I have often been asked about how do I decide on the travel destination, take care of accommodation, sight-seeing, visa, and immigration formalities, basically, everything which entails making a multi-city foreign trip an experience of a lifetime. This is an attempt to answer all such questions and hopefully provide some insights into the art and science of traveling.
1. When to go
Usually, all places have something to offer in any given season unless it’s too remotely located like the Arctic Circle and Siberia (in winters or at any time of the year) or the Sahara desert during the peak of the summers. People usually visit Europe in the summers for the bright and sunny days, where one can witness daylight for more than 15 hours at a stretch. In the winters too people flock to Europe for the many Christmas markets (the most famous ones are in Austria, Germany, Belgium), the snow and not to forget the northern lights (Norway, Finland, and Sweden).
Popular locations in South East Asia like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia are open all round the year, except for very short spans during the monsoons (due to tropical storms) and the summer months (due to the scorching heat).
One should take into consideration the following things while choosing the time of the year –
i. What do you intend to see – are you interested in cultural events or celebrations like the Oktoberfest in Bavaria, the Matador festival in Spain, Rio Carnival in Brazil, Holi or Diwali in the Indian sub-continent, the list goes on. If this the indeed the case with you then things are already sorted out and made much easier.
ii. Always gather meteorological data for your destination. The past weather trends are a good predictor of the future. Anticipating the climatic conditions will save you from the pain of any unintended surprises, that you may encounter. It will also enable you to plan ahead and decide on what to pursue during your trip (as some adventure sports depends on the season).
iii. Do you want to avoid the usual tourist crowds? Perhaps see a place in its pristine beauty sans the hordes of kodachromes and selfie-sticks. If this is you, try to visit the place either at the very fag end of the tourist season or a couple of weeks before the season is to start. Usually, for my winter vacations, I start the trip atleast a week before Christmas and sometimes even come back home by the time the yuletide is in full swing. The best time to visit Europe would be towards the end of September because by then the schools have reopened and the summer holidays are over. People get back to work, winter is just about to set in and it’s not very cold, you can easily navigate from one modern metropolis to the other, without the snaking queues and the boisterous crowd.
2. What to see
This has to be closely aligned and correlated with your tastes and personal interests. Do you like the rush of adrenaline, or are you content with immersing yourself in the history and culture of the place, perhaps you prefer gorging on the scrumptious offerings of the location? Whatever your inclinations might be, every place has something to quench your thirst and cater to your proclivities. So how does one go about searching for things to see once you have decided on the location, I usually follow the following three-step process –
i. Start with a search engine like Google or Duck Duck Go (in case you are a privacy freak), start typing phrases like things to see in “X” (name of the place) or things to do in “X” (where X is the name of the place). This will already throw up a list of top-rated tourist attractions. So there you have a good starting point.
ii. The top-ranked links in the search engines will usually talk about only touristy places and are too mainstream, if you would like to explore hidden gems, I would recommend the following websites – CultureTrip, CrazyTourist, AtlasObscura, Planetaware, UStravelnews, Lonely Planet. Apart from these, there are hundreds of independent travel bloggers who have put their content online. You will find every flavor of travel tips like – “how to travel like a nomad”, “what to see when you have only 24 hours”, “off the beaten track in XYZ location”.
iii. Now that you have a good sense of the places and it’s most prominent attractions, it’s time to dig a bit deeper and learn about the significance of the given place (from different perspectives i.e. historical, cultural etc.) once you have viewed the places through this multi-faceted prism its time to filter down to attractions which closely align with your interests. Since, I am a history buff I usually prefer going to places of historical significance (apart from museums that is).
Hopefully, at the end of this process, you will be left with a list of places and attractions which you will be able to go to during the entire duration of your stay. Always keep some buffer or free time in order to account for unforeseen events it always helps trust me even a couple of hours each day goes a long way.
3. What to eat
A question quite close to my heart, because I believe food is the window to the culture of a place, the flavors and spices are the torchbearers of the idiosyncrasies of a population. Every place no matter how small has its own version of gastronomic delights in store for you. Trust me, if you are willing to taste the cuisine with an open mind and accept all the multitude of flavors which the food entails you will love it. Deciding on what to eat can be a bit daunting especially if you are spoiled by choices, you can follow the same 3 step process which has been enshrined in (2. What to see?). Several food bloggers have compiled a very comprehensive collection of the best things to eat in all corners of the world, prominent among these are – Migrationology by Mark Wiens, The Food Ranger by Trevor James, and The Best Ever Food Review Show by Sonny. You can easily lookup and subscribe to their Youtube channels in order to stay up to date with their latest gastronomic adventures.Apart from this, there are also other options like – organized food tours, which seem to be in vogue these days – check out a food tour in the city of your choice. These are specially curated tours and take you to the hidden gems of a given area/neighborhood. One thing which has worked for me over the years is asking locals what do they prefer to eat and enquiring about the delicacies on offer. More often than not, I would end up in a restaurant and ask the waiter to recommend a local specialty and this indeed works. In case you rather prefer to gorge on street food go ahead, I think South and South East Asia is best enjoyed through its street food, you will be missing out on a lot of things if you don’t eat out in one of the bustling night markets/street food markets. The spirit of a place is epitomized in its street food, so explore this as much as you can.
