myself and took a deep breath. I calmed myself down, and simply focused on meeting up with several online friends I was meant to meet in town. Over the next two days I still had to deal with some incredible insomnia and lack of appetite—just from all the excitement and new-ness of it all—but my jet lag subsided, my ears stopped whooshing, and I ended up having an amazing time. When you arrive in a new place, the most important thing to do is to give yourself some time to acclimatize. Don’t put too much pressure on those first few days! After all, you are outside of your comfort zone, so allow yourself to be scared for a bit. Whatever you’re feeling, lean into it. Get used to your new

surroundings, gradually start exploring, and just remember to be proud that you are doing something new and exciting. Chances are, your nerves will calm soon, and with any luck some very cool experiences will come to you soon.

Wait — what if you are very shy? If you are not a naturally super sociable, you may think all this talk about solo travel does not apply to you. Actually, I think in some ways solo travel is more relevant to you than if you aren’t a little shy. I’m very easygoing and chatty nowadays but I grew up quite the introvert. As an only child I enjoyed playing with Lego or playing video games on my own, but many social situations would make me awkward. For a time, I didn’t much like birthday parties, even my own, because I never knew how to act in such a group setting. As the years passed my personality changed, and I think challenging myself to do scary things sometimes (like deciding to travel solo) contributed a lot to this change. These days I have no issues talking to strangers, I’m a comfortable public speaker and can even be a social butterfly when I’m in the mood. I’m still a bit awkward every now and then, as my friends can probably attest, but maybe some things should never change completely. Solo travel will certainly be more difficult if you are shy, but also all the more rewarding once you get the hang of it. The key is not to expect everything to work out straight away. Learning to travel solo is a bit like going on your first workout at the gym… the first time will be difficult, you will easily be out of breath and your muscles will be painful afterwards. But… no pain, no gain. A few more visits to the gym and things will already be a lot smoother. A few more visits still and suddenly those weights don’t feel as heavy anymore, and exercising starts to make you feel good. Solo travel, like training a muscle, is something you need to build up a bit. If solo travel feels daunting, try taking little steps first. Explore a city in your country on your own for a day and see how it feels. Or sign up to a course in your area and get used to the idea of showing up by yourself. When you’re feeling ready, go on that big solo trip. There are various group tour operators that are popular with solo travellers. Companies like Contiki and Top Deck focus on younger age groups (though be warned that these can be very boozy), and there are other companies targeting older demographics. Such organized group tours are a bit like solo

travel with training wheels on, as you don’t have to worry about your itinerary or your day-to-day decision-making and can focus all your attention on making friends and having fun. If you still struggle travelling solo, just give it your best shot. If it really doesn’t work out, then at least you will have learned something about yourself. You can always decide to go home and travel together with someone next time.

Key points from this chapter There is absolutely nothing weird about travelling solo. Lots of people do it all the time! You can make it very social, or you can stay in your own bubble. It’s all up to you. You can better enjoy your time spent by yourself by being in the moment, taking photos, interacting with locals, bringing a book, sharing your adventures online, or listening to music. Not everyone wants to meet other travellers, but if you do, you’ll help yourself a ton by staying in hostels, or by choosing B&Bs or guesthouses that are highly rated by solo travellers on platforms like Booking.com. Try going on group tours/activities, bar crawls, cooking for other travellers, going to local meetups, or using social networks. Where you go matters a lot. Some places make solo travelling way easier. Staying in hostels in Asia, Europe, or South America will set you up for a particular kind of experience. Travelling in Siberia or going on a US road trip by yourself and sleeping in motels (oh dear) will set you up for quite a different one. If it’s your first time, pick your battles wisely. The emotional peaks of solo travel are higher, but the valleys can also be deeper. Don’t expect every travel day to be perfect — so much is down to random things you don’t control. If you’re having a shitty day, try to laugh it off, and don’t try to force it. With any luck, your next day will be awesome.

CHAPTER TEN

Coming back home Eventually, you will have to face the inevitable. Eventually, you will have to go home. As your return flight takes off and you look out the airplane window, you will no doubt be reflecting on your amazing journey. Perhaps you wished you could have travelled longer, or perhaps you felt that by now it was time to finally lay your backpack to rest. But… regardless of whether you were ready to go back, your homecoming will no doubt have its challenges.

