5 Travel Tips to Being a Smarter Traveller

Tip #1: Get enough rest on board flight 

Doing last minute planning on board? In-flight Entertainment too good on board till no time to catch a wink? Too occupy searching for your belongings, ensuring no one steal your belongings on board? Or just cannot seem to sleep simply you are too excited for the trip?

Catch a sleep! This is the most basic thing you have to do. You need this badly as you need to have energy to travel around the city later.

– Safety should not be compromise, always make a habit to fasten your seat belt before the plane move off the tarmac. You never know when you encounter turbulence during flight. Ensure seat belt is not too tight or too loose. Rule of thumb: Stick your index finger in between your seat belt and your stomach. It should fits just comfortably.

– To prevent stiffness of neck, bring a blow up neck pillow. And for whatever reason you still could not sleep despite many attempts, do not press the PANIC Button or call the cabin crew on board. Stay calm, take an occasional stroll along the aisle and relax.

– Bring your board your MP3 player and choose a soothing music from your playlists. Don’t tell me you only saved rock music. . .

– At time, the best way to let people know that you do not want to be disturb in your sleep is to wear an eye mask over it. I do understand that the most advanced aircraft nowadays have cool cabin interior light to put you into sleeping mode. Below is the picture I took on board Emirates. Cool huh.. ZzZzzz.

However, the best way of communication is often through your actions. No words needed. By having an eye mask over it, one can block off whatever excessive light that enter your eyes too.

– Make yourself comfortable on board, strip off your shoes and relax your feet. Every hour if possible, do light stretch by using your hand to try touching your leg to prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT).

Tip #2: How to beat Jet-Lag? 

– Consume Jet-lag pills. Buy these pills and follow the medical instructions.  The hormone melatonin plays a role in your natural sleep-wake cycle. Usually, take 1 tablet every 6 hours for the first 48 hours after departure. To counter insomnia, take 1 tablet 45 minutes before dozing off. However, do note of the side effects which may varies to individual which includes headache and dizziness.

– If you are travelling over different time zones, always set your watch to the destination time as soon as you are on board. All your activities on board should follow according to the time on your watch. For instance, if your watch shows it is at night at your destination even thou when you open your side window, you could see the sun smiling at you, it means you just have to put on your eye mask and get to sleep.

Tip #3: Bring the right adaptor for your electrical appliances 

Bring along adaptor and international plug.

Most often than not, you have to bring your camera charger, phone charger, electric shaver, mp3 player charger etc during your trip.

Please note that the electric gadgets you bought in your home country were built to be use in your country. Not all countries that you are travelling to have identical electrical voltage. In short, your chargers may not withstand the same voltage power passing through it. In long term, it may damage your charger or causes it to be faulty. Worse case scenario would be your electrical appliances becomes over heated and catches fire!

Electrical appliances in Singapore are set to operate on 230 volts AC (alternating current). These appliances can be used in country where voltage is from 220 volts to 240 volts. However, some countries uses voltage from 100 to 127 volts and this is where voltage converters comes in handy.

Electrical sockets mounted on wall comes in different shape, arrangement of plug holes. In this instance, instead of bringing different plug for the various countries, all you need is an international plug which acts like a transformer, adapting to different types of sockets. Buy one that allows you to plug your USB cable easily as well since most mobile and electrical gadgets allow charging via USB port. 

Tip #4: Prevent Leeches or Snakebites during trekking 

You maybe an adventure seeker, doing things out of your normal daily routine. Since its a holiday, go ahead and do the things that you won’t get to do in a city. Go trekking and challenge yourself to climb a mountain summit.

However, remember to do it in a safe way. 5 years back, when I was trekking with my travel partner on a hike at Nepal, my travel partner suffered a bad fall resulting in hands getting badly injured that requires minor hand operation! Fortunately, it can be claim through travel insurance. That’s why I had often say, buy travel insurance. Read on why one should buy it at my previous blog post here.

Prevent Leeches (My Nepalse hiking guide gave us some tips) 

*Wear long pants & thick socks. If possible, have a rubber band to secure your socks tightly on your leg to prevent it from slipping when climbing.

*Carry salt and applied it before hike. Apply it on your exposed body parts such as legs and hands.

*If leeches are spotted on your body, stay calm. Leeches does not cause great pain, only it is disgusting (as it will suck your blood and grow bigger with its limey body). You either let it suck your blood till it is full and it will let go of itself or you apply salt onto the leech which will result it being drop off immediately.

Prevent Snakebites 

*Wear thick and high boots

*Bring a simple first aid kit during hike. Ensure it have bandages to prevent excessive lost of blood when one encounter snakebite.

* A board tourniquet must be applied tightly above the affected part of the body to prevent poison venom if any from spreading to other parts of the body organs.

Most importantly, during hiking, hire a local guide. If there is no guide,  remember always let your travel partner lead the route (just joking).

Tip #5: Select the right luggage 

*Hard Side luggage: Good for protecting fragile items,able to withstand the throws often practiced by baggage handlers in the airport. However, it is much heavier and once cracked, it is often beyond repair.

*Soft Side luggage: Good as it can be usually expandable, creating more space for your items to be stored. It is lighter certainly too but it will not withstand throws and easier for people to open up your luggage to steal items.

*For cabin allowed size, always ensure you choose 21 inch trolley bag. This is the standard size allowed on board. Should it be bigger than this, you have to check in your bag which may incur higher charges when you purchase at airport counter especially so if you take low cost carrier.

*When choosing luggages, get the one with 4 wheels rather than 2 wheels. It is more stable and have better control of direction when dragging it. Imagine you have to push through a narrow alley along the street, 4 wheels baggage allow you to navigate the street much easier than 2 wheels which often allows one to push it in uni-direction only.

You can read more tips on what bags should you travel with at my previous blog post found here.

Categories: Travel Tips