Dropcam contacted me about helping them put together a blogpost discussing the best ways to travel stress-free. They are asking bloggers to write about their best travel tips and share with their readers why these tips are so important to reducing stress. As you may know, April is Stress Awareness Month and by the end of the month they’ll be compiling the Ultimate Stress-Free Travel Checklist! Read more about Dropcam’s campaign!
1. Research – Research is key whenever the time comes to plan a trip. Whether it’s where you’re staying, what type of transportation you’ll be taking, how much money you need in hand, what attractions you’ll be visiting, where you’ll be eating, even survival words and phrases (if you’re traveling abroad), the best way to ease into a new culture is by researching. I don’t like to plan every little part of a trip, i like leaving a little spontaneous wiggle room.
For our recent trip to mainland Japan i researched all the touristy things to do in each city and wrote down the ones that caught my eye in my little travel notebook. This way we had an idea of what we wanted to do throughout our trip. When we arrived in each city the first thing we got was a map, and every morning we would wake up and decide what area we were visiting. In Kyoto for example we explored the south side of the city first and the next day we took on the north, this way we weren’t running around like crazy people in the subway and we got to visit all of the places on our list.
Another thing i wrote down in my little travel notebook were the directions from Haneda Airport to our hotel. I had heard that cab fares were almost $80!! Thankfully our hotel website had different transportation directions and in the end we only paid $15 by using the subway system. (I’m pretty proud to say we didn’t take one single cab ride during out whole trip! Yay us!)
2. List Making – I confess, i am an avid list maker and there’s no better time to break out the pen and paper than when traveling. Ok, i guess you can technically make lists on your phone, tablet or computer but nothing beats a travel notebook that is accessible in a snap. List making is effective as soon as the trip comes to mind. Make a list of what you can do to save money, list the places you’d like to travel to and narrow it down. When you make up your mind and book your tickets, start researching the places you’d like to visit. The weeks before your trip make a list of everything you need to do before your trip and use colorful pencils to scratch things off. And of course use it to help you pack! Nothing eases my mind like scratching everything off my list and it helps me travel stress-free.
3. Leaving a key with a friend – I think my mom has always done this before we left for trips, and somehow we’ve adopted the same idea. Before our trip back home (for our wedding) and our trip to mainland Japan, we left a spare key with some good friends of ours. Why? Well because you never really know if the situation arises where they have to get inside your house and it just gives us peace of mind.
Q: Do you have any tips for traveling stress-free?!