4. How to navigate
Google Maps – the holy grail of all navigation tools, it is the single most important app which is imperative during your travels – whether you are searching for a nearby place to eat, or trying to find the schedule for public transport, Google maps comes to the rescue. Over the years GMaps has expanded to include a multitude of useful features like search within the application itself, pinning locations, geo-tagging, location sharing. Apart from Google maps, you may need certain apps to book tickets online like Omio (formerly known as GoEuro), Rome2Rio – which shows how alternate modes of travel between any two given points. For continental Europe, it is always easy and recommended to use public transport because it’s cheap, efficient, and mostly on time. Though you will be in need of cabs from time to time (i.e. pickup or drop-off from the airport in case you have packed in a bit too much for your trip). Most cities have some sort of app-based cabs available, Uber being the most popular, other alternatives include – Grab(in South-East Asia), Bolt (in northern and central Europe), Clever taxi (in Romania), Triumpf (in Bulgaria), PassApp (Cambodia). Always Google and gather some pertinent information in this regard before downloading the app and booking your ride. FlixBus has an extensive network of buses in almost every part of Europe, other alternatives include – Lux Express (for the Baltics), RegioJet, Eurolines etc. In order to make the most out of your trip, you might even consider guided tours – Viator, GetYourGuide, TripAdvisor and Klook offer some of the most easiest and intuitive platforms for booking these tours with free cancellation option available on almost all of them. An alternative to pre-booked guided tours are free tours, which are sometimes even better than the planned pre-booked tours. The idea is to tip your guide at the end of the tour, these are mostly walking tours and offer a great way to seep into the narrow lanes, backalleys, and resplendent neighbourhoods. FreeTour is a consolidated platform for discovering all the free tours in the destination of your choice. Personally, I love to walk and backpack, this not only helps to discover things at my own pace but also at times it leads to a lot of serendipitous encounters.
5. Where to stay
There are two aspects of the question here – one the location of your accommodation in the city and second the type of accommodation. Let’s try to address these two together. Personally, since I travel solo and I usually walk a lot, I stay very close to the city center or the major tourist neighborhoods. These places are usually very well connected by public transport and you can visit all the interest points without much ado. I usually book a single room in a hostel or a very average hotel (3 star or 2 star), this helps because I only need a calm place to sleep at night, as I will be out and be exploring the city during most of the day. I prefer such accommodations because I travel alone but in case you are traveling with your family the requirements change quite a lot, you would prefer a kid-friendly comely place even if its a bit further out of the city center. Booking.com is my preferred platform for searching and booking any accommodation, they have free cancellation policies on almost all their listings, this is really helpful in case of a change of plans or an unforeseen situation. For hostels, look no further than Hostelworld, and of course, there is also the eponymous AirBnB. Some people also prefer Couchsurfing and HelpStay, but personally, I haven’t had any experience in using these two, but I have heard from multiple sources that they are good only for some locations around the world.
6. How much to spend if you are on a budget
There are three major areas which constitute the lion’s share of your travel budget – transportation, accommodation, and sight-seeing. If you are on a shoe-string budget you can minimize your spend across all three domains by simply following the following strategies – 1. Use public transport whenever possible and walk through most small towns/old towns in Europe (they are meant to be explored on foot). 2. Stay at a hostel or a cheap hotel/motel (3 star/2 star). 3. There are a lot of things/activities you can do for free like walking along the center of old towns and markets. It only costs when you go inside museums/palaces there is always a section of these monuments which is free and open to the public. Personally, I have spent anywhere between 100 euros to 700 euros for a 2-day trip depending on the location and indulgences.
Also, trim your souvenir budget if you want to save up on the cash. I limit my souvenir list to just fridge magnets, keyrings, and postcards when I am not feeling very magnanimous. In case, I have a spending budget I do splurge on all the things which the place has to offer – Bulgarian Rose Oil, Baltic Amber, Turkish Silk, etc. the list is pretty long and endless.
