Travelling the World // Preparation o(*≧□≦)o

I've travelled. I can't say I've travelled a lot, but I am in a happy place where I do get to travel as much as I can within my capabilities. Throughout my trips overseas, there are a few advice's, tips and tricks that I picked up along the way to make sure I was going to have an amazing journey and adventure. I have put together some notes which I always consider whenever I plan a trip overseas. In this case I'll be using my Japan 2015 Winter & Summer trip as an example for the below topics. 

1. Travel buddy
Your travel buddy is super important as you'll be spending days, weeks or even months with them (depending on how long you are going for). Make sure you guys are on the same channel, wavelength and even activity ideas, to ensure an argument-free and amazing trip. In my case, I did prefer travelling with my childhood/best friend Stephy (Japan-Summer), over my high school mate Max (Japan-Winter). However, don't get me wrong about Max, we had a great adventure together too, but you know girls understand girls! So shopping and everything was much easier to plan~

2. Plan early & Brief Research 
Planning early beforehand will help you along your journey. Things to consider when planning would include location, travelling dates, accommodation, budget and activities. I usually make a list of places my travel buddy and I want to go visit, eat & shop at. I then utilise this information to form a day-to-day itinerary, as this will ensure I have ticked everything off the list so I don't miss out on anything.

3. In-depth Research
This is another important part when you're planning for your next trip. When choosing your accommodation we tend to see how many people it can accommodate, price budgets and location (if you're looking at AirBnB places). However the location is the KEY thing to look at if you want to have a more convenient and easier trip home. Some places will say it is a 5 minute train ride away from e.g. Shinjuku station, but the walk to/from the accommodation may actually be a 15 mins walk away from Shinjuku station. So make sure to GOOGLE MAP everything to get the best estimate time of your travelling! Besides travel time, knowing the simple things, such as cost, opening hours, train lines, etc. for shops, cafes and theme parks, will help make your trip run more smoothly. 

  

3. Money
If you know you want to travel then SAVE, SAVE, SAVE! Money doesn't grow from trees, even though we wished it did. Sacrifices are needed, but of course not to the extreme where you cannot enjoy life back at home. You can save a lot by making lunch boxes instead of eating out or not shop for new clothes (cause you can probably do that overseas anyways!). 

4. Time
I find the best time to travel overseas is definitely during the time when I was studying in uni. I would have a casual job to fund for my trip, then take the time off when I wanted to travel. It's the time to work hard then play harder because of how flexible our time/days are. Now as I work full-time, of course I get annual leave and all, my travels are limited, but I try and squeeze in as many holidays, especially when we have long weekends and public holidays! Small short trips are a good way to enjoy life a little in the adult world.   

5. KEEP OPEN MINDED & ENJOY!
The last thing to do is just enjoy the whole experience, from planning to actual travelling! Your itinerary won't always go as planned, so make sure you leave some leeway and be open minded to other ideas too. If you find you've completed everything you wanted to do for the day, go out and find something else to do, because the adventures are endless when you are in a new country or place! You never know what you'll come across by getting lost in the city. 

♥♥♥♥♥

[24102016]

Good morning everyone, today's blog post has been sitting in my blog queue for quite some time and I never really got the time to finish it until now. So I do hope you guys enjoy it because this will relate to all the upcoming travel-related blog posts i.e. Packing guides, guides to Japan, etc. 

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-LAZYPANDAH