Pre Booking

• Let flight deals dictate your travel plans, flights are often the most expensive aspect. You could save thousands if you travel based on deals instead of wanting to go to a specific place at a specific time

• Fly between the largest possible hub airports, more airlines competing equals lower fares. Taking a train 1-3 hours for $20 is cheaper than a more ‘convenient’ flight for $200 more. This site shows what connected airports have their larges: https://www.flightconnections.com/

• Look at flights way ahead of time but when you’re planning to book, as you do, flights get ‘hotter’, try and wait a day after you concluded your search so prices ‘cool down’. Don't stress if you're only searching once or twice

• Use a cheap old android phone in incognito mode to search flights and prices. Searching on a high end MacBook sometimes gets you higher fares, especially when booking directly with airlines

• Statistically the cheapest time to book is 64 days before desired departure

• Don't bring a checked bag for ultimate savings and airport convenience. Also, no lost bag!

• Churn a credit card to save $500+ on a flight with travel points. Many credit cards offer a 1 year sign up for free, bonus sign-up points and include travel insurance. Just set a reminder to cancel the card after 11 months

• If flying 10+ hours, deliberately choose a flight with the longest layover possible, bonus if you'd arrive in the stopover country late in the afternoon. You'll be able to get a much better sleep in a hotel in the stopover country, in addition to saving bucket loads on the flight. You can also leverage a stopover to ’tick off’ other countries/places you'd otherwise not visit

• Some excellent dates to fly out is on Christmas or New year's days early in the morning. Bonus, try to fly to countries that don't celebrate the same holidays as yours so you get a holiday aligned with your work break but you don't pay through the nose on the place you're going. E.g do easter in China, or Australia Day in New Zealand

• Try to travel when your local state has public holidays, this reduces the leave you need to take. My favourite time (as an Aussie) is between Easter and Anzac Day because a lot of countries don't have days off for either so they often aren't more expensive AND it's not school holidays, but you also get 3 free days of leave

• December is always expensive to fly. Try to either depart on one of the last days of November or return on one of the first days of January

• If you get all the way through the flight booking process and it tells you prices have increased so “go back and start again”. Give it at least 24 hours before retrying. Sometimes even a week if you can be patient, let prices ‘cool down’

• A lot of marketplaces have people selling flight vouchers and credits, often if you're planning to book at the same time you find a seller and you tell them you'll book immediately they'll discount you more (upto and beyond 30%) where you can also validate the credit works along side them.

• Always check the weather for the month in the place you're planning to book. E.g A tropical island in monsoon season is often worse than not going at all. My biggest tip is travel to places when they're experiencing their best weather, this might seem obvious but it's easy to forget

• Find good flights on third party sites, note the dates and airline, wait a day then use the airlines site directly. It's often a few dozen dollars cheaper

• If you're searching for flights on the month “view”, often when you click a departure date you'll see a lot return dates that aren't populated eg ? With only a few good ones, this is to incentivise you to book a specific period that's best for the airline. To take advantage, pick some departure dates close to when you'd like to return and notice the best return flights that actually load. Now pick a better earlier departure date, if the return day you want has changed to a ? If you click it anyway and search, you'll find it's the same price. Here’s a example where you can get a price for the 27th return when you want the 8th as departure

• If travelling with one other person and you feel like getting a row to yourselves. Purchase the window and the aisle, the single ‘’between” seats are last to get filled. If someone does take it, it's usually easy to swap them for the window or aisle, if not then one of you gets the floor and the other gets the row of seats, have a nice sleep!

• If you want to visit multiple countries in one big trip, book a return from home to country A, then another return from country A to country B ($). This will save about 30% rather than doing home > A > B > home ($$$). Also you'll get to “taste test” country A. Better still, book home > country A city A, then travel to country A city B and do a return to country B ($$)

• The far right seat at the back center of the plane where it decreases from 4 to 3 has the most space and doesn't cost much extra. You can put your leg way out and it wont get bumped by passers by or the trolley

Flights

• Laptops are heavy, when checking in, put it inside the back of your pants under your shirt. Once your bags have been weighed, put it back in your bag. This also works if they weigh at the boarding gate

• Bring an empty water bottle, most airports have filling fountains

• Wear your heaviest clothes on you on the plane, you aren’t weighed

• Never exchange cash at an airport FX converter. The best place is a bank, second best is an ATM. With ATMs, always decline it to do the fx conversion for you, your bank will do it for you at a better rate automatically

• If you want to bring a second carry on bag, bring one that's a modest size. At the duty free area, buy the cheapest thing you can like a pack of tim tams and then ask for a duty free bag. Put your second carry on inside it. Most airlines allow a bonus duty free bag in addition to one carry on

• Put a napkin between your phone and your phone case sticking out on one side, put that side in the tray table locking mechanism with the tray up for a simple phone holder

• Alternatively, Use a selfie stick to hold your phone for movies on a flight in a much higher and more ergonomic position, allowing you to better lean back, saving your neck. Though maybe keep it PG since everyone behind you can watch too

