As many readers know, I recently returned from 2 months in the UK with stopovers in Iceland and France. International travel is fun and in our modern age comes highly recommended to the young. Fortunately, I grew up travelling and so I am able to pack a bag and travel well in as little as 30 minutes. Frequently, I end up packing the night before travel. The only thing I do in advance is clean up my habitat and do the laundry so that I can pack clothing quickly. This month, I decided to give my quick list of tips on International Travel and how to do it well.

Plan for Freedom

There are usually two camps when it comes to travel planning: every minute is occupied and complete lack of planning. I recommend people stay in the middle. I know that if left to roam in the world’s cities I can quickly end up sitting in the same place or neighborhood doing nothing and the missing something amazing. What I did in Paris worked very well: I prioritized what I wanted to see and left days open to be free. That way, when I found out that I could go on a little boat and see quite a few sights in a hurry I was able to do that without torpedoing a schedule that I had pre-planned. I also gave myself a day to just walk around and I had an amazing adventure in the 3rd because of it. Semi-planned works really well. Pick what you want to do and schedule half your time, leave the other times for freedom, random things, and other unplanned adventures. You can always find another hike to take, museum to go see, or shopping district to invade.

Order in advance (if you can)

If it is available, ordering tickets for the sights/museums in advance is very important because it saves you time in lines. While everyone else is waiting in line you’re cruising by and already onto your adventure for the day. There are plenty of options for skipping lines, buying or scheduling things in advance. They are all worth exploring if it fits into your plan of what you want to do.

Do Your Homework

Get a lay of the land, understand what is where, and get to know your way around. I always like to get as familiar as I can with any place I’m going but in international travel it’s paramount. From planning taxi/uber rides in advance to understanding the mass transit system and where your stop is, doing your homework on where you are going pays off and helps speed logistics along. If you need to bring medication, get vaccinations, have a plan for cellphone service or plan for unconventional transportation, the internet has made it easy to plan all of this advance and make sure that your trip is amazing.

Make Use of Apps

There are good apps for travel these days and so there is no reason not to download a few and start planning! Tripadvisor is good for finding those great restaurants and sights. If you’re going to a nation with smart phone service, having that app is a handy way to take advantage of the great places wherever you are and certainly is a must for domestic travel. Localeur is also good for diving into the local places and finding amazing things that only the locals would know about. Airbnb is an essential for on-the-go accomodations and I can’t recommend Google Translate highly enough overseas.

Pack for a Variety of Conditions

Anyone who has traveled with me that even though I pack minutes before I have to leave; I pack the house. While, it is hard to pack everything with the ever shrinking airline carry-on requirements, I am a firm believer in being as prepared as possible. Just because it’s July doesn’t mean that a sweater isn’t an essential item for chilly evenings or a random trip to a higher elevation. Obviously, you can’t bring clothing for all seasons at all times and there are places where it simply makes no sense to bring long johns or board shorts at different seasons. Bringing a variety of clothes gives you options. For men, I recommend 5 shirts (2 collared, 3 t-shirts) a pair of jeans, 5 pairs of underwear, 1 sweater/cardigan, 5 pairs of socks (3 in the summer), a pair of slacks, a deconstructed jacket, and a pair of good shoes, casual shoes, and outdoors shoes/sandals. For ladies, it is a bit harder depending your style. The same advice could be followed in a similar way” 5 tops, 5 bottoms (at least one shirt/dress), underwear to match, and a good jacket and a light sweater. Shoes are similar. If you’re going to a formal event, make to pack the necessary accessories you will need for those times. Wrinkle releaser and Febreeze are perfect for keeping things fresh.

Hopefully this helps you on your next international adventure. What are you travel tips? Let me know!