Before Travel What-to-do's

Going to a place which you haven't been yet is something to look forward to, exciting but at the same time scary. Travelling to an unknown place needs a preparation. Yes, it adds to the thrill if you go unprepared, but problems may come that may spoil the fun.

I began travelling since I was a kid but those trips were just from my island to another island, inter-island as they say. Our preparation begins from packing clothes, hygiene kit, getting my medicine for seasickness, and food. It's something very basic and we don't have to get a map since my anyone from the group knew the place. The problem we usually encounter is the unavailability of ship's ticket so we ended up stranded. Bringing blankets, pillows, sleeping mats are on our checklist because there is no hotel in that place. I can say that, your preparation depends on your destination.

My very first out of the country travel was last June of this year. We booked the ticket few months before our trip and it meant we had so much time to prepare. One of the must-bring-things aside from the "basic" things I made mention were cameras (with spare battery), laptops, and hard drive.

Google had always been helpful to us in terms of getting relevant informations. Somebody from the group printed a map which gave us a birds eyeview of the place and made an itinerary to make sure we made use of our time being there. We are lucky enough to have some people around us who had been in Hongkong who can give us other relevant infomations that we need including having our simcards activated for roaming and Philippine peso exchanged with Hongkong dollar. Having our bills changed isn't as easy as pie and it was due to Hongkond dollar shortage in my place. Bringing credit card is very helpful when travelling if you intend to shop.

Travelling to a place where people can't barely understand English can be a problem, so make sure you always have a map with you. In Hongkong, we get free maps in the airport. One of the things to consider is looking for a safe, convenient and cheap hotels to stay. See to it that the place you are staying is strategically located and as much as possible its near or accessible to nearest train or bus station, restaurants, banks and airport. Do not rely on the idea of getting a tourist guide. Make your own reseach of the landmarks and the place that you should'nt miss when you get there. Sometimes, there are are pseudo tourist guides that we've met and we just realized that they are touring us to the casinos in Macau which may look majestic but failed to take us to the temples.

There was an instance that we got lost on our way to the ferry station bound to Macau and asked the local for directions. But, the directions he gave were all wrong. Trust no one but yourself. Do not trust strangers, always leave a doubt in your mind.