Reverse culture shock They say that travel is like a drug. Well, the comedown can be hard. But actually when I returned from my first epic trip, I was surprised to feel nothing at first. I wasn’t that relieved to be back, nor depressed that it was all over, I just felt... not much at all. Whereas all my senses were constantly stimulated during my journey, being in familiar places again had a numbing effect on me. London, where I lived at the time, is far from a dull city, but for a while I moved through it kind of on auto-pilot. Of course, it’s a joy to reunite with friends and family you missed. And after staying in hostels and hotel rooms for so long, collapsing into a couch and just watching a movie can be glorious. Once you are somewhat settled in again, that first week feels utterly familiar and cosy, like tucking yourself in under a comfy duvet. This feeling can be short-lived, however. By week two, you may already be longing back to your travelling days. At least, I know that’s what happened to me!

One of the surreal things about coming back is that seemingly time stood still while you were away. It’s like you just binged on seven seasons of a great TV show, filled with exciting twists and turns, while everyone else is still stuck on the second episode. Many people will tell you it’s “same old, same old”. They still complain about that same job they hate, are still annoyed with their morning commute, and are still thinking of maybe renovating the kitchen someday. For you, having had the experience of a lifetime, things are far from same old. You will undoubtedly be excited to share all your travel stories, but having gained so many you will surely bounce all over the place: from that one time you did that thing in Mumbai to that other time in that desert in Mexico—oh, and of course when you were scuba diving in Colombia. Much to your friends’ annoyance, you might struggle to resist one-upping their anecdotes with something way more amazing that happened on your travels. Sure, their commute to work might have been a nightmare this morning, but what was really a nightmare was taking that night bus in Laos… funny story, actually… Your friends will surely want to hear at least some of your stories, but no one wants every conversation to be dominated by high tales of your adventures. If your journey left a strong impression on you, for a while you might just be that person who tells people “I have changed, dude… I have changed” while looking wistfully into the distance. It is okay to slap yourself when this happens (I probably had to a few times). If you have been travelling in cheap countries, re-adjusting to higher prices back home can be a challenge. When I visited the local supermarket again for the first time, I had to stop myself before putting a roll of bin bags in my shopping basket, because I realized this roll of flimsy recycled plastic cost as much as three dinner meals in Indonesia. I was ready to shake my fist and yell, “This is an outrage!”, but begrudgingly paid the astronomical price of three British pounds. Similarly, the price of a beer in a pub will suddenly seem utterly absurd: at least £4 versus about 50p to £1 in many backpacking countries. For a while I was reluctant to pay for things even if I could afford them, and it took a month or two for me to stop obsessing over prices.

Keeping memories alive While you go back to your regular life, it’s nice to try and hold onto all those wonderful travel memories you will have surely collected. Be sure to

keep some records or mementos of your trip, such as photos, videos, or journal entries. Travelling can be an awesome time to learn about photography. If you don’t have much experience, consider taking a course or reading a how-to book before your trip. After all, it’s a shame when your photos must be accompanied with disclaimers like “it was much more impressive in person” or “trust me, it was really beautiful”. Fortunately, a little learning goes a long way in improving the quality of your pictures. If you’re someone who tends to take pictures of places, remember to also take pictures of faces! As a photography enthusiast, I tend to be so focused on getting serious photos of, say, a temple or a market street, that I’ll often forget to just take some silly pictures with a person I’ve met. I know that many people have the opposite problem though; if all you’re left with is a thousand selfies, you won’t have anything to remember the culture, the landscapes, or the vibe of the places. For longer trips, I highly recommend keeping a diary or logbook for later reading. With so many experiences compressed into a single journey everything can quickly start to blur together, but even some brief notes can bring back focus to all those different individual memories. Mind you, I don’t think it’s necessary to write incredible prose, nor do you have to glamorize your travels (you’re not Marco Polo!). Doing this actually risks sucking the life out of those experiences, and it can even cause you to procrastinate because of the effort seemingly involved. I find that it often works better to keep some quick scribbles about interesting moments, people you met, food you ate, or other small things you want to remember. Your mind can fill in the gaps when you read it back later.

What’s next? It’s always good to have a rough plan for when you come back. Ideally, figure out a few next steps before your return. If you quit your job or gave up your room or apartment to travel, start looking at job openings or look for a (temporary or permanent) place to stay some time in advance. After your trip, it can be both fun and therapeutic to reminisce with your travel partner(s) from time to time. Try to stay in touch with some of the people you met on your journey; even if they live far away, social media makes it easy to see if your paths might cross again someday. Once back home, you can keep the backpacking spirit alive — if only in small ways. Strolling through a funky neighbourhood and discovering some

new art galleries or shops can remind you of your days as an explorer. There may be sights or activities near you that you had not thought of going before. When I last came back to England, I opened the WikiVoyage page for my city just for fun and realized I had never been to the stunning Seven Sisters cliffs along the channel sea, even though they were just a stone’s throw away from Brighton, where I lived. It’s funny how we often ignore the things that are right in front of our noses. Finally, of course, you can start planning your next trip! Dreaming about all the places you have yet to see can make for some great post-travel therapy. Now that you have had the experience of a lifetime, your next trip might even be inevitable. As Michael Palin once put it: “Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life.” I hope you will be happily infected too.

