I know… you’ve heard it all before. You are an experienced traveler, and you’ve read a lot of other experienced traveller’s tips. And you’ve even possibly got some of your own to share… would love to read them in the comments section below.
So, you ask, what do I have to offer that’s different? Well, I guess I’m trying to provide you with some ideas that you won’t find in most other “tips” listings.
Secondly, you were probably wondering, why now? Because we are off on a little road adventure this week, and are in the midst of planning a road trip to the Maritimes in the fall… AND are planning on getting away to Spain this coming winter. I am absolutely stoked about the possibility of being able to travel again, and I hope you are as well.
When I offer up tips I do not mean to imply that you should not be consulting elsewhere for travel advice. Rick Steves offers an entire range of tip categories on his website, most of which are geared towards older folks, who are primarily travelling in Europe… like many of us are prone to do. You can find his page by following this link.
That said, many of you may be travelling like the Love-goddess and I do, which is closer to the “backpack” travel that we used to undertake in the 60s and 70s. Probably backpack travel without the actual backpacks though. In that case it would not hurt to check out Lauren Juliff’s tips at her Never Ending Footsteps website. Definitely tips for backpackers, many of which may be of benefit to you.
My favourite tip of hers is “leaving your comfort zone is the best thing you can do for yourself”. Check it out.
The Most Important Tip
Yes, this post is supposed to give you some ideas that you may not have read anywhere else. But before I do that, I do have to repeat the one that you should have read in every other source that you have ever checked for this type of information.
Travel light!
That’s it. Possibly the best advice any experienced traveller could give to folks who have decided to head out on the road in retirement for some more in-depth international exploring.
No matter how long we are gone… a few months usually… all we take is one smallish (26 inches) rolling soft bag and a laptop backpack each. If you read my earlier piece about the new travel-bag I purchased, you will know that on all future international trips I am just taking one carry-on bag, that can be carried like a suitcase or strapped on my back like a backpack, and that is it.
I guess what I am suggesting, especially about what to take and what not to take, applies whether you’re going for a two-week vacation or a two-month trip. You should be taking the exact same amount, no more, no less, for whatever length of trip you’re taking
Throughout this piece I will point out some ways to help you achieve that goal. The most obvious way to accomplish this, of course, is to take less “stuff” with you. Secondly, what we have discovered, is that the “stuff” you do take should be as light as possible.
This multi-post article will be broken down into about five sections; things to do/acquire before you leave, stuff to take, clothes to take and packing, technology to take, resources to tap into while you do travel, and what not to take.
I hope you find it useful.
Things to Do Before You Go
Gather Up the Obvious – It is always a good idea to get the most obvious things you need to take with you gathered up early … or make sure you know where they are… long before you take off. These include your passports (check the expiration date to make sure it’s not going to expire in the middle of your trip), airplane tickets, and medications. The other things you will need to assemble and make sure you take with you are copies of your prescriptions, photocopies of your passports, printed copies of any hotel reservations you have made, and certainly the thing that we will all probably need post pandemic… proof of vaccination.
Now, you may think most of what I have already said is so obvious I should not be listing them here as “tips”. BUT friends of ours, who are experienced travellers, arrived at the airport one day and discovered that one of them had in fact left their passport at home. This resulted in an emergency trip to the house by a friend who then rushed out to the airport allowing them to just barely make their flight. The lesson is, have all of these important things in one spot ready to go so all you have to do is pick them up and run.
Money – The one thing you generally don’t need to worry about getting in advance is cash. It used to be every trip began with a trip to a money exchange to buy foreign currency before you took off. No more. There are bank machines all over the world and they all allow you to use your Canadian bank debit card to withdraw cash from your own bank account.
The other great thing about bank machines is that they will give you the best possible exchange rate that you will find anywhere. Even the money exchanges in airports will gouge you, not just the ones at home. Airports all over the world have bank machines, so you typically can grab a bunch of local currency before you leave the building.
That all said, we usually make sure that when we leave home I take around $100 worth of whatever currency we will need. Often, this is money I already have at home left over from a previous trip. You do not want to arrive at a foreign airport and find all the bank machines are down and you don’t have any cash to pay for a taxi to your hotel or for a quick meal… or God forbid, a drink!
So, what do you need to take in terms of “money”? First, your debit cards, obviously. Secondly, take your charge cards. You will be able to use them in most places. It’s always a good idea to take at least two different cards per person and store them separately from one another. If you have your wallet picked and all your charge cards are in it, you are SOL. Better to hide at least one card away as backup in your money belt or at your accommodation if it has a room safe. By the way, charge card companies no longer expect you to inform them that you will be travelling abroad. One less job to worry about doing.
