Travel Tips for the Young Adult

Those who travel frequently will definitely know of tips and tricks that a younger traveler should know which can make their trip much more enjoyable.

I am a big fan of travelling, as the experience of visiting and understanding a new country and its culture never fails to bring new inspiration and food for thought. Travel, in my opinion, has evolved from the visiting the typical touristy attractions to a wholesome experience of interacting with the country’s people, understanding their culture and uncovering the best food and places which locals frequent.

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

― Augustine of Hippo

Yet, to accomplish everything in a short span of three days to a week is impossible. Some people may stay longer and backpack for months. For both cases, preparation is key. The most beautiful and also the most crucial part of travelling is in fact the preparation phase. It is during this phase you form expectations of the country and also determine the success of how much you are able to get out from your short stint.

Putting my visits to several countries together, I have provided some tips for the young, adventure-seeking traveler in mind.

Tips for Booking the plane ticket

This is the first major step that you have to take to crystallize your trip. Booking the cheapest plane ticket is an art, and I have provided three tips previously. 

• Subscribe to mailers of budget carriers (eg. Scoot, Jetstar have weekly sale fares)
• If you are really hard up on cash, you can probably save tens of dollars by making use of price guarantees policies some carriers offer. Eg. Jetstar

Things to consider when booking the hotel

• Location, location, location
  (Things to look out for include convenience stores, nightlife establishments in the area, safety concerns)
• Always read reviews from tripadvisor, booking.com, etc
  (Customer service can make or break your day. You can still get really good customer service for cheap)
• Airbnb can give you cheaper rooms and a taste of the local neighborhood lifestyle.
• Hotel booking aggregators might not include promotional prices. Always check the hotel website.

Exchanging Currency

• Make sure to have some currency of the country you are going to for safety purposes. Do not assume that the airport will have stock.
• For best place to change foreign currency in Singapore, click here.
• Ask for smaller notes if available

Tips on packing

• You’ll be surprised by the amount of space you can save by using Ziploc bags to pack things air-tight.
• Plan properly your itinerary such that you do not need to bring more spare clothes than you should. Laundry can be done easily at the hotel.

At the destination country’s airport

• Get your phone up (look out for a service provider to get data connection)
• Always be sure of how to get to your hotel from the airport. The rest can wait till you are checked in.

General tips when travelling

• Your phone will be your best friend. Invest in a good one and it can act as your camera, map, information storage, etc. Make sure it always have battery.
• Admin: store pdf copies of your passport, flight itinerary, hotel bookings so that you can pull it out on your phone anytime
• Forgot your charger? Not to worry, you can almost surely get one from the hotel desk.
• With the google maps app, you can save your maps and refer offline by typing “ok maps” into the search bar. Do note that you cannot route places when offline though.
• When going through security, put your things in your pocket (wallet, coins, keys, phone) into your bag before placing it on the conveyor belt. Saves you the trouble of emptying your pockets and reclaiming your items.
• When you reach the airport, always check in first. 
• Know the price when taking the taxi.. be ready to haggle
• Learn the survival phrases of the local language. It is also more fun to interact with the locals.

Hope this was useful for you! Feel free to comment and add to my list!

Eufass

3 Tips to book the cheapest flight ticket

Getting the cheapest flight ticket would mean more money to spend on other stuff during your vacation.
Recently Kayak published a survey that revealed the best time to book your air ticket for the best price, which got me very interested.

I recall that while preparing for my graduation trip (Yes, sadly I will not be qualified for student deals anymore), I spent a lot of time over a span of two months trying to get the best deal. The experience was long, repetitive and sometimes painful, but at least I could blog and share about some of the tips to get the cheapest flight ticket and feel better about this.

1. Book early

The most straightforward tip of all is to really book early. Honestly, I am not sure what algorithm or rule flight tickets are priced with. There are just too many explanations out there. But after 2 months of scouring and even to the extent of awaiting the launch of a new budget airlines (Scoot), together with my previous trip to America and within America, I realized that the ticket prices that I've seen on the very first day are often still the very best price I could get.

So here is my tip, if you are someone like me who value your time a lot, go ahead and book the ticket should the price point is somewhat in your comfortable and expected price range. You will come to appreciate that the time you save from settling the booking early would be more worthwhile than the money you could potentially save if you continue to scour for deals in the following weeks. Furthermore, in the unlucky scenario, prices go up...

So.. once you made the decision, just go ahead to book your air tickets and save yourself from all the trouble and wasted time. The best tip, is still , to book early.

2. Use flight ticket aggregators

A common knowledge when booking flight tickets is to use services like Expedia, which offers choices from different airlines so you can immediately have a sense of how much the air ticket should cost. Furthermore , there are flight ticket booking aggregators like wego which allows you to do searches at different flight booking websites and compile the options. You can be doubly sure that the deal you are getting is the best price with such websites.

One tip that I saw somewhere is to clear the cache if you see that ticket prices have suddenly gone up. Such websites and airlines could track your search history and trigger a raise in price to induce panic buying.

3. Budget airlines deals

To outsmart their competition, some budget airlines like Jetstar offer a price beat guarantee, in which they would offer a 10% cheaper price than any competitor for a similar flight. I shared some tips on this previously.

Further, unlike normal airlines, you need not pay a higher price when booking one-way flight tickets with budget airlines. From here, two opportunities to save money arises via:

• Airline options
  Scour the different budget airlines (air asia, scoot, jetstar, tiger) separately for their cheapest tickets in the period you are travelling. Just select the cheapest flight.
• Currency options
  In my last trip to Taipei, I realized that booking one-way separately in TWD currency would be slightly cheaper(~$10)  if i took the round trip option. So instead of booking round trips, no harm checking whether individual trips will amount to a cheaper flight. (Keep in mind the exchange rate is via your bank's rate)

For the poor student, budget airlines are the best business model inventions in the aviation world. If money is your top concern, the best way to fly is most often via budget air!

Hope this was useful to you
Eufass