• Don't watch shows with short episodes or play games with short arcady levels. You'll check the clock everytime you finish one and it'll make time drag on. Watch long movies, play endless games or my favorite: be productive on something that gets you ‘’in the zone” like coding, reading or writing

Hotels

• Get a hotel with an included buffet, eat like crazy and even wrap and take away a croissant or two. Also, do this as late into the breakfast period as you can to feel full for as much of the day as you can - don't do this at little hotels, only chains, for ethical reasons

• Random hotel lobbies have the cleanest bathrooms - Just act like you booked a room

• Get an inflatable ergonomic pillow, you'll never have neck pain from bad hotel/hostels pillows. Tip: Only inflate it about half way for best softness

• Don't get a universal charger. If you don't travel a lot you'll lose it or lose an important piece of it. I think it's best to get a singular adapter designed for the destination countries plug for each trip and just keep a collection. They are simpler, lighter and often more reliable

• If you have to cancel a hotel reservation but it's not free anymore, ask to rebook it later. Then cancel

• Confirm stay and arrivals times with hotels a few days beforehand, it prevents your room being overbooked and you being stranded. Further, be really nice and ask if you could get a free upgrade

Backpacking

• Bring two phones. I like to film/take photos with my nicer phone but doing so drains the battery a lot, this leads me to bring a battery bank and cables which is a pain. A second (usually old or cheap) phone can be what you use for maps, texting, travel sim and itinerary so you'll often end the day with both phones on 50% charge. Bonus tip, bring a tiny 10cm USB C-C cable and both phones can charge each other so you don't need a battery bank at all

• Get a passport travel wallet that opens with the fold on the shorter side so you can fit notes and boarding passes without needing to fold them up awkwardly

• Instead of a thick raincoat, bring a ‘’single use’ poncho. You can totally use these dozens of times on a single trip

• If you wear sandals, you don't need to pack any socks

• Merrino wool shirts only need to be washed every 5-7 days if you're heavily sweating, less if you’re not. They also dry super fast after a rinse in the sink with soapy water. You could easily do a month long trip with only 2 shirts

• Add mini carabiners to any loops on the outside of your bag, then you can attach anything that itself has a loop so you don't need to carry it

• Get a foldable water bottle, as it empties it takes up less space. Get a good one otherwise the water will taste awful

• Get a 65w (or more) GaN charger - They’re tiny but a little expensive

• Bring a lightweight thin bag with drawer strings for dirty washing. Keep it seperate from your clean clothes, it’ll take almost no space when empty and they’re less noisy than plastic bags which hostels bunmates will be thankful for

• NoDoz is a capsule caffeine tablet that gives great energy and will dramatically improve your mood when you're tired

• Ear buds take up a lot less space than headphones on a flight and the noise cancelling is usually ‘good enough’

• Work remotely 3 days a week while travelling if you’re allowed. You'll appreciate those 3 “rest days” and become more attuned to the area you’re staying while also planning your busier days closer to when you'll actually do them. You also retain 3/5ths of an income and only use up 2/5th of your annual leave

• If staying in a hostel, cook for everyone! It's fun to get some randoms together to go ingredient shopping, especially if none of you know the language, it becomes a real mission. Then while cooking people will be stoked to socialise with you, they'll be grateful and often return the favour in their own way

• Taking photos or videos on a phone that automatically backs up with google photos or iCloud is way better than needing to offload an SD card and manually do it yourself every day off of a camera. Also your phone adds metadata that makes searching for moments easier. Bonus, you can make albums for specific people and after a trip, send it to them so they have all their photos of themselves from you in one place

• When staying in hostels, don't just hide in bed on your phone. Do ‘’stuff” out and about and if you make eye contact with anyone, ask where they're from. 4 times out of 5 this will make you best friends for the day

• If you're solo, then other solo travellers are feeling what you're feeling. Offer to do for them what you'd like done for you. E.g offer to hang out, get a meal, talk about your trip, your home life, discuss other people or the place you both are currently finding yourselves and how

Misc.

• If you're planning to take a ride share app to/from the airport. Check it regularly before you actually need to go and track the prices. Likely you'll see it double and halve as demand grows and shrinks. Work out what “cheap” is and once you see it, tap “schedule in advance” for a time you’ll be ready to go

• Keep a digital copy of all your documents, tickets, passport, visas, hotels on your phone in a locally saved folder. I personally prefer this over printing everything

• Always have an airtag in each bag you're travelling with

• Download maps of the areas you'll travel in advance. So that even if you don't have a Sim you still get GPS, also sometimes the downloaded map will have a detailed floorpan of the airport

• Download the local language on google translate in advance too

• Hydralyte tablets and gastro stop will make short work of any food poisoning

• Bring some basic colored string to braid friendship bracelets for people you meet

• If travelling in less developed countries, the biggest source of illness is bad water. Try not to consume ice, sliced fruit or meat. Opt for vegan food in hot boiling water or steamed and or go for reputable chains to avoid getting sick. Sneaky tip, eat places where you see kids and families eatinf, parents usually put a lot of work into ensuring their kids won't get sick so they’ve done the work for you.