pre travel preparation/packing list/general advice

I went to Thailand 4 days, Vietnam 3 weeks, Cambodia 3 days, Australia 2 weeks, New Zealand 3 weeks, Fiji 2 weeks, Los Angeles(USA) 1 week, San Francisco (USA) 1 week, and Montreal (Canada) 3 weeks.

Budget

£2050 flights

£3700 while travelling

£200 insurance

£200 innoculations

£50 misc before I left

£6100 total

All this info is going to be from a British perspective.

Booked my flights through student travel agency (STA) as well as my travel insurance and travelling credit card.

I got my innoculations done privately as I did them relatively last minute but you can get alot of them done though the NHS but it takes longer to get done. private innoculations are however more expensive than ones done on the NHS.

Travel credit card. Costs £10 and it's a credit card you can use around the world without any fees associated with using a normal domestic card, no fees when using it for card transactions and no card fee for withdrawing money. You get a spare for free in case you lose or get one stolen. You can put as much or as little on as possible for budgeting and so if it is stolen they only take what's on the card not all your money. Bad side is it's free to top up by phone but there's a small charge to top up online. Thought process by STA is that calling is expensive when the traveler is overseas so they'll top up online and incur the fee. Again slightly unethical behavior by STA. I just asked my mother via whats-app about once a month to call and top up my card by phone in the UK.

My philosophy was to travel light weight. I had a relatively small bag (old osprey bag maybe 40 litres) and I knew I wouldn't be camping. So I didn't need much.

7 underwear

5 socks

4 tshirts

1 shirt

1 jumper

Waterproof jacket

Waterproof trousers

Thermal top

Thermal leggings

Woolly hat

Gloves

1 shorts

1 trousers that also turned into shorts

Baseball cap

Sunglasses

Head torch with spare batteries

Swimming trunks

Lightweight towel

2x1 litre water bottles

Desert boots

Sandals

Drawstring bag

Survival kit

washkit - sleeping mask,
inflatable neck pillow

I put everything into canoe bags to waterproof it.

Whole thing weighed about 12kg at the beginning and 15kg by the end

While I travelled I gained

4 tshirts

Quite a few souveniers

3 jackets

A 2 litre waterbladder
ear plugs (very useful if people snore in your hostel)

Lock 

And lost/broke

1 tshirt

3 pairs of socks

3 pairs of underwear

Ripped a canoe bag and poked a hole in another

Broke the headtorch

broke the drawstring bag (it was really bad and weak)

I wish I'd taken more socks, and underwear and a better drawstring bag. They just wear out over time. And my student card (discounts). I saved an email from my university email account onto my phone and showed that when I needed to prove I was a student for the discounts.

Phone stuff.

I didn't bring a laptop so I knew I would have to use my phone for everything. I had all my visa/border crossing docs. All my personal information, telephone numbers for embassies of the countries I was visiting, online banking on my phone, my flying itinerary. Emergency contacts.

Apps I downloaded

Maps. Me - offline map with GPS. Made getting around really easy all over the world. It's free

Hostelworld - easy to use to book the hostel in the place you're staying next

TripAdvisor - I never booked any through it but it's a good tool to find out what's worth seeing in the place your in.

Netflix - you can download movies  to watch them when your offline on buses, trains, planes etc. The rest of the world has better netflix than the UK. You can do a similar thing with the Youtube app in some countries. If applicable you can download a film to watch while in one country and watch it in another if you turn off your internet connection and go to offline mode in netflx. the netflix won't know where you are and can't stop you watching it.

I got a good case for my phone as well as a glass screen protector. I also got a waterproof case on a lanyard incase I went swimming with it. I had a portable battery as well and an international plug adapter.

Security - I never left unsafe while travelling but I was still sensible with my personal items. All my pockets had fasteners. I only carried walking around money, no cards, no passport. I left it all in my room in my locked locker.

Airport cashmachines will always charge alot so if you can get cash out somewhere else which is cheaper.

Rule of thumb for food (especially in Asia) - busy full of locals and foreigners, not too clean and not too dirty. It is highly likely that the food is going to be good and cheap.

Air Miles
for big long trips the air miles add up especially if your using the same airlines repeatedly I kept my airline ticket stubs to get the airmiles however I did the registering at the end of my trip which meant that for various reasons I was unable to claim most of my airmiles. So if you're going to get airmiles then register with the airlines before you start your trip.

And remember if you the reader want to share some great advice from your travelling then feel free to message me and I'll add you as an author and you can publish your piece.