If you are okay with wearing one, having a money belt is not a bad idea. I have one that is an actual belt, but you need to fold up the bills tightly to get them in it, so I rarely use it. The pouch style that goes under your clothing is your best option. Not only can you store an extra credit card or cash, it will also hold important documents like your passport. Again, this is a personal choice – if you really don’t like wearing one, then don’t.
The thing you should not bother to take with you is travelers’ cheques. I am sure you can still buy them, but they are probably hard to cash in most places and generally are not used at all for travel anymore.
Maps – If you prefer using fold out maps you might want to buy them before for you go on your travels. You might be able to buy them wherever you go, but you may not be able to easily find them. Keep in mind that you will always be able to pick up some free simple maps at information booths in airports, at hotels, and in tourism offices. I use a different option, which I will address below.
First aid supplies – You really should take a few simple first aid items with you, bandages, ointment, Q-tips, adhesive tape, etc. Just gather these up from what you have around the house and keep them in a small Ziploc bag. Don’t take an actual first aid kit. It will take up way too much room. Remember, you can buy these supplies anywhere in the world or get medical treatment. The stuff you take with you will just be used to cover up a small wound or abrasion, or something more serious until you can get it addressed.
Planning – When you travel you do have to do some planning of course. BUT it is a good idea to remind yourself that you don’t have to plan everything. You are retired. This is “travel”. It is not the two-week “vacation” that you used to take during your work life that had to be executed with military-like precision. Now is the time to wander and enjoy.
I have written about this before, but it bears repeating. Whenever I explain to friends and family how we approach at two-month long trip around Europe, their eyes tend to glaze over. Our approach remains the same all these years later. We book a flight to and from Europe, I book a hotel in the city where we will arrive, and we give some thought to what places we want to visit. That is the full extent of our pre-departure travel planning.
If you plan out everything in advance you may lock yourself into that plan. There is no arriving at a special place and deciding that you want to stay five nights instead of just two. You must move on because you have already booked a hotel elsewhere and may even have paid for it already.
The other thing you really should consider doing when travelling is to fly in and out from different cities. That means no looping back to where you began, and you get to spend your last couple of days in someplace that may be totally new to you.
My other must do activity is to track our spending. And this starts long before we leave home (airline tickets, first hotel booking, transportation to the airport, etc.) It is always a good idea to really understand where all the money is going when you are out on the road. This does not mean you should go cheap, it just means that the next time you travel you will have a clearer idea about where you may be overspending and not getting good return on your money. And, if you’re OCD like me, it’s just a fun, obsessive thing to do.
Addresses – Whenever we head out to the airport I always write down the address of the hotel, Airbnb, or wherever it is we are staying on a piece of paper. That way if we arrive exhausted, all I do is show a cabbie the address knowing that should get us to our destination. Phone batteries go dead, so there is no guarantee that you will be able to show him, or her, the address on your screen. It also eliminates any potential language problems.
Typically, I also do this at each new location we settle into on our travels. I will leave this piece of paper in my pocket, or pick up a business card at a hotel where we might be staying, to get us back there when we are out wandering around and aren’t certain how to find our way back. When you exit out of the back of the Forbidden City in Beijing… and can’t get back to the front entrance… you can be left scratching your head as how to find your way back to your hotel. Flashing the hotel business card to a cabby worked beautifully.
There you go – some things you might want to attend to well in advance of your departure. Now for some thoughts on some things that we always take with us that you might consider throwing in your bag as well.
Do-Dads to Take
I should preface this by saying the goal here is to give you some ideas about things to take with you that you may not have travelled with before. The second thing is, I want for you to crosscheck me to make sure the things I am suggesting are really light and easily packed, and do not add to your load.
Zip-Loc Bags – I never go away without a bunch of these in two different sizes. They weigh next to nothing and take up next to no space. They are great for a variety of purposes. I use them to store receipts and other paper items I might want to keep as keepsakes, like museum tickets. All our electronic accessories (chargers, cables, adaptors, ear buds, etc.) get kept in a large one.
They’re great for packing up food in to take with you on your outings. They’re also very handy for storing wet items (e.g. bathing suit), or for keeping things dry in your day-pack if you are out in bad weather (e.g. iPad). On my next big trip, I will probably just put all my toiletries in one and abandon my bulky toiletry bag.
