Tips & Tricks

Travel tips and tricks

After a bit of experience traveling and a lot of travel books and guides read, here I will put all of my tips & tricks. I’ll keep updated every time I discover something new. Hope it will be useful for you 🙂 For more in-depth useful information about travel (like how to save money traveling or how to pack and so on) take a look at the section: Travel hacks

Money & documents

Put a beautiful picture of where you want to go in your wallet. So every time you’ll see it, you’ll think better if you really need to buy something.
Track EVERY money transaction you do. Yes, also that 1€ coffee. I use this app: https://moneylover.me it works quite well, it’s cross-platform (iDevices, Android, desktop) and has the “travel mode” feature, very helpful for trips. Yes, you have to pay for it, but you have no idea how many money you’ll save thanks to it. You can learn where you spend too many money and help you to focus on what you really want to. It works, believe me. There are other options, I tried others but personally, I prefer this one, feel free to try and see which one works better for you.
About the wallet. Are you a woman? Put the wallet in your front pocket if is big enough, if not put it in your bag, but close it with a zipper! Are you a man? Put that damn wallet in your front pocket! I saw so many tourists who I can easily pick-pocket them, C’mon, be smart!
Carry on you your passport ALL THE TIME, you can need it at the hospital or with police in case of emergency. Some of the bloggers out there suggest to keep it at the hotel, well…hell no!! Once I was in a hospital and they asked me my passport, I was in Europe so I can travel just with my ID card and I show them, they didn’t accept it and want just the passport, also if they have to accept it. I was in the middle of nowhere so probably I was the first foreigner they saw. Fortunately, I had my passport at my hostel that was 200m away from the hospital. Since that day I always carry it with me. Yes, it’s big, but if you have a slim wallet for passport, like me, is perfect!
Photocopy your PASSPORT, IDs, insurance, VISAs and put them in your backpack. If you lost something it will be faster and easier for your embassy to give you another document.
Take all your important documents and tickets in a (safe) online cloud (Drive, Dropbox etc.)
Take all your important documents and tickets in a little portable USB stick
Always have some cash in the currency of the country you’re traveling of. You’re at the counter and all of your cards decided to not to work? Cash and you’re okay. (It happened to me in the most cash-free city in the world, Stockholm, the cashier was so surprised to see cash :D).

How to pack

Roll, not fold the clothes, it takes less space (really!).
Put a “fragile” sticker, also if it’s not, on your suitcase/backpack if you’re checking in, probably people who will handle it will take more care.
Download the language of the country you’are going into your favorite translating app. Do it BEFORE reach your destination, so you will not need data mobile and you can use it everywhere at any time.
Use packing cubes that squeeze your clothes (you can use vacuum bags instead, but it’s more complicated.)
I suggest you have one locker for each of your backpacks/travel-bags. Personally, I use this: Normal travel locker. It works perfectly if you have lockable zippers, and with the code-digit, you don’t risk to lose keys. If you have a normal backpack without lockable zippers this one works way better Travel Locker. It’s perfect also to close your normal backpack, with the notebook, going to work every day. It’s my next purchase.
Be minimalist: you need much less stuff than you think.
Wear TECHNICAL and buy a very good backpack. Yep, they are expensive, just stop to buy new fashion throwaway clothes every time. If you buy one very good quality clothes it will last for years and years, if you count it at the end, you’ll even save money.
Bring with you clothes with multi-purpose!

General

Download the map of the place you’ll stay (remember to delete after if you don’t have a lot of space in your smartphone). You don’t have data and you lost yourself in the middle of a forest? Just turn on the GPS and you’ll discover where are you. You can use google maps or similar.
Having a looooong cable to charge your phone can be helpful in some hostels or airports. 1.5m USB-C cabled or 2m USB-C cable. I have the 2m and it literally saves me to decide -smartphone charged but far away meanwhile I’m sleeping- or -sleeping without thoughts and smartphone discharged-. And when you’re traveling none of these two options are nice.
Always have a pen/pencil and paper. ALWAYS. You need to pay and you don’t understand how much? Give the pen and a paper and let him/her wrote it. You unexpectedly need to hitchhike? Bring a pen and paper and wrote where you want to go. It helped me sooooo many times.

For women

For single women traveling in the Middle East or South Asia is good having a fake married ring. In some culture is not accepted a single woman who is traveling without a man. I know I know, rebel feminists calm down your hot spirits, sometimes is better don’t be a rebel and be safe. Especially if you are in a country with a completely different culture that you can’t totally understand.

Always curious, keep exploring, Wo/a\nder Francesco