By Contributor: Moupee
Do you want to remember your travels as pleasant voyages or travails? It depends on you. Make your journeys a breeze and have a wonderful, care-free experience you will cherish rather than one you will look back on and shudder.
Travel has five essential components:
1. Just because you are going off for a week or a fortnight’s vacation does not mean you have to pack dozen clothes and everything else you think you will need. Pack only a few clothes, interleaved with each other to prevent creas ing.
2. The carrying bag itself should be chosen to be lightweight and strong.
3. Put your travel documents, essentials such as face wipes, napkins, medicines in a separate small pouch you can carry along with you.
4. Spread stuff inside your main suitcase or backpack and leave enough room to put in something extra you may buy along the way.
5. Pack in a lightweight back, just in case.
6. Make sure you do not pack articles, food or otherwise, that are prohibited.
7. There are times when you must travel according to schedule such as for business. In this case you have the option of direct or non-stop flight and also budget travel in which you change flights. The best is non-stop since it gets you direct to destination.
8. If you are flying off on a vacation, look for off season low fares, discount deals and the cheapest airline to stretch your rupee. There are times when aircrafts will be flying half empty and airlines will be happy to accommodate you at a lower ticket price at the last minute so keep your bags packed and fingers crossed.
9. If you have pots of money and want to stay in style, you do not need to read this. Five star hotels and classy travel are for you, not economy section.
10. Accommodation accounts for a major portion of your travel budget. Smart travelers choose clean, comfortable accommodation without any frills in budget hotels, guest houses or even dormitory type, if they travel alone.
11. Just check the hotel you pick has 24 hour checkout from the moment you check in. Some hotels have a predetermined checkout time.
12. Then there are taxes and services they foist on you that you do not actually require and end up paying for.
13. The fun of traveling is that you get to sample local foods wherever you go. That said, there is no sense in going to classy restaurants to dine on standard fare that you could eat at home at less than half the cost.
14. Find low cost street side stalls selling local stuff. You can gorge without having to spend a lot.
15. Some hotels include breakfast so have a hearty breakfast and skip lunch, so pick hotels with this feature.
16. Taxis are fast no doubt and get you to your destination but are expensive. Share taxis or cadge a ride and save money.
17. Alternatively check for availability of city buses or local trains.
18. Travel light, enjoy local flavors, look for deals on flight tickets and you can do more, visit more places and have more fun.
