I remembered having no hard time preparing the contents for my presentation as this is actually something I enjoy doing and hopefully will continue doing it in future. I read the book Escape Plan by Mark Manson, which was about his own personal experience in being a writer, an entrepreneur and a frequent traveler across the globe.
The presentation took place after the 9th Club Meeting with RAC Subang, where everything was chaotic, projectors not working, and my presentation was done through my iPad and Jamie's slim Dell lappie.
My presentation is broke down as follow:
1. Planning
2. Important Tips
3. Before Your Trip
1. Planning
In planning, I started with doing research on the country that you are visiting. To start with, one have to state out clearly your own priority on which country you would love to visit, what kind of experience are you looking for, how long do you have for this trip and how much of budget are we talking about here. All these will effect the result of your trip.Then I shared about flight tickets. Personally, I am a person who loves planning ahead, I have 2013 fully planned during 2012 with flights purchased. There are advantages where you will be able to get flights at cheaper price and you have time to plan ahead for this upcoming trip. A few budget airlines like AirAsia, Jeju Air, Peach Aviation, JetStar, EasyJet were shared with the club for reference, where all these information are always available on the websites. Besides that, one can also plan for countries which you would like to stop by, through transit, or for cheaper flights option. There are countries which have a few airport for landing to choose from. Landing in different airport would result in different prices in the flight tickets.
I shared one of my experience on my trip to Portugal in 2011. I took AirAsia to London, landing at Luton airport. London has a lot of airports surrounding it, there is Heathrow airport, Gatwick airport, Stansted airport, and of course Luton. This was not a transit, and arriving in the morning, I have a whole day ahead for me to explore the city as my flight to Lisbon will only take off at night. This was my stop by country for this trip. The same was done at my departure heading home. I got two days to spare walking around London, enjoying my tea at one of the cafes.
I also shared with the club some websites which I used in purchasing my flights, for example, Expedia and SkyScanner. The reason I like using these websites is because they will cover almost all the airlines available, and it will give you search results which covers all range of prices with different departure time on different airlines.
Apart from your flights, the next item in planning would be your accommodation. This does varies by individuals. Some would prefer staying in a comfortable hotel room, with all your own personal space which will cost a bit more, some with prefer to stay in hostels where you would be able to meet new people and save a whole lot of money. Similar like flights, for accommodations, there are websites that groups all the accommodations available together, for example, booking.com, agoda.com, airbnb.com, hostelworld.com, couchsurfing.org. These few websites covers from hotels to hostels, to couch surfing.
2. Important Tips
The next tip, insurance. I know there are many insurance out there, even the airlines themselves are selling them to you during your purchase of flight tickets. My personal opinion on this, it is important for us to get travel insurance, we will never know what might happen, flight delay, your luggage got sent to some where half way across the globe, you fell and hurt your feet, well, all this will cost you a lot of money. Knowing that you are covered by your travel insurance, things would work out better despite your misfortune. My recommendation is to get travel insurance from travel company, and so far, MSIG is doing pretty good for myself, I am having an annual travel insurance with them, which means I don't have to purchase a policy from them each time I travel and it's cheaper this way if you travel frequently.
My handphone is an essential tool during my trips. I can go on a trip without my iPad, or my camera with me if I have my iPhone with me. And when you are overseas, remember to switch off your data if you plan to keep your local phone line. I personally would like to get a local number with data plan, reason being that I could go online, update my Facebook status and tweet, and Whatsapp people back home, NOT! Why having a local line with data plan is important is that whenever you are on the go, you might get lost and your smartphone with GPS will help you get your way, or you might need to do a web check in for your flights, or booking for your upcoming stay in a hotel.
3. Before Your Trip
Packing would be something everyone will do before their trips, and this golden rule of packing worded really well by Mark Manson, "Whatever you think you need to pack, bring half. Whatever money you think you need, bring double", which is something I'm practicing for all my trips. Some things which I find it handy to bring along during trips, iPad, iPhone, camera, chargers, and most importantly, universal converter with a multi-plug extension.
After packing, there is your banking accounts and your credit card company to look into. I would suggest to call your credit card company, informing them on your upcoming trips, just so that they won't decline transactions you made when you are overseas. There are banks which have branches overseas, and you may want to activate your account's international withdrawal. It's always better to be safe than sorry.
Yup, that will be my two cents in my presentation. I personally did enjoy giving this presentation, sharing my experience, sharing views on the topic with my club. It was really fun and I hope the members do gain something out of it.
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