7. How to take care of visas/immigration
If you have a privileged passport(read the U.S., Western European Nations, Singapore, Japan, Saudi Arabia, etc.), you may skip this section, others may proceed if they so desire. I usually adopt the following steps in order to resolve immigration and visa related issues – i. Look up on the official website of the Embassy/Ministry of Foreign affairs (for your desired destination) to see if you need a visa or other travel documentation for your destination country. Some countries have an online visa portal which saves you the headache of going through the myriads of bureaucracy in order to get your passport stamped. For the Schengen Visa, you don’t need to visit the embassy (in case you are applying for a tourist visa) it is handled by VFS Global. ii. I usually avoid travel agents and other third parties who claim to get you a guaranteed visa because I haven’t had a good experience with them in the past. That’s just a personal opinion, there are of course good ones out there and you can go for one in case you would like to. Keep in mind while filling your application your job is to convince the visa officer that you indeed intend to visit the country to travel and come back home once your trip is over. Most Schengen visas are rejected even if the officials have an iota of doubt that you might illegally overstay after your trip. In case of any queries, it is always a good idea to reach out to the foreign embassy in your country (either via call or email), they are the best people to help you out. iii. At the border checkpoints, always be polite with the immigration officer/border police. Do not mess with them, they can and will deport you in case you cross the line and are too insolent. But in case if you have some serious connections in the upper echelons of the diplomatic fraternity you are entitled to do as you wish, the rules are different for you in that case. For the commoners like me, it is always advisable to carry all the proper travel documentation, itinerary, insurance, and anything else which you may deem necessary, you might be asked to produce them anytime. I have often been asked to show proof of my accommodation and return flight tickets at multiple border checkpoints across the world (I guess most solo travelers have to). iv. It’s always a good idea to save the contact information of your country’s Embassy, I always have the contact details of the Indian Embassy (in the destination country) saved on my cellphone before I embark on the journey. The Embassy is there to help its citizens in case of any emergencies like loss of passport, critical medical support, or any other unfortunate incident.
8. How to take care of international sim cards, travel adaptors/electronic items, and other necessary accessories.
A travel adaptor is imperative when going abroad, there are global travel adaptors which are widely available online, at the airport, and even at tourist neighborhoods in your destination city. Next, a mobilepowerbank is a must, you won’t realize the utility of this unless you are in the middle of nowhere and your mobile battery is on its last breath. It so happens that your cellphone is the only source of navigation and communication, I have learned this the hard way, so be sure not to make the same mistake. Third, carry an umbrella or other protective gear in order to shield yourself from the vagaries of the weather. With respect to SIM cards, it largely depends on your destination and travel plans if you are visiting just one or two countries then it will be cheaper and easier to get a tourist SIM at the airport after you land. In case it is possible for you to wait till you reach your hotel/other accommodation then its advisable to get the tourist SIM from a local shop near the hotel, it will be usually cheaper. The entire EU and EEA (with the exception of Switzerland) has no roaming charges, so if you buy a local SIM card in any of the EU countries it should ideally, seamlessly function in all the other countries in the EU. Of all the places I have traveled to, Vietnam has the best mobile network coverage, it puts all the so-called “developed“ western nations to shame in this regard. That being said, if you are traveling to multiple countries on different continents it will be easier to get a dedicated travel SIM for these specific locations there are operators all over the world which specialize in this, in India these services are provided by Matrix and Roam1 among others. Alternatively, you can also try to contact your local mobile operator and see if they have any viable plans for the locations you intend to visit. Vodafone usually has a lot of travel plans and it seems to work quite well in almost all places I have been to.Finally, travel light and take enough backups with you – for example, an extra pair of shoes, a secondary cellphone, and travel charger, etc. along with other necessary emergency medication.
9. How to communicate with people in a foreign land – Do’s and Don’t
The cardinal rule – Always, Always respect the local customs and sentiments. The culture and practices of a foreign land might appear alien and irrational to you at times and indeed so because you have never witnessed them before so instead of insulting and making fun of them, it’s better to accept them as they are, with open arms and an open mind, try to comprehend more and judge less, who knows you might even start enjoying it. To date I haven’t gotten into trouble anywhere or faced discrimination/racism in any part of the world, maybe I got lucky or maybe I just have too thick a skin to pay attention to such negative vibes. I would like to believe that people are inherently good and helpful everywhere. That being said, it certainly helps if you know some phrases in the local dialect (like thank you and hello), it not only helps grease the wheels of social interaction but also makes the other person much more interested in you because at least you are making an effort to speak their language. In some remote areas of Cambodia and Vietnam or anywhere else in South East Asia, people won’t usually understand English, that’s totally okay, it’s wrong on our part to expect everyone around the world to have a proficiency in English. Here again Google apps come to the rescue, I have often used Google Translate to translate from English to Vietnamese and Khmer, it really works quite well, considering the fact that I didn’t get nasty looks from people using the translated version. The last piece of advice that I usually have, which is not only true while traveling but has wide applications in almost all domains is – keep your eyes wide open and trust your gut instincts, if you have a feeling something is awry it usually is, don’t ignore it, these are survival instincts which evolution has endowed you with, they are there to protect you.
Quantum Explorer 