The 10 BIGGEST TRAVEL MISTAKES Not to Make | Tips for Traveling Abroad

if you've clicked on this video and you're wondering what can they teach me about traveling well you have reached the right place because we are experts in travel mistakes we have made every one of them we have we are full-time travel bloggers traveling the world but today we're going to talk about 10 common mistakes that can ruin your trip so if you're watching this video you're probably in the process of planning your own trip abroad and looking for more information so that you can plan a better trip so if that's the case stay tuned John and Beth and we are the retirement Travelers let's Jump Right In number one is don't over pack yes by far the number one mistake that we've seen and we've made is over packing now when we started off our trip we had two 50 pound roller suitcases and it did not take long especially over the cobbled streets of Guatemala to realize we were making a huge mistake now we've transitioned we carry two backpacks now and we can carry on only it's so much lighter it's so much more efficient and it forces us to not overpass that's right we're carrying that's right if if you only carry what's in your backpack it's you're not going to over pack and so we highly recommend it you know I can't tell you how many people uh in Europe last year where we actually had to help them carry their suitcase up a stairway into a train or a bus or in the overhead storage bins because they just couldn't physically handle these giant suitcases so you know we one of our packing principles is only carry enough for one week number two mistake is worrying about what to wear just so you'll fit in we don't care about fitting in but more so than that you know the mindset that you have to pack certain things to be able to not look like a tourist is crazy crazy we cringe when we see these videos What Not to Wear in Europe we watch the videos just for comedy relief like oh you need these certain style of boots and you have to wear long pants and you can't wear baseball caps and yet we've heard it all we've heard it all and this is this was kind of true 20 years ago in Europe you could go to Europe and you could really spot the American they had a baseball cap on they had a t-shirt they had shorts and oftentimes running shoes and these days you go to Europe and guess what you see ninety percent of the people unless they're in business attire going to work you see a baseball cap a t-shirt shorts and running shoes you cannot spot the Americans the key thing here is to wear what makes you comfortable now there are occasions when you need to be cautious about not the cultural norms going into a church or a temple anywhere you travel you should be you know mindful of their of their conservative culture and and bring something with you bring something to cover your shoulders if you're a woman or a skirt I carry one pair of long pants and I take my ball cap off when I go into church those sorts of things but but you can manage yes and in Central America we heard this a lot oh you've got to wear pants John can't wear shorts he's got to wear pants I wear shorts number three is stop eating just familiar Foods yeah sometimes when you go to a exotic foreign place you'll see McDonald's KFC Subway and the Temptation is oh we'll just go there and grab something to eat but don't do it there are so many other options uh to eat traditional or Local Foods um and experience the the local culture it's it's definitely the way to go from an eating standpoint yes and another part of this is don't eat it just tourist hot spots yeah we were just in Prague and five blocks away from the main strip where all the tourists are we walked up at the street and we can't came to a cafeteria style restaurant where it was packed with with locals we went in they piled the food on I mean it was so good and it was about a third the price of what we would have paid five blocks away yeah we really are big Believers in in eating local food where the locals eat and we typically will say just make us the most traditional dish or the most popular dish or you know something that's of local Cuisine it's it always uh we can't always read the language but if we tell them that and they understand it we always get something good number four is don't just go to the tourist hot spots this is a very common thing if you're an American to go to Rome London Venice Santorini there's several places that Americans just can't get out of their head that there might be a better place to go than the tourists thing yes and they're usually very crowded they're more expensive um you know we've seen it with if there's a cruise stop there and try to avoid it when you see a big boat there because everything is going to be more crowded yeah it is it's really not even enjoyable to go to a place like that now there are some certainly there are some great things to see in these cities and it's an experience that you know everyone should have seeing the Roman Coliseum and all of those places but if you just go to the next town over you're going to get a wonderful experience yes we we had some amazing experiences across Europe where there wasn't many tourists the prices were much cheaper and it was just it felt like an authentic experience where you could meet local people you'd see kids playing in the street um that's yeah that's kind of a key that's kind of a key if you don't see kids playing in the street it's probably just a big tourist area so it's it's fun to get to see how locals live in in each of the different cultures so get off the beaten path and here's an example of what we're talking about Santorini is beautiful and there's beautiful white buildings it is something to see but the next Island over 45 minutes on a ferry is filet gondros filet gondros was not crowded when we were there it was so beautiful it had white houses it was almost uninhabited there was very few people there it was just so lovely we just had the very best experiences and that was repeated all across the Balkans and where there weren't a lot of tourists and we had just as much fun in the Balkans as we did in Italy and Greece definitely get off the beaten path and don't just go to tourist places number five is stop being reliant on cars for transportation yes what we mean by that is you know there's so many options for transportation there is Metro systems there's trains there's buses uh there's ferries you can walk I mean I think it stems back to the fact in the U.S we're pretty much a car Centric uh culture we don't do a lot of trains and buses and we get reliant on cars and when you travel abroad you don't need that I mean we have not had a car for two years and we've done fine we have and and one of the things that we love is using our Apple Maps Google Maps they all give us the option of getting directions using the Local transportation it tells you on your Apple map or your Google Map what platform to go to what the train number is what direction it's going how many stops it's going to make and that's the case for buses it's the case for for metros you know we walk a lot of miles everybody that travels with us comes back and says I think I lost five pounds because I walked everywhere that's right and you know the other thing is you will save money you know if you can walk rather than a taxi or recently in Auckland it was about a fifty dollar taxi ride to get to our hotel we took a bus and train for about six dollars so you can save a lot of money and