Travel tips for Any City

Congrats! You made it to your vacation destination. Now what? There are some basic things that you should know to help make your trip a bit easier.

1. Download an offline city map on your phone. This will come in handy when you get lost. The benefit of this over a regular paper map is that your phone will show you where you are on the map instead of you having to figure it out yourself on the paper one.

2. Pin or Star your hotel on the map. While we are on the subject of this helpful map on your handy phone, it is wise to make sure you actually save the location of your hotel on this map. This will make it much easier to get back home if you are the wandering, get lost, type of traveler like myself.

3. Take a photo or business card with your hotels address. This is especially important if you are in a city with a different alphabet. As an American, trying to tell a taxi driver in China what hotel I am staying is near impossible. They never understand me. I've come to learn the easiest way back to the hotel is to show the driver a business card with the address.

4. Download local taxi app. I'm not a big fan of Uber but they also aren't in every city. Google "taxi app in ..." with the location you are going to find one that works. The US may be a bit behind with free wifi in all shops, cafes etc. but many countries and cities have wifi most places which enables you to use the taxi app when you need it. There are many cities in which taxis are hard to get during rush hour or late nights so the app is your best bet.

5. Take the hop on hop off bus tour the first day you arrive and stay on it for the entire circle. Yes, it sounds stupid and possibly a waste of time but it's far from that. The bus is the best way to see the city and it's top sites in the quickest way. This is a benefit in two ways: 1. Hooray you got photos of all the cheesy tourist shit out of the way and now you can really explore the city. 2. Now you have the lay of the land and know exactly where you want to spend your time for the rest of your vacation. A third possible benefit is that most hop on hop off bus tickets last for 24hours. This means that if you arrive in the afternoon and take the bus tour you can use the bus as free public transit to get back to the neighborhoods you want to explore further the next morning.

6. Find a supermarket. You may think that you should skip this since you are on vacation and plan on eating at restaurants but you should always consider buying something to snack. You never know where you will be when you are hungry and if that coincides with the city you are in. For example, the first time my boyfriend and I traveled to Spain we did our typical routine. This routine included getting hungry around 12, eating lunch, and then getting hungry again around 5:30. In Spain most people don't eat dinner until after 8:00pm/20:00. This meant we were stuck either snacking on peanuts or chips, or eating fast food. BK is not really my first choice when I could be eating Spanish food. Going to the supermarket will allow you to plan a back up snack or treat for those unplanned times. It's also just a bit fun to see how different the food selection is in different countries. Who doesn't love a free activity while on holiday?

7. Plan and reserve a dinner. Many people are on special dietary restrictions nowadays (I try my best to stick to a vegan diet) and traveling can certainly make this hard. It may not be ideal to some to plan exactly where you will be eating while on vacation but if you have a specific diet then I suggest you book at least one lunch or dinner at a place that caters to your diet. This could be your saving grace in case you have really bad luck finding food other places. Eating crappy food during an entire trip can really bring the mood of the trip down.

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