Boarding Priorities | Things to Keep in Mind While Travelling
Travelling is often seen as a luxury pastime, but it’s actually an activity that requires a lot of knowledge and preparation. Overcoming any potential fears of flying, figuring out public transit in a different country, and getting to your hotel all require a lot of organisation. Skilled travelers make it look like a breeze, while those who aren’t accustomed to going abroad will often make simple errors that make it clear they are amateurs.
Overcoming the learning curve usually involves a few trips. However, if you’re someone who is hoping to bypass the awkward stage of learning and skip forward to the part where you’re just another stylish traveler touring historic and remote exotic areas, there are a few ways to make it seem like you’re a lifestyle traveler.
Safety of Destinations
Many beautiful and exotic areas around the world have received a bad reputation for being unsafe for travelers. These may be tempting areas to travel if you’re looking for an exciting trip; however, it’s important to do your research to distinguish areas that are truly unsafe from those that call for simple safety precautions. Although there are risks in travelling to any location, some are indeed more dangerous than others, especially because of international relations.
There are some countries that are best not traveled to for the time being. Here are a few countries that are on the U.S. “do not travel” list and should be avoided:
- Afghanistan: The international conflict within this country makes it unsafe.
- North Korea: The dictatorship ruling the country can be dangerous for a lot of travelers.
- Venezuela: Political strife has made crime, civil unrest, and arbitrary arrest common.
Countries like Colombia and Mexico are relatively safe to travel to, although extra precautions are suggested for travelers. Although they were considered unsafe at some point in the past, crimes against travelers have gone down significantly. For example, there were fewer crimes in Cancun than there were in Kansas City, Missouri in 2017.
Preventative Health Measures
Before you travel, it’s best to get a regular physical exam to make sure you are healthy before leaving the country. Monitoring your health before travelling will also help you determine whether any illness you pick up is specific to any area. Falling ill overseas happens, but it’s best to take preventative measures before you leave to avoid getting sick in the middle of your travels. This can often be as easy as getting some extra vaccines to keep sickness at bay. Certain visas may require these vaccines, so it’s standard to see a doctor before travelling.
This can also help make sure you take care of any viral or bacterial infections before heading somewhere it may be more difficult to receive medical care at. This includes addressing any potential common illnesses, getting tested for STDs, and having your teeth checked to make sure you don’t have any cavities that could become a problem once you leave the country.
Packing Properly
Seasoned travelers often don’t want to spend the time or resources checking their bags through each airport. Unless you’re travelling for work and staying at your destination a while, it’s best to pack light, and if possible, bring your belongings as carry-on luggage. This means bringing only the necessities, like a couple of versatile outfits and travel-size toiletries.
It’s also important to ensure all of the goods you’re bringing on the plane are legal to fly with to avoid being stopped and questioned, which may cause you to miss your flight. This means only flying with containers with liquids that are less than 3.4 ounces, avoiding knives or other types of weapons, and only flying with legal substances, such as modest amounts of labeled CBD oil.
Carry-on items must be relatively small, but you should invest in luggage with wheels that is the largest standard size allowed. Although they may not seem heavy when you’re just carrying them around for a moment, weeks of lugging around all your belongings over your shoulder can quickly become exhausting. You can often spot someone who is unaccustomed to travelling by their type of luggage and how much they’re struggling with it.
Ethical Tourism
Although some seasoned travelers don’t care about how their choices or activities impact the environment, many of them do. Travelling helps people develop a strong sense of respect for foreign communities, different cultures, nature, exotic animals, and so on. This means that they often avoid activities that are not sustainable or are harmful to local ecosystems or communities — especially as we learn more about how pollution affects the natural world.
This often causes them to seek out eco-friendly hotels that do not consume excess local community resources and opt for renewable resources as often as possible in their operations. By doing so, travelers can feel that they’re doing their part to cause as little harm as possible and balance out the environmental impact of travelling.
Another large aspect of ethical tourism involves that activities that one takes part in. Although people who are new in visiting countries like India or Thailand may be tempted to engage in “tourist trap” experiences, like riding an elephant, they often don’t realize that those sweet elephants are seriously abused in the training process and regularly in day-to-day life. To avoid supporting these types of activities, it’s best to steer clear of them.
Having the opportunity to travel is a true blessing, as it provides you with eye-opening experiences about the world around you. Travelling around the world and having these experiences provides you with insight you couldn’t possibly gain without actually going and being in these different locations. Travelling is a poetic experience, as you gain a whole new view of the world when you watch the sun set on different horizons in new countries. However, in order to have the best experience, you should be prepared for the challenges that travelling will bring.
