A Guide to Independent Travel

In this episode, Malcolm and David use their many years of travelling independently to give advice for people without experience of independent travel. We discuss how to identify and manage the risk of this sort of travel and how to plan to get the most out of the trip and how to navigate and mitigate mishaps and the inevitable challenges. 

David, discusses the risks of catching Lyme's disease from a tick. However, these comments are specific to the UK where far fewer ticks carry Lyme's disease than in other parts of the world, such as some areas of North America.

If you have a story to share or some feedback to give just contact us at contact.unraveltravel@gmail.com


Our theme music is Traveler's Blues by Jerzy Gorecki from Pixabay (with licence)

https://pixabay.com/users/jerzyg%C3%B3recki-2233926/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Unravel Travel, where every journey has a story.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

I'm probably on shaky ground here and I'm probably gonna sort of be jet very generalizing, but the uh the Instagram set seems to want to go out to the Middle East, and I'm not sure they're the right people to be living in the Middle East and respecting local customs, but maybe I'm just being out of order there, but it doesn't feel like it. And I just I just think if you're gonna go to a place, uh why why are you going there? That's your Instagram account being cancelled, David. Exactly. If you're gonna go to a place, why wouldn't you want to fully engage with what that place has to offer rather than just try to bring Britain or wherever you're from to a place that's better weather? To me, that's that's not travelling. I mean the thing I'd say about ticks because people do panic quite a bit on my walks about ticks, because it's what's the name of the is it Lyme's disease you can get from a ticks? Yes, it's something like that, yeah. But the thing about that is that if you find it, uh certainly within 24 hours, it's possibly even as much as 48 hours, and remove it, you can't get Lyme's disease because it doesn't have a chance to infect you. And then also the number of ticks carrying it is pretty small. So by all means be aware, regularly check yourself because you don't want a tick in you anyway, whether it's going to infect you or not. But at the same time, don't let it put you off doing stuff because the risk is reasonably minimal and it's I don't want to say non-existent, but it's very low if you check yourself properly and find the chicks, ticks, and get them, uh find the ticks and get them removed. Even better get chicks to take you for ticks. That must have been what was going on in my head, Malcolm. Street food is an interesting one. So I've