It wouldn’t be fair for me not to share my top travelling tips with you! Here’s just a few of my favourites…
Booking
While simply booking may seem like a breeze – just going online, finding the best price, and booking actually isn’t always that simple. For instance, try using Google Chrome’s ‘incognito’ option to prevent websites from tracking your visiting activity to their website – this tracking could cause the prices to rise just because you seem invested in the trip! Also, signing up to newsletters from airlines and travel agents, whilst often annoying, guarantees you the best deal if you’re flexible with when you can go.
Packing
Packing can be some people’s nightmare, and another’s dream! Whatever your stance on it, we can all agree that you need to pack well when travelling – that’s a given. But there’s a few tactics you need to employ to get that perfectly-packed suitcase…
First of all, mentally deciding what you need to take it a good place to start. As a general rule, you should bring three tops for one bottoms. So, one t-shirt, one button up, and one blouse for one pair of trousers should be adequate! Also sticking to a colour scheme helps massively in this area – we recommend a neutral palette (you can never go wrong with neutral!) and a couple of bursts of colour. The same goes for accessories – opt for bolt accessories to dress up a few neutral outfits and draw attention away from the fact you’ve worn those trousers more than once!
Pill containers are great for small pieces of jewellery like rings and earrings, and shower caps are great to product your clothes from whatever’s been on the bottom of your shoes! You can also pop things like socks, and things that won’t burst (no one wants a soggy shoe!) inside your shoes to save space!
Spending
It’s a good idea to keep small stashes of cash around your person, just in case. Where can you stash cash? Beneath the sole of your shoe, in your socks, a discrete money bag… If you’re feeling really adventurous, you could make a little pocket in your bra (I haven’t tried this one though… let me know if you have!). It’s safer to use credit or debit cards, but you need to be careful not to incur pesky fees that come with using your card abroad. Solution? You can get a special card to use abroad – this will require some research, but ultimately will be cheaper and safer overall for you in the end, but we cannot stress this enough – RESEARCH! You need to put the work in to get the best deal.
Apps
I have got some fabulous tips for those of you with a smart phone and Google Maps: search for the area you want to explore, and type “OK Maps” into the bar at the top for future offline access to avoid those annoying roaming charges! And if you need to get online but don’t want to get charged, use the app FourSquare to see if someone has left the WiFi password – usually they do to help out other travellers, meaning you can get online without spending too much on roaming.
Tipping is different in all parts of the world – tipping too much or too little can cause offense in different countries for different amounts – so try Tipulator, an app which will calculate your tip for you depending on where you are! Brilliant for manoeuvring tipping faux pas!
Hopefully these tips have helped you get an expert hold on travelling! Have I missed anything? Just get in touch via the Contact page.
