All those fees added up to more than $200 – the cost of at least one night at those fancy hotels. He was shocked. But I wasn’t. I’ve learnt the hard way that unless you plan ahead, your holiday is always going to cost more than you think. And that’s even if you’re lucky enough not to get scammed, skimmed or short-changed.

So here’s how I make sure the banks don’t swipe a chunk of my travel budget…

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One of my favourite things about travelling is street food.  Whether it’s nutella waffles in Rome, tacos in Mexico or samosas and chai in India, street food is definitely the most delicious (and not to mention cheapest) way to get a feed abroad.

When I went to India, I lost track of the amount of people who warned me not to touch the street food.  Horror stories of parasites and deadly illnesses scare many people out of it, but as long as you keep in mind these simple tips, there’s no reason not to munch on everything you see!

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  If you are travelling alone, you’ll be kidnapped or murdered! Or at least, that’s what some people will have you believe. But travelling alone doesn’t have to end gruesomely. In fact, some of the greatest adventures we have in life happen alone, in our own fabulous company. Here’s how to make the most of your solo trip, and live to tell the tale Read the rest of this entry »

I thought that by travelling for hours to a completely different continent I’d be seeing new things, meeting new people and getting right out of my comfort zone. A new time zone later and I’m partying on a beach surrounded by Aussies. When people ask about my trip to Thailand sometimes I lie to sound more adventurous – I’ll deliberately omit memories buckets with mates, their drunken tattoo endeavours and ridiculously cheap massages on Patong beach…

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All too often the worst travel stories revolve around best friends turning into archenemies. People say you never truly know someone until you live with them. Well imagine living with them, eating with them, sharing 24-hour long bus-rides with them, getting food poisoning with them… I’ll leave that last one up to the imagination. Travelling with a good mate can really test the ties, especially when top to toe in a bunk is too close for comfort. So how do you avoid ripping each other’s throats out?

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Last summer when travelling through Central America, I decided to go to Belize.  It’s a country that many Australians have never heard of, or if they have heard of it, they generally don’t know much about it.  I had originally planned to stick to Mexico and Guatemala, but after hearing other travellers raving about Belize, and seeing images of crystal clear Caribbean waters and white sands, I decided to check it out…

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Plenty of people have covered the idea of eating your way around the world. Pizza in Italy, pastries and croissants in France, sushi in Japan – everyone knows the ropes. If I told you I was going to go on an eating tour of the States you’d probably ask whether I had an agenda to put on a few (or many) kgs. Think deep fried butter, super-sized whopper meals and hot dogs. There are quite a few things I had to to tick of my list visiting the States and all of them involve food.

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Shopping. Most of my male friends can’t for the life of them see the point in going shopping overseas unless it’s absolutely necessarily, but I am quite the fan. You never know what you’re going to find and chances are you won’t be able to get any of it back home. In saying that, it can be easy to get out of control with your consumerism abroad and if you’re not careful it can really drag you down, so to help here is my rough guide to shopping overseas.

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When we go overseas, we go hard. Part of the allure of travelling after school or uni is the stories passed down to us about wild nights in some foreign town, or three-day long parties on a beach on an island in the middle of nowhere.  Almost every young traveller (and some not-so-young) will come back with a funny drunk story, but there are a few that I have heard that have been disastrous. Read the rest of this entry »