a lot of times you can use your phone to get through the Metro System in Sydney you didn't even need to buy an opal card you just walked up with your iPhone and clicked your Apple pay and you were through that was the case on the buses it was the case on the Metro this is a really big topic for us because we see how invaluable it is you know when we started traveling through the Balkans Last Summer the it really hit us because you couldn't rent a car and go to carry it from one country to another and cross all of these borders and you certainly couldn't leave it in another country so that created a problem where we needed to cross the borders because the trains don't connect and we ended up hiring some private drivers and towards Midway through our trip we were like you know let's just take the bus and we took a local bus and the buses were awesome we were fine we didn't mind it at all I mean we never take the Greyhound at home but we remember that we remember the bus between Kosovo and Albania and you wouldn't think that that was going to be like the the best bus in the world it was perfect there was only like eight people on the bus and we had Wi-Fi the whole way so you know don't rely on cars only there's lots of options out there for you number six is stop going only on planned tours oh this is a biggie because we like a good tour and we have a lot of friends who are older who take tours um you know whether it's a Viking river cruise or it's some sort of learn and tour group we love that idea and we'll probably join some of those but we also see the value in planning our own trips and that's something that John and I really hope that we can instill in you if we can do it so can you that's right there's there's so much more flexibility well there's also the the satisfaction of planning your own trip you can go to exactly you know what you want to see for as long as you want you know when we were in Belgrade this summer uh every single day there was a Viking Cruise uh group came back or more than one and we just saw these rows of people marching through towns with their headsets and I tell you what we I'm sure that they learn some things uh from that we didn't that we didn't learn but we loved having the flexibility ability of just going wherever we wanted when we wanted and not have to you know rely on a tour group or have to get back on a ship at night so uh Our advice is don't just rely I mean go on some tours but also plan some trips on your own and and get that satisfaction and one of the things we're trying to do as travel bloggers is to give you valuable information so that you can plan your own trip if you are going to let's say Valencia Spain this summer you can pull up our blog from there and you can see all the things that we did and our advice for your great adventure there that's right we are trying to help you plan your own trip number seven is stop being comfortable yes you know what during my working years I used to have a saying try to get comfortable being uncomfortable because there's you're always going to be in these situations where you're not comfortable and that's life I mean you've gotta you can't avoid uh traveling to certain places or doing certain experiences just because it makes you a little uncomfortable yeah it's it's one of the biggest things we have to overcome and sometimes we we arrive in the city and we're uncomfortable we arrived in Marrakech this summer and we had heard all these things about how people came right and yeah and so it made us think oh you know we better be really careful and John booked us a hotel that we knew our Taxi Driver could drop us off at we didn't have to wander down some dark alley to find our hotel so we kind of mitigated that uncomfortableness of us but now that we've been there we know we'll go back next time and we'll book it wherever that's right we're much more comfortable you know our confidence level has grown and you know recently in New Zealand I tell you I went bungee jumping and I was very uncomfortable when I was standing up on that ledge but afterwards it just it was it was so amazing and now heck yes I would do it again and you know things that made us come uncomfortable you know a month ago or a year ago no longer make us uncomfortable I'm still not comfortable with that you're still not doing it but definitely I can watch you but me myself definitely get out of your comfort zone and don't do just the things that that make you comfortable number eight is stop trying to do everything Yep this is a biggie we learned very quickly we were traveling through so many cities and at a fairly quick pace so we learned very quickly this is our lifestyle we are out on the road but we can't go into every city and do everything on the list there's a lot of big churches there's a lot of big museums you just cannot do them all we just try to pick the things that really interest us that week and go do those things and give ourselves a break that we're not going to do everything I mean if you're coming to a great City like Paris there's a thousands of things to do pick the things that you really want don't kill yourself trying to do them all just figure I'm going to come back and yeah and then do it again try to give yourself some variety too I mean pick your favorite Cathedral go pick something historical maybe do something active go take a cooking class try to do a variety of things but just don't over stuff it so much that you don't enjoy it number nine is stop says about particular place I know I mean if we listen to everything that we read on the Internet or what people told us there's a number of countries we would have never visited an example is Guatemala we had an incredible time in Guatemala we would go back in a heartbeat yeah I mean it was it was amazing and people said Oh no you're going to get robbed don't go there don't do this you know what there are places just like there are in the United States or Mexico or anywhere else you don't want to go and you need to do your research but that does not mean avoid visiting a country and last but not least number 10 is don't forget to do your research and be sure to check out our website for lots of great travel information we are working so hard to provide information on the places that we go and we hope that you'll check it out check out our places sign up for our newsletter subscribe to our YouTube but we're trying to bring you some information that can help you be a better traveler and have a great time yeah we try to share our experiences and give you a feel for what a place looks like and some of the highlights of things that we did in our in our blogs of the city so be sure to check out the website and we hope that you have fabulous travels of your own and and we'd love to hear about them be sure to hit subscribe and follow along on our retirement Journey around the world

Channel: Retirement Travelers

Views: 53,276

Keywords: the 10 biggest travel mistakes not to make, travel mistakes, tips for traveling abroad, biggest travel mistakes, 10 biggest travel mistakes, travel tips and hacks, travel vloggers channels, travel tips 2023, travel mistakes to avoid, avoid these travel mistakes, europe travel mistakes, international travel tips 2023, europe travel tips 2023, world travel, travel mistakes not to make, planning an international trip, must know travel tips and hacks in 2023, international travel

Id: oh3T06HPq7o

Length: 15min 14sec (914 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 18 2023