P. S .

A small favor I wish you all the best of luck, and I hope this book has helped you prepare for your travels. One small thing: If you enjoyed reading this guide, I’d be super grateful for your honest review or rating. This book entirely self-published (i.e. no big company is promoting it), so your review will mean a lot and will help others discover it too. If you purchased this book on Amazon, you can post a review or rating by going to the product page and clicking ‘Write a customer review’. If you’re reading this in ebook format, you can also leave a review at Amazon US (click here) or Amazon UK (click here). If you’re reading this on paper, tapping those links unfortunately won’t work (and I hope you didn’t try), but you can still find these review pages by manually searching for this book on Amazon. Regardless of how or where you bought this, you can also leave a review or rating at Goodreads.com (simply search for Travel the World Without Worries and click on the latest 3rd edition). Any feedback, good or bad, is much appreciated! Leaving an honest review or rating takes only 30 seconds and will mean the world to me. Finally, if you would like to get in touch, my e-mail address is [email protected]. I also invite you to visit indietraveller.co, where I write about my adventurers and share tips and travel guides for destinations around the world.

APPENDIX

Online resources You can also view all these links at: http://www.indietraveller.co/resources/

Travel information - Where to go Indie Traveller – indietraveller.co WikiVoyage – wikivoyage.org (general travel guide) Rome2Rio — rome2rio.com (how to get from A to B) TripAdvisor – tripadvisor.com Atlas Obscura — atlasobscura.com (weird and offbeat places) Nomadlist — nomadlist.com (find & filter where to go) MAPS.me — maps.me (best travel maps app)

Travel information - Specific Wiki Overland – wikioverland.org (for road tripping) Wikiloc — wikiloc.com (for hiking trails) Walkopedia — walkopedia.net (also for hiking trails) I Hate Taxis – ihatetaxis.com (taxi fare information) Sleeping In Airports – sleepinginairports.net Travelfish — travelfish.org (amazing resource for SE Asia) Drive the Americas - drivetheamericas.com (road trip planning) Travel Independent – travelindependent.info Seat 61 - seat61.com (ultimate site about rail travel)

Safety & security Global Peace Index – visionofhumanity.org Numbeo crime perceptions index - numbeo.com/crime Prey Project - preyproject.com (secure your devices) LastPass (wlastpass.com) and 1Password (1password.com)

Online communities Lonely Planet Thorn Tree – lonelyplanet.com/thorntree Nomadic Matt's Forums – forums.nomadicmatt.com Reddit – reddit.com (check out /r/travel and /r/backpacking)

Budgeting Price of Travel – priceoftravel.com Budget Your Trip – budgetyourtrip.com Numbeo — numbeo.com

Prepaid debit cards Revolut – revolut.com Transferwise – transferwise.om

Flight booking Momondo – momondo.com SkyScanner – skyscanner.net Kayak Explore – kayak.com/explore Google Flights — google.com/flights Secret Flying — secretflying.com (flight deals & mistake fares) Scott’s Cheap Flights — scottscheapflights.com (mistake fares)

Other flight sites Seatguru — seatguru.com (airline seat maps) The Points Guy — thepointsguy.com (maximize your airmiles) FlyOnward - bestonwardticket.com (dealing with one way tickets)

Accommodation Hostelworld – hostelworld.com Agoda – agoda.com Booking.com – booking.com

Airbnb – airbnb.com

Sharing economy CouchSurfing – couchsurfing.org TrustRoots – trustroots.org Campinmygarden — campinmygarden.com Blablacar — blablacar.com Trusted Housesitters — trustedhousesitters.com

Local Guides Vayable – vayable.com GetYourGuide – getyourguide.com WithLocals – withlocals.com EatWith — eatwith.com

Volunteering & work WWOOF – wwoof.net (volunteer placements on farms) HelpX – helpx.net Workaway - workaway.info (work + cultural exchange) Upwork - upwork.com Fiverr - fiverr.com Working Traveller - workingtraveller.com Job Monkey - jobmonkey.com Kareeve - kareeve.com Jobs For Travellers - jobs4travellers.com.au Remote OK - remoteok.io

Language Learning Duolingo – duolingo.com (free interactive language learning) Memrise – memrise.com (similar to Duolingo) Fluent In 3 Months – fluentin3months.com

Visas VisaHQ – visahq.com

N O T E S & D R AW I N G S

N O T E S & D R AW I N G S

N O T E S & D R AW I N G S

N O T E S & D R AW I N G S

T I C TA C T O E Z O N E