11.

BRING SEVERAL
DEBIT AND CREDIT
CARDS WITH YOU
Sometimes your bank will block your card,
sometimes your card won’t work in an ATM,
and sometimes you could even lose it or
have it stolen. Bring at least three
debit/credit cards with you that are all linked
to different accounts (with money in them!)
Keep one in your backpack, one in your
daypack, and one on your person.

It’s being a little paranoid, sure, but you’ll be

glad you did it if you happen to misplace
your card.
12. AND A STASH OF
EMERGENCY CASH
I carry a spare 300 USD that’s split up in
various places in my backpack, daypack,
and occasionally, my shoe when I’m
nervous I’ll be robbed. It means that in a
worse-case scenario, I can pay for some
food, a dorm bed, and a Skype call to my
family to get an emergency wire transfer
until I can get back on my feet again. I went
with U.S. dollars because it’s the most
widely accepted currency around the world
and easy to change.

13. DON’T BE PUT OFF A

DESTINATION IF YOU
CAN’T FIND MUCH
INFORMATION ABOUT IT
When I decided to see if it was possible to
visit the Maldives on a budget back in 2014,
information was so sparse that I couldn’t
even find a photo of the islands I’d decided
to visit. Well, that trip was one of my
highlights of the past eight years and I’m so
glad I went, despite not being able to find
any information online. And the advantage
to that lack of information was getting to
be the only tourist on an entire island — I
had the whole beach to myself!

If you know it’s safe to travel somewhere,

but can’t find out much else, go for it. It’s
probably far easier to get there than you
think. And if not, it makes for a good story.
14. EXPECT EVERYTHING
TO GO WRONG
I’m definitely testament to that! But
expecting everything to go perfectly on your
trip is only setting yourself up to fail.
Nobody goes travelling and comes back
without any stories of mishaps. No matter
how prepared you are, at some point you’re
going to get lost, get scammed, miss your
bus, get food poisoning, injure yourself…
the list is endless! Expect it to happen, and
don’t beat yourself up when it does. In a
month’s time, you’ll find it funny rather than
frustrating.
15. AND DON’T LOSE
YOUR TEMPER WHEN IT
DOES
It achieves absolutely nothing and makes
you look like an asshole. Instead, calm
down, put a smile on your face, think of how
this will make a great story one day, and
rationally figure out an alternative plan.

This too shall pass.

A beach to myself in the Maldives!

16. WRITE DOWN THE

ADDRESS OF YOUR
ACCOMMODATION
BEFORE YOU ARRIVE
What happens if you arrive in a city, go to
grab your email confirmation for your
accommodation, and your phone and
laptop are out of battery? I always make
sure I have a hard copy of my guesthouse
name and their address, as well as
directions if I won’t be taking a taxi. Once I
arrive, I’ll grab one of the hotel’s business
cards, so I’ll always know where I’m
staying, and can show it to locals to ask for
help with finding my way back.

17. IF YOU LIVE IN

JEANS NORMALLY,
TRAVEL WITH THEM,
TOO
So many people will tell you not to travel
with jeans, but if you wear jeans all the time
at home, you’ll want to wear them while
travelling, too. I didn’t start travelling with
jeans until my second year of travel, and
man, I missed them so much! They’re not
*that*  bulky so you really don’t need to
worry about the extra space and weight.
And in many cities in Europe, you’ll want to
wear jeans to fit in with the locals — you
don’t want to look like a grubby backpacker
in Paris!

18. BACK UP
EVERYTHING IN
MULTIPLE PLACES
Imagine how you’d feel if you lost every
single photo from your trip. You really don’t
want that to happen, so back everything up,
in multiple places. My tech journalist
boyfriend always reminds me that anything
that’s stored in one place is something you
don’t mind losing.

I keep copies of my photos on my laptop,

back all of my photos up to an external hard
drive, and use Crashplan to backup the
entire contents of my laptop to the cloud. I
highly recommend using the latter!

19. VISIT THE TOURISTY

STUFF IN A CITY
The main tourist attractions are popular for
a reason. While getting off the beaten track
can be fun, the things you’ll see are rarely
as impressive as the popular sights. Don’t
be a travel snob — hit up the famous
stops as well as the lesser-visited stuff.
Going to random places normally just
shows you that they aren’t well known for a
reason.

I’m thinking about my 10-day road trip

around the Mekong Delta as I write this —
we went to some obscure places where
locals looked at me as though they hadn’t
seen a white person before, and while that
was pretty cool, there was also a reason
why tourists hadn’t ventured to this tiny
village before: there was nothing to do
there.

20. HAVE A ROUTINE

WHEN CHECKING OUT OF
A PLACE
Checking out is when you’re most likely to
lose something. Whenever I check out of a
place, I check the bathroom, I check under
the beds, I check the desks, and then I
make sure I have my passport, laptop,
camera, money, phone, and external hard
drive. I’ll be fine if I leave anything else
behind. Having a routine that you go
through every single time will help you keep
track of everything. I learned my lesson with
this one when I left my passport behind in a
guesthouse in Bagan, then left it in an
apartment in London two months later.
At the Grand Canyon