Some Tips to Ease the Way for First-Time Travelers

Those taking their first foreign adventure on a student-style budget can get information on fares, visas, insurance and student or youth discount programs from a local student travel agency. Here are some other tips for a smooth landing.

A little research will help you find what’s available for free or at a discount. Get a guidebook written for your style of travel and scour it before you leave, highlighting free or reduced-rate hours or days at museums and tourist sites, transportation deals and special events. The most popular guides for this type of travel are the “Let’s Go” series, researched annually by students, and “Lonely Planet” special editions for shoestring budgets.

Check for festivals. Your trip will be more memorable if you can time your travels to annual events, such as the August Beer Can Regatta in Darwin, Australia; September’s Mid-Autumn Moon Festival in Hong Kong (where you can join thousands picnicking under paper lanterns in parks at midnight); the November Elephant Round-Up in Thailand; and the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, in July.

Find out what you can do for free. Often this means scheduling visits during certain hours or on specific days. Pack a journal. If you’re not used to writing each day, you can collect your memories in other ways. Have new friends contribute their comments and recommendations. Other travelers will be your best sources of information on where to stay and what to watch out for.

Pack what you think you’ll need, then try to reduce it by half. Patterned clothes won’t show wear as fast as solid ones. A poncho can keep you dry in a downpour or act as ground sheet for a picnic. Get a money belt or pouch to keep your valuables under your clothing. Pack a lock; hotel rooms and lockers can be made secure if you carry your own. You can also lock your pack to the luggage rack during a train ride. Take a Swiss Army knife with a corkscrew, a small flashlight (in some developing countries, power is turned off at night) and plastic sandals for shared shower rooms at hostels and budget hotels.

Photocopy your valuable documents (your tickets, the first page of your passport, credit card information) and leave a copy at home with your family or a friend. If you have an e-mail account that is easy to access on the road, you can e-mail lists of important numbers (such as emergency contacts) and scanned copies of documents to yourself, then access and print out copies if you need them to replace items that are stolen or lost.

Check with your bank to be sure your automatic teller PIN works internationally.

Always look at a budget hotel room before you pay for it. If the washrooms are separate, check them too.

Look for restaurants where locals are eating for the best food at the best value. In expensive cities, department stores often offer economical meals.

Universities and colleges often have inexpensive single or twin rooms that non-students can rent during holiday periods. You may be able to eat cheaply in their cafeterias by showing your student ID card, even if you are not staying there.

If you can, buy local transportation tickets in bulk (in Paris it’s cheaper to buy 10 Metro tickets at a time) or purchase economical all-day passes. In London there are all-day passes for the Tube for travel that starts after 9:30 a.m.

Remember that public libraries in the U.S. often offer free e-mail services.

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To check events on the Internet visit https://www.whatsgoingon.com. For basic student or youth travel tips, visit https://www.studenttraveler.com. For travelers’ medical information visit https://www.cdc.gov.