Travel Tips:

Travel Tip #13- Label Travel Funds

A quick tip on how to keep track of your money while traveling.

Travel Tip #12- Do Not Touch the Electric Shower

I was just in a Guatemalan shower that exploded due to a malfunction in the electric shower head. Luckily, I was standing outside the shower when this happened. "Simply put, electric showers can - and DO -explode, malfunction, falter, and, essentially, screw up in a plethora of various ways that can have the result of electrocuting the daylights out of an unsuspecting traveler! It really happens, and nearly did so to me as I stood naked in a Guatemalan shower earlier this week." Read this travel tip by clicking on the above link.

Travel Tip #11 - Loose the Shampoo

I have found that using bar soap rather than shampoo leaves my hair just as clean, lowers the amount of times a week that I have to wash my hair, and, most importantly, it removes the need to carry around and purchase shampoo. As any traveler knows, liquids are heavy to carry around, and, likewise, should be avoided at all costs.

Travel Tip #10-How to Turn a T-Shirt into Shorts

Read on, and you will be sure to learn how to turn a t-shirt into a pair of shorts. I cannot predict when you will need to use this tip, but, I must say, there will come a day when you look into your rucksack and realize that your articles of clothing are not appropriately diverse to fully clothe a human body. For sometimes on the Road you just have a few too many t-shirts and not enough shorts, sometimes the clothes in your bag just do not match the climate, and sometimes you just need a change. Click on the link above to read the full tip.

Travel Tip #9- How to Turn a Plastic Bag into a Cup

Instructions with photographs of how to transform a plastic bag into a drinking vessel. "Have you found yourself at a water source with the desire to carry water with you but without  anything to carry it in? Are you at a stream in the middle of the woods with a water filter but without a receptacle to filter to? Do you need something to do with all of those plastic shopping bags that you have forced upon you every time you buy something? Or maybe you just need a stinking cup?" Click on the above link to read more of this travel tip.

A discussion of the pros and cons of using a popular travel guidebook. "Guidebooks, guidebooks, guidebooks, a big question. Should a traveler use them? Are they really helpful? Are they worth their weight and cost? Is traveling more enjoyable without them? Can I travel without one? " All of this and more in this travel tip.

"In many circumstances, a traveler could find himself outside after nightfall without a place to seek shelter and, in some cases, without the monetary resources to rent a bed even if one was available. Or, if you are traveling by bicycle, hitchhiking, or walking it would be foolish to plan on entering into developed areas every night solely for the purpose of finding shelter. In point, when on the tramp, it is often necessary to sleep under the stars, and, in most instances, the formal campground is not really an option- as I think they are a waste of money. The way I see it, the entire world is one big campground ever welcoming a clever traveler to set up a camp and stay a night- for free."

Travel Tip #6- Avoid International Bus and Train Services

Click on the above link for a travel tip that focuses on saving money while crossing borders. More often than not it is far more prudent to avoid international bus and train services. Go to the above link for this travel tip.

Travel Tip #5- Not Your Friend

This travel tip is about how to avoid some of the major hassles associated with traveling- TOUTS. Simply put, these are people who will come up to you in the street and pretend to be your friend all in the great drama of separating you from your money. 

For more on touts and how to avoid them you can go to:

On Moroccan Touts Travelogue Post

Travel Tip #4- Wash Your Laundry While You Shower

In this tip I offer up a rule of travel that I always follow:

Always wash your clothes every time you shower.

Just bring in a few articles of clothing into the shower with you and wash away at them with the same bar of soap that you use for your body. Click on the link above for the full version of this traveler tip!

This tip is how to construct large, belt hanging pockets that could be called "saddlebags"- because they follow the same idea as gear bags that you put on horses. But instead of putting them on a horse, you wear them on both sides of your body. Follow the link above to find out more about this travel essential.

"It is often an apprehensive moment when checking in on a one way flight to a country that officially requires proof of onward travel to enter. Most often, I have found that I am not asked if I have a return or onward flight, and therefore everything works out fine. But on a couple occasions, I have found myself in situations that could have been potential problems while dancing around this silly restriction."

Traveler Tip from Andy the Hobotraveler.com: Fake Onward Tickets

This travel tip is about the retrospective value of writing about your travels.   

"So much of what I wrote, and thought at the time I would never forget, has unexpectedly passed through the grips of memory. To read of little forgotten adventures is to relive them. It is to have them again. A traveler's pockets are empty in all aspects- when it comes down to it, all that we have is what we remember. The accumulation of impressions, experiences, and feelings that makes up the substance of our memories is what makes us the wealthiest people on the planet. To sit on a far-flung dusk time beach and day dream of past adventures is to be a king. Writing increases the boundaries of our kingdom."