BillAndVal.com - Your first hand travel site

Tips - Things your travel guides have learned

Below is a list of tips, tricks, and travel techniques that will make your travels much more pleasurable.

We will add trip tips as time permits and as we learn new ones.

You are welcome to reuse the information found here for any purpose as long as you provide a link back to this site on the same page where you present the information.

Travel Light

If you are traveling for two weeks or less, you DON'T need two suit cases. We promise! We often travel with only back packs! Plus, if you carry your luggage on your back or as a roll aboard, you don't have to worry about lost or late luggage!

Travel Clothes

You are allowed to re-wear pants before each wash! Working with this philosophy, the key items to bring multiples of is your under clothes. But don't go crazy here, you can surive on three or so sets (your sink works well as a washing machine).

Bring old clothes

Often on trips, we will pack clothes that are soon to be thrown out. Maybe a pair of socks is only good for a few more wears, or that shirt is about ready to be pitched .... bring those, then when they have about had it, throw them out while on the road! It will lighten your load.

Use Hydration Backpacks - CamelBak Peak Bagger

Buy a quality hydration backpack. These backpacks have built in water containers and a tube for you to suck out water. We use a CamelBak Peak Bagger and love it. We've found more uses for it than we thought we would. There is nothing like having your own, clean, water supply on-demand. Staying hydrated allows for more efficient exploration. Usage of our hydration backpacks includes trips to Disney World, Chitzin Itza, a 15 mile over night hiking trip, and a day at the races. We will not travel without them anymore.

Wherever you travel, you can buy what you need

This is a simple concept: you can buy what you need wherever you go. We have never traveled anywhere that we couldn’t find items that were appropriate for the area. For example, when we traveled to Mallorca, I only brought shorts. We decided to go horseback riding, so long pants were needed. We found an open market full of merchants selling this and that, and amazingly enough there were people selling pants! I pointed to a pair of pants, then myself and the old guy took out a metric tape measure figured out my waste size (sounded real bad in centimeters!). Six euros later, I had long pants. It was an adventure just buying pants!

Travel at off peak times

People often ask us how we visit so much in a short amount of time. The answer rests with the time of year we visit places. Most locations have a peak travel time and we try to avoid them unless there is something that is tied to a particular time of the year (like Humpback migration). By visiting a place out of season, besides the money savings, you have a huge time savings with much shorter lines. For example, we visited Paris when it was cold (December) but the Mona Lisa sure wasn't affected by it! Lines to get into the Louvre were non-existent. This tip goes beyond just the time of the year and can be applied to the day of week or even the time of day.

Keep two business cards for each place you stay

Wherever you travel, be sure to get at least two business cards for the location you are staying. Place one card someplace it won't get lost and the other in your pocket. If you ever need to get back to your hotel, simply whip out the card in your pocket and ask a taxi driver to take you to that location. Often times these cards have information written on them in the local language, something that can come in handy if you have to ask a local to point you in the direction you need to travel. If the card you have been using to find out how to get back is lost, stolen, or kept by your taxi driver, no worries because you have the other one!

Video/Photo

The most amazing camera for travelers is the Canon PowerShot D10 12.1 MP Waterproof Digital Camera with 3x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 2.5-Inch LCD camera. It has been around the world with us, under the water 25 feet, down water slides, up mountains, drug through the Mekong, and beat up by the kids. Yet, it still takes incredible pictures and great movies. Fitting easily in your pocket, it is well worth including in your kit.

Stuff can be replaced.