Reusable Grocery Bags – We always take a couple of those ultralight and ultra-thin reusable grocery bags with us. They are great for bringing home groceries, but they are also super for carrying your laundry to and from a laundromat, or for isolating your dirty clothes from your clean clothes when you need to pack up and move on. Additionally, you could use one as a beach bag or even as a flight carry on. Again, they don’t weigh much and don’t take up much space.
Guidebooks and Maps – I group guidebooks and maps here together because I usually use the maps that are found in guidebooks… but probably not as you would expect. I refer to electronic guidebooks installed on my iPhone or my iPad when we travel, rather than taking print versions. This eliminates the weight and the space taken up by books and prevents you from walking around in public staring at one looking like a travel dork, thus marking you as a tourist and an easy mark for the pick-pocketers.
Before leaving home, I print out whatever maps I will need from whichever guidebook I will be using. (You typically need to take screenshots of these and then print them) or print from Google Maps. This provides me with individual pieces of paper to fold up and carry around in my pocket to pull out when I need them. As I mentioned, I will supplement these with maps that I pick up at information booths, hotels, and tourism offices.
Small Notebook and Pen – Even though you will probably be packing an electronic, it is always a good idea to have a small spiral notebook and pen with you. We, like many others, normally rely on making notes in an app on our phones, but sometimes that is not possible. Your phone battery may die, or you may want to jot down some thoughts on the plane. Probably the most practical use for my notebook is that I often tear out a pieces of paper to make notes (e,g, addresses) for myself and stuff them in my pocket.
Small Packages of Tissues – Although you will be able to buy these internationally, it’s always a good idea to take a half a dozen packs with you when you leave home. We learned this many years ago travelling in Asia when we discovered that most public bathrooms require you to bring your own toilet paper. Small tissue packages are what everyone carried for this purpose. Even in some places where it is provided, they may run out, and they are good for blowing your nose too. 🙂
Eating Items – Having occasionally found ourselves in situations where we had acquired food to eat, but didn’t have a utensil to eat it with, has resulted in our taking a lightweight fork-spoon and a bowl-shaped Tupperware container with us whenever we travel. Buying some cereal and a small container of milk to have breakfast in your hotel room is a great cost and time saver, but eating the cereal out of the box and washing it down by chugging milk out of the container is not an ideal situation.
If you look at the picture of the Tupperware container that we use you will see that it is also a great sealable storage item for anything you can squeeze into it (e.g. socks). Both things should be light and ultimately not take-up a lot of space. Because it has a lid it is also great for packing up a sandwich or two take along with us on day outings.
Day-Pack – When we are travelling, we never go out without a day pack. It holds additional clothing layers, sunglasses, snacks, a water-bottle and everything else we think we might need on our outing. It is also great to have if you decide to pop in and pick up a few groceries on your way home. We always have our two reusable, collapsible grocery bags ensconced in the bottom of our day-pack.
When I say a day-pack I don’t mean one of those cumbersome laptop backpacks with many pockets. I am talking about a bag that probably only has one large compartment and one pocket for a water bottle on the side. You want something that will lie totally flat in your suitcase. The one I am currently using is the one in the photo. If you read my piece about the new travel bag I bought, you will know that this is essentially a packing cube turned inside out. A dual-purpose product.
Earplugs – Take two pairs each… you will lose one set. They are great for sleeping on the plane and with your snoring loved one.
Face Cloth and Wipe Rag – The Love-goddess will not go anywhere unless she takes a face cloth with her. She has stayed in far too many hotel rooms that don’t make them available. It’s also a good idea to have a separate rag for wiping your hands on after your picnic lunch or to wipe up a little mess you’ve made in your hotel room.
Swiss Army Knife – And finally we come to my all-time favorite, must have, travel object – my Swiss Army Knife. I would suggest you go back and read my article about just how useful these guys are when you are on the road travelling.
The only caveat I must add is that I think you will still have to put it in a checked bag. The typical pocket Swiss Army knife that I carry is right on the cusp of allowable blade length. So, you may or may not be able to take it into the aircraft cabin with you. I think the decision would come down to the security folks on duty.
There you go, a few of our favourite travel actions and objects. I hope you found at least one usable suggestion amongst them all.
Next Up
In Part Two I will be looking at some optional items to take, and choosing clothing and how to pack it.
Good read Greg with some solid, practical suggestions and even solutions to “often had” experiences. I look forward to the next installment in the series. Thanks.