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« Older Entries Newer Entries »Onward-ticket requirements can create a problem for RTW travelers
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
This is something can comes as a surprise to many a RTW traveler, but quite a few countries theoretically won’t let you in unless you already have your onward ticket out of the country. And one of the things that makes it trickier is that enforcement tends to be like enforcement of speeding laws on highways. In other words, you can often get away with ignoring the rule, but in some cases doing so will turn into a huge problem. There are ways around it, but they are a big hassle so most people tend to ignore the rules until they suddenly are being enforced.
The rules exist mainly so countries can easily stop just anyone from arriving with very little money and with the intention of entering the underground labor market as a new illegal alien. Having a blanket rule allows authorities to “profile” people and enforce this selectively, which means that most travelers will not have a problem. But recently we’ve heard that Thailand, and perhaps a few other neighboring countries, are enforcing the rule very strictly as of 2007.
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Radio Nowhere?
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Obviously the common advice of bringing the absolute minimum you can get away with on your RTW is valuable and important. When you’ll be carry every single thing on your back for months or even years, you should carefully consider each and every item before you commit to bringing it with you. Some things are cheap enough (like, say, a Frisbee) that you could just leave them behind if you decide you made a mistake by bringing them. But other items (like, say, iPod speakers) would be a bit harder to ditch part way into your journey.
But having said that, one item that deserves a bit of consideration for some of us is a radio of some kind. You won’t find radios on too many “suggested RTW packing lists,” but you might still think about it. Even if you don’t listen to much radio at home, you might find it fascinating to hear local broadcasts while abroad. I brought one that is about the size of 4 packs of cigarettes taped together, and I’m really glad I did. But there are tiny versions with fewer features you might also look into.
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The RTW ticket versus point-to-point debate, continued
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008
This is well-trodden territory for many people, but I wanted to mention one aspect that some people fail to consider when deciding whether or not to buy one ticket ahead of time or separate tickets as you go. The point-to-point style is definitely the best choice for many people, but I’ve seen that some of the folks leaning toward that strategy either don’t realize all of what’s involved, or they don’t want to know because they’ve made up their mind anyway.
We live in an age that, with very few exceptions, no matter where you are there are many cheap flights to be found. And I’ve seen people who notice this phenomenon and then make the assumption that buying individual tickets around the world will be cheap and easy as long as their schedule remains flexible. It does work out that way in most places, but not everywhere, and those exceptions can be budget killers if you aren’t careful.
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Learn some Spanish at some point
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
While it’s definitely true that you can go round the world speaking only English, knowing more than a few words in Spanish can really enhance your trip in quite a few ways. And I’m saying this as someone who didn’t realize this before he left, but really wished someone had told him about this earlier. So I’m telling you now.
I didn’t really even figure this out until it was way too late anyway, but basically, in all countries where Spanish is the first language, very few people speak English. It feels a bit ironic that everyone on the small resort island of Ko Samui in Thailand speaks a reasonable amount of English, but once you get south of Tijuana or other border towns like it, you are mostly in the “no comprende” zone. And this definitely isn’t a complaint because if I tour their country I can’t expect them to learn my language in advance to make it a bit easier. This situation surprised me, but it was my fault, not theirs.
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Taxi drivers can be dishonest
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
When you are on a RTW trip there is no way to fully research each place you’ll be landing, so you have to kind of make some things up as you go, and take your chances. If you have the opportunity to do one small piece of research before you get to any destination, particularly if it’s a second or third world country, you should research airport transportation. If you don’t, there is a good chance you will be consistently getting ripped off and/or getting a really bad first impression of that place.
This might be one of the most useful and least obvious tips I’ve been able to write about. The fact is, that taxi drivers and many others who work at airports are constantly on the look out for suckers and people they can take advantage of. Sure, it occasionally happens in New York City or Paris as well, but in many parts of the world it happens all day every day. Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia all have many airports where any foreigner arriving on their own has a big target on their back.
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Bus tours are great once you get used to that one maddening feature
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008
When on my RTW trip or when I just travel in general, I tend to go a bit faster than most other people do. When you tell people you are going to Bangkok you’ll hear some people say you should spend at least a month in the area in order to truly appreciate its diversity. I have a short attention span, so I did Bangkok in 4 days, which is a day or two longer than I’ve spent in many other big cities. Anyway, the point is, that bus tours often offer an incredible value as long as you know how they really work.
I’ve been on dozens of these things and you can find similar ones in most places around the world, but I’ll use Bangkok for this example. I booked a half-day bus tour that left Kho San Road early in the morning and went out to the Floating Market, which is about an hour outside the city by bus. I think I paid around US$6 for the tour, which seemed damn cheap for 5 hours driving around the Bangkok area in a van full of other bewildered Westerners, especially since it also included two boat tours once at the market. And it was cheap and a great deal, for a very good reason: Bus tours like this around the world are gimmicks to get tourists into overpriced souvenir shops.
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Planning your route to stretch your RTW funds
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
When we first consider a ‘round the world’ trip it’s definitely exciting to imagine visiting a bit of everything on your lap around the planet. Everyone who spends more than a couple months on their trip, and who actually crosses the International Dateline an odd number of times in the process, will definitely be seeing a lot, but certainly not everything. If you plan your route the right way you can spend twice as long on the same trip as you would have had you planned it a different way. So if your goal is to stretch your money as long as possible, the best idea is to skip most of the expensive parts of the world and save them for another time.
For example, Tokyo is an amazing place that nearly everyone can appreciate, but if you try to spend a week or more in Japan it will drain your travel funds fast. Just save it for another trip when it won’t mean sacrificing so many other things. A week in and around Tokyo will cost as much as two months in rural India. If you look at it this way, Japan becomes a bit less appealing in the context of this trip.
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RTW photography and you
Tuesday, January 8th, 2008
If you take a one-week vacation to, say, New York City, then photographing the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building is a perfectly natural thing to do. There’s nothing wrong with this, even though your own photos will almost always be of much lower quality than hundreds or thousands of better photographers with better equipment who’ve taken those photos from the exact same angle in the past. Search the internet when you get home and finding your same photos, except better, is easy. But still, this is what people do on short trips, and again, there is nothing wrong with that.
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Tiny and cheap gadgets worth bringing
Tuesday, January 1st, 2008
The best general advice for bringing extra gadgets with you on your RTW trip, is don’t. You’ll be amazed at how little you can get by with when you are leading a simple life of long-term travel. Many things you just won’t need or use, and other things can be easily purchased for even less abroad than at home, and then left behind when you no longer need them. But there are a few small and cheap things that will be far more useful than you might realize.
A tiny flashlight is one common item that is on many people’s lists, and these are a good idea. You can either get a small, high-quality one like a Maglite, that sells for around $10, or you can bring an even cheaper one, like those keychain lights that are designed to help you find the key hole when you come home at night. Those can be found for around $2 or even at a dollar store. They won’t last forever, but they will probably last for your trip.
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Hotel booking desks - a helpful tool for RTW travelers
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
Depending on where you’ve traveled, you may or may not have seen these hotel booking services that are unavoidable in many parts of the world and unknown in other areas. And even if you have seen them, there is a good chance you might have looked upon them with great suspicion, and you could hardly be blamed for this.
In case you haven’t seen them, all over Europe, and in much of the rest of the world as well, every major airport, train station, and city center has a hotel booking service run by the local tourist board. The good news is, these things can be great tools for RTW travelers and others who like to book their accommodations as they go. When you are in a city or airport that has one of these things, they tend to be located in conspicuous places, so they are harder to miss than they are to find.
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