Are you heading off on your first big adventure and looking for beginner travel tips to help you better prepare? I’ve crafted this post just for you!
If you’re looking for advice for first-time travellers and searching for travel tips to kick-start your adventure, you’re in the right place. I’ve been travelling the world for years, which has helped me pick up some great tips along the way.
I’ve also found myself in some sticky situations that have given me some useful insights. For example, I always use these basic travel tips: carry a spare bank card, have a sarong instead of a beach towel and carry thick socks for overnight buses. (Those buses get cold!).
But there’s so much more to know; for easy travelling around the world, I give you 25 of my best travel tips for beginners!
Travel Tips For Beginners: Top 5 Essentials
Before we jump in, these are the best travel tips for beginners to remember, especially as beginner travellers. These are going to ensure you have a safe and comfortable experience!
- Don’t overpack – you won’t wear half of it!
- Always screenshot your bookings & directions
- Book your first night’s stay in advance
- Learn a few local phrases – it goes a long way
- Embrace the unexpected – it’s part of the fun!
Are you planning a trip soon? Use my links below to book!
Accommodations – I recommend Booking.com
Flights – I recommend Skyscanner
Travel Insurance – I recommend SafetyWing
Tours/experiences – I recommend Get Your Guide
Car rental – I recommend DiscoverCars
These are all the sites I personally use to book my trips, and if you use them, some of them will earn me a commission at no extra cost to you. This helps reduce the ever-increasing costs of keeping my site up. Thanks!
Beginner Travel Tips For Easy Travelling
🚑 DON’T FORGET TRAVEL INSURANCE!
SafetyWing is a fantastic travel medical insurance that is super affordable and great for backpackers. You can purchase a policy before or after your travels begin. 🤗
1. Be As Flexible As Possible
It’s so important and an easy travel tip to remember! We all like travelling with a plan or at least a semi-plan, but make sure it’s a flexible one. Things do change, and therefore, plans must be changeable, too.
Sometimes, things may not be as accessible as you thought, while other times, things may open up, creating opportunities. Change is a good thing. I think staying flexible is the best advice for first-time travellers.
However, always book your first night’s stay in advance. This way, you’ll have a landing plan, and you’ll be better prepared, knowing exactly where you’re going on that initial arrival.
2. Be Patient
My dad told me this travel tip when I was younger, and they are words to live by.
“When travelling you have to be patient. In some countries things don’t work as well as they do at home, sometimes people just live on a different time to you”.
You’ll hear it all over the world: This is Africa time, or this is Bali time! It’s easy to get overwhelmed and annoyed at things taking a long time, but it’s no use; just relax and wait.
3. Pack A Sarong
One of my best easy travelling tips is this: if you’re struggling with weight, forget about the beach towel and use a sarong! Sarongs are light, easy to pack and dry super fast.
⭐ Pro tip: It’s ideal for beaches and picnics and a good wrap-around when it gets cooler in the evenings. An alternative to a sarong is the WETCAT Turkish Beach Towel, which I love at the moment!
From experience, most hotels will provide bath towels, so it’s questionable if you need to take a towel at all. For backpackers, I’d also grab a microfibre towel to take for emergencies only.
P.S. If you’re heading on a beach holiday, I’ve collected all the essential packing items here on Amazon.
4. Invest In Packing Cubes
Your bag is your life, and these little beauties are going to help you keep your life organised while you travel the world! If you’re travelling with a backpack, it can be a nightmare trying to find particular items, so trust me when I say these are going to help.
And whatever you do, don’t overpack – you won’t wear half of it!
FYI: Packing cubes are small zipped cases which hold your clothes. It makes it easy to pack, organise and retrieve certain pieces without unpacking the entire contents of your bag!
5. Avoid The Crowds
It’s a given that popular tourist places are going to be crowded. Sometimes, they can’t be avoided, but my travel tip to at least try and avoid them is to go early in the morning.
That does mean getting up first thing, but it will be worth it, especially if you can get those early morning photo shots, too!
6. Don’t Worry (or at least try not to)
Travelling should be fun; it’s an adventure. I’m really lucky to have a no-worry type of personality.
Look at it like this: There really is nothing you can do to change anything that’s happening. So, if what’s happening can’t be changed, then why worry about it? Everything will work out for the best, and it always does. Enjoy the moment!
7. Learn Some Foreign Words
One of the best travel tips for beginners is to learn just a few phrases like ‘thank you’ and ‘please‘; it makes such a difference whilst travelling. You’ll really notice a positive response from locals if you can say a few words to them in their native language!
⭐ Pro tip: To top this off, I’ve also noticed that locals are much more likely to stop and help, for example, if you’re lost and need directions, if you greet them in their lingo.
8. Always Screenshot Your Bookings & Directions.
Do this and also grab your hostel/hotel business card if they have one! For the simple reason that it has their address on it, and you won’t always have data.
If they don’t have a business card, then write down the address or save it on your maps. Language barriers are a real thing, and it’s so much easier to show your tuk-tuk driver where you want to go rather than try to explain it!
9. Carry Spare Passport Photos And Copies
Mostly, you won’t need them, but sometimes you do. It depends on the sort of trip you’re taking, but it’s always a good idea to carry a copy or two.
Recently, we applied for a visa online, which required passport photos and a visa extension, which required passport photos and a copy. This is an easy travelling tip you should remember to do!
For example, I needed passport photos and copies to apply for our Cambodian visa and extend our Thailand visa. Luckily, I always carry copies while travelling!
10. Make Sure To Carry A Padlock
One of my top travel tips for beginners to remember! This is really important if you’re planning on staying in hostels. These days, most hostels will have a lock box or some sort of storage for your bags, but they rarely, if ever, supply a Padlock. To make sure all your belongings are safe, carry a padlock with you and lock those valuables up!
⭐ Pro tip: If you still don’t feel safe leaving your valuables locked up this way, you can sometimes leave them with the receptionist, who will be able to lock them up for you somewhere else securely. This is generally only for passports and items such as laptops.
Beginner Travel Tips For Best Travel Experience
Enjoying this blog? All my content is free, but I do spend a lot of time in coffee shops. If you’re finding my content helpful and would like to buy me a coffee, I’d love that! Thank you 🤗
11. Listen And Observe
It’s always a good idea to listen to those around you. Locals have great knowledge of the area, but so do other travellers, especially those who have been there for a while.
⭐ Pro tip: Listen to their stories, where they’ve been and where they are going. Start up a conversation and get inspired!
12. Enjoy Some You Time
The great thing about travelling is you’ve got nowhere to be. The world is yours, and time is your friend, for once! When you find somewhere you like, take some time, take a breath and reconnect. If you’re travelling with others, make sure to take some time for yourself, too.
13. Take The Free Walking Tours
One of the best travel tips for beginners (and those of you who might not know) is to take advantage of the free walking tours! Your hostel or hotel will be able to point you in the right direction.
They’re generally free and are a great way to get familiar with the city’s local spots, meet other people and explore areas you may have not otherwise seen.
14. Invest In A Warm Sleeping Bag
I was once told to take a sleeping bag as the overnight buses get cold. I remember thinking this wasn’t likely, especially in warmer countries. However, I did listen, and I’m so grateful I did! It seems to me that the hotter the country, the colder the buses. They whack up the air-con so high that I’m always freezing, even in tropical countries.
I think I’m generally quite a cold person anyway, but the sleeping bag saved me. It’s always one of the first travel tips I give to people when they ask me what to take or if I have any advice for them.
15. Bring Back-Up Bank Cards
Don’t forget to take backup cards! This is one of the most important travel tips for beginners to remember. Things can go wrong: machines swallow cards, and cards get lost, stolen or damaged. If it makes you feel safer, use a credit card to pay for things online, like flights and accommodation.
Generally, we use our international ‘Wise‘ account for everything; it’s amazing. I do recommend it. However, we always have a few other cards tucked away in the bottom of the bag, which never come out unless there’s an emergency!
👉 International Bank: WISE
If you haven’t heard of Wise, you will love this. The WISE BANK ACCOUNT is an international bank that allows you to have accounts in different currencies all in one place – so there are no foreign exchange fees!
16. Use Local Transport
For the best beginner travel tips, do like the locals and stay away from private transport. It can also be fun and quite rewarding once you manage to get from destination A to B using local transport too.
⭐ Pro tip: Local buses, trains, and boats are going to save you so much money! It’s also worth noting that taxis can easily scam you, take you in the wrong direction and overcharge.
If you need to catch a taxi (late at night), it’s worth downloading local taxi apps such as Grab, Gojek, and Uber and booking safely through the app. It’s also good to book this way as the total trip costs usually show up, so no scams!
17. A Homestay Is The Best Stay
We always try and find a homestay while travelling. It’s a great way to connect with local people and customs and learn traditional cooking and local knowledge!
It’s also a great way to support the local community and helps your host family out financially, too. I also think it’s just a nice way to travel the world, to enjoy that homely feeling, especially if you’ve been travelling for a while.
18. Pack A Thick Pair Of Socks
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I get super cold all the time. Jack will tell you, I’ll be in a jumper and trousers still cold while he’s sweating in shorts. It’s very unfair, but it’s just one of those things!
To make sure I don’t get cold while travelling, I always have a pair of thick socks within reach. They come out frequently: planes, buses, trains and even in the hostel. The air-con is cold, and I still don’t understand how the temperature settings work…23 degrees on air-con is not 23 degrees as it would be outside!
19. Pack An Eye Mask And Ear Plugs
Luckily, this isn’t really a travel tip which I need to use (I can sleep anywhere!), but Jack really struggles, and without his eye mask and earplugs, he doesn’t get any sleep. If you need darkness and silence, or at least a degree of silence, then these two are packing essentials!
20. Eat Local Food
One of the most important travel tips for beginners to remember if you want to keep costs down. It’s best to stay away from Western food as it’s so much more expensive. Local food is delicious, and it changes so much depending on where you are.
It can be fun, too: trying new flavours, experimenting with food and sometimes eating something totally unexpected! After all, you’re travelling to get away from home, so why not eat like the locals do?
Beginner Travel Tips For Greener Travelling
For more ways to travel sustainably, head over to my Best Eco-Friendly Travel Products.
21. Pack Your Own Water Bottle
It’s so important to stay hydrated. To cut down on having to buy plastic water bottles, make sure to pack your reusable water bottle and take it with you everywhere you go!
Luckily, most hostels now have refill stations, which makes it super convenient.
For those of you who are travelling to countries with non-potable water sources, we use the Grayl Water Purification Bottle. It’s a little chunky; however, it saved us from having to purchase plastic bottles of water. You could also consider a Steripen.
22. Pack Re-Usable Straws
Pack them and take spares. We found the metal straws work best, but we are also prone to leaving them in the glass and sometimes forget about them, only to remember the next day that we didn’t take them home! So, It’s a good idea to bring a few spares.
23. Volunteer If You Can
This might be part of your travelling itinerary or something you’ve been thinking of doing. It’s definitely worth investing some time volunteering while you travel.
It can be anything from a few hours at a local beach clean-up to a month-long stint at an elephant sanctuary. Whatever you do, volunteering is one way to ensure you’re giving something back to the community, which is going to help and make you feel good, too.
24. Find Reef-Safe Sun Lotion
One of the best travel tips to help the oceans is to always use reef-safe sun lotion. However, this is a tricky one as even ‘reef-safe’ still isn’t completely safe for our beautiful corals!
Those intelligent scientists have found that even the ingredients in reef-safe lotions can still be harmful, so it’s best to use mineral ‘non-nanosized’ sunscreen.
⭐ Pro tip: Be aware they don’t offer as much UV protection as the chemical ones. If all else fails, reef-safe sunscreen (without oxybenzone and/or octinoxate) is still a better alternative than normal lotion!
25. Use Mineral Salt Deodorant
Another great way to help protect our planet and a great travel tip is to use a mineral salt deodorant. We use ‘Salt Of The Earth’, which I think is brilliant. I was worried at first, not thinking it would work, but it really does! Plus, it lasts for months. No more aerosols, plastic or worrying about running out; this stuff is great!
Just A Little Note: As hard as we try, it’s almost impossible to be completely plastic-free and green, especially while travelling. Don’t beat yourself up if you forget your bottle or have to use plastic. Just do what you can and be conscious.
That’s It: Travel Tips For Beginners
As always, I leave you with a few final thoughts about these travelling tips for beginners. As I mentioned above, the five most important are: to ensure you have additional bank cards, carry copies of your documents, a sarong is so versatile a padlock if you’re staying in hostels and always remember to stay flexible.
The rest are good to know and can help you have an extraordinary trip with added comfort and ease, but honestly, you don’t need more than the essentials. Remember, you can always purchase items overseas if you forget to pack something, so don’t stress over the little things!
Thank you for reading my post. You can find my latest stories and articles on my blog homepage here. Follow me on Instagram (@abigailcarolina.dalton) and Facebook to see what I’m getting up to and where my upcoming trips are!
