How I travel

Every person has their own style of traveling reflecting their interests, prioritize, budget, and physical abilities/limitations. I’ve had the privilege to travel quite a lot during the last five years, usually by extending work trips by a few days but sometimes just for pure pleasure. Most of these trips have been solo but there are a few exceptions. When traveling with others, I tend to adapt to their preferences, but when alone I have a fairly particular way of operating: I tend to cover a lot of ground in a small amount of time and also manage to keep the budget fairly low. These are some of my “hacks” or lessons than I’ve learnt from my experiences, some of them apply to city trips, others to nature ones:

• Move by your own means. You’ll get 10x the experience if you walk or bike instead of taking uber/lyft/cabs or public transport. Walking is by far the best way to ‘get to know’ a place. However, if you need to go far and don’t want to spend hours walking through boring neighborhoods, then use a bike. Most larger cities have something to the equivalent of NYC’s “Citibikes”, in the US, you can usually use Lyft (at the time of writing) to find and unlock bikes.

• Google maps is king. I can’t believe that this app is free, but it’s the one thing I rely on beyond anything else. Before I go anywhere, I always download the offline maps, which allows you to orient yourself without using data (great for avoiding hefty roaming fees). If you’re a bit strategic, make a “List” in google maps (by saving a place) of interesting things to see or places to visit; by doing so it’s easier to plan your route or see if you’re close to anything cool as you’re strolling through an area.

• Mobile data. Life is so much easier with when you can access information on the web. If you’re traveling to a country where you’ll have to pay a roaming charge, I’d suggest looking into either buying a “tourist sim card” or get a virtual sim card (if your phone supports it).

• Hydrate. Most people say they get “hangry”, but honestly, most times it’s a lack of liquid that’s the culprit. If you walk a lot, especially in warm weather, you sweat more than you realize. I rarely feel thirst, so it took me a while to realize how much better the experience is once you properly hydrate. I try to consume at least 20 fl.oz. every second hour. This works wonders.

• Toilets. If your drink a lot, you’ll have to pee a lot and public restrooms can offer some PTSD inducing sights. What I’ve found to work really well is: Museums and Shopping malls. These restrooms tend to be: 1) free and 2) clean.

• Ditch the food search. Finding food takes a lot of time. I’m not someone who travels for “the food experience”, if you’re a foodie then this tip will not resonate will you, but if you’re ok with down-prioritizing food keep on reading. Instead of going through the process of finding something to eat, ordering, waiting for the food, etc. I tend to just bring one or two energy bars alternatively, buy them on the fly. Sometimes I buy a bowl of fruit, a yogurt, or some bread from a grocery store - depending on what I crave. Paradoxically, for me, if I’m in motion I don’t get as hungry as when sitting still (like at work). This presents a nice segue to my next tip.

• Cutlery. I usually keep a pair of plastic cutlery (it’s biodegradable, don’t worry) in my backpack. It sounds weird, but it’s great if you buy something edible that you don’t want to eat with your hands (e.g., yogurt), a lot of small stores don’t provide you with this.