- Know the Do’s and Don’ts of each countries you are visiting. Greet the locals properly with their language and respect their local customs. They might require you to remove your shoes or dress up accordingly, especially when visiting temples.
- Considering the weather and Tip #1, wear comfortable clothes and shoes good for walking a few miles. Don’t bring too much clothes. Make use of the hotel’s laundry services… it wont cost you much than to pay for an extra weights on airline luggage.
- Create a travel itinerary. Plan ahead! It helps a lot to get the best of your time during your travel. Read blogs, reviews and testimonies of the places you are going to visit or the activities you are going to do. Though itineraries are ideals, consider a list of other places to visit or things to do with-in the area of your stay for “Plan B”. Hiring a local guide is also advisable to give you a depth understanding of the culture and story behind of the places you are visting.
- Print out your airplane/bus tickets. Also, keep a printouts of your passport and other secondary ID’s with emergency contact person and numbers at the back. Of course you can have it on your mobile, but having a printed copy as backup adds peace of mind.
- Prepare an offline or printed map with local translation. It is easier to pinpoint and ask help of the locals when searching for directions using maps with local names of the place, especially when riding a taxi or tuk-tuks. Uber or Grab taxis are available on some cities and provinces with-in Indochina region, but you need an Internet data connections to book their services.
- Enjoy local cuisine and drinks to get the best experience and save moolah. Observe or ask the locals not the tourist.
- Bring your meds and also for flu, diarrhea and also a mosquito repellant. It is safer to have those meds with you when you need it than to ask a local pharmacist. Keep away from places that might have mosquitos or insects that may cause sickness.
- Stay hydrated and drink plenty of clean water especially while enjoying #6. Drink only from a bottled water or bring water filter with you just to be sure.
- You might need to bring a universal travel adapter plugs to charge your gadgets on wall sockets for your power bricks. Check your local standards and compare it to the countries you are visiting. And also… Most of the hotel rooms have limited power sockets, a lightweight power strips can also save you from hassle of charging multiple gadgets.
- Use sling bags or belt bags to secure your gadgets, passports or wallets. Place it in-front of your body and keep on eye on it while walking on city streets and on busy area like public markets. Although it is less likely to happen, but don’t give pick-pocketers a chance to do it.
- [Bonus] DO NOT use public WiFi. Use VPN to protect your information and privacy and enable firewall on your PCs/Macs. There are many tutorials on YouTube about using VPN for travelers to learn from.
- [Bonus] Learn to bargain and practice your acting skills when dealing with the locals. Don’t look at their eyes if you are not interested. Use #1 as leverage and negotiate using their local language.
- [Bonus] Organize your currencies. Use envelop or currency pouch to separate paper bills and coins.
- [Bonus] Instead of US dollar money changers, use ATM to get local currencies from your beloved currency.
- [Bonus] Some countries offers GST refunds on goods and services upon exits. Keep your receipts to avail if you have plenty of time to line up and filling up forms on airports and on border exits.
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