Ten Tips for Adventure Travelling

My husband Harold and have always travelled. Once the kids got older we started spending more time traveling to more far away places. Here are some things we have learned over the years and some stories to go along with them. Hopefully there is something useful here for your next trip.

1. Take a picture of the identity page on your passport and leave it on your phone. In many places a passport is required as ID to do all kinds of things and a picture often works. It’s also useful if you loose your passport.
2. Sometimes it’s worth paying for a hotel room even if you are not going to spend the night. Flying home from Asia we often took flights at 9 pm or 10 pm. Keeping our $20 a night hotel room gave us a place to leave our stuff, take a shower and have a nap. In Vietnam they even made us a snack to take on the plane! We also used a $20 hotel room in Vietnam when we had to take a bus which arrived at 4 am to meet a train which did not leave until 6 pm. The story
3. Bring some basic first aid supplies. Band-aids, Tylenol, Polysporin and Imodium are a must. You can buy them in most places but these are all small items to deal with small first aid issues and buying them can be more difficult if you don’t speak the local language. Any tropical cut needs polysporin to help prevent infection. Anything more complicated will require real medical treatment no matter where you are. It’s also a really good idea to get a travel appointment with your doctor before you leave home.
4. Bring a phone and get a SIM card Many countries sell cheap SIM cards for visitors and having data makes life so much easier. Google maps has saved us a few times.
5. Go with the flow Sometimes the 5 Island Tour only has 4 Islands but they are all beautiful and it was still a great deal. The story
6. Stash some US cash ATMs are everywhere but they don’t always work. On a trip to Belize and Guatemala for reasons I still don’t understand we simply could not get a bank machine anywhere to work and we could not get anyone to exchange Canadian money. I have never been anywhere that you could not use or at least exchange US cash. Split it up and keep it somewhere that’s not obvious. Bring some 20’s and 50’s. The story
7. Don’t stash US cash under the insole of your shoes Trust me on this one it gets gross and smelly.
8. Don’t travel on holidays We travel a lot over Christmas so it’s hard to avoid but if you can don’t travel on legal holidays. The story
9. Take a picture of your ticket with your phone This applies to any ticket but it is particularly useful in Asia where your ticket is often a piece of paper which is collected and exchanged for a sticker along the way. The story
10. Watch for scams but most people are just trying to help. Through all our travels we have met many wonderful people who really wanted to connect and be helpful. Don’t be dumb but don’t worry too much. A story