When I started planning for my trip in 2012, I knew very little about worldwide travel. Sure, I spent 2 months backpacking through Europe in 2007, but I pretty much followed Rick Steves' itinerary suggestions to a tee. In 2012, I constructed a more personalized journey. I spent countless hours reading books and searching for websites on: country info, itineraries, transportation, lodging, weather, gear, food, health, and safety. I was single at the time, without kids, and it still consumed my life for months. It was quite daunting, and in all honesty, a bit scary venturing out into so many unknowns. Fast forward 3 years to present day, and now it all seems commonplace.
This post is designed to be a reference to which you can refer the next time you, or someone you know, is planning a holiday as I've constructed it to include just about everything I've ever learned during my travels to 7 continents and 72 countries. My hope is that this advice will help ease your planning, save you money, increase your travel safety, and most importantly, make you a smarter traveler. So whether it's solo or family travel, a long or short holiday, local or international travel, these tips will help you avoid many of the headaches I've encountered during my travels to date.
Note: Since this post was written in Australia, some of the embedded links may default to .com.au. If so, it might take a bit more effort to locate those links using your country's browser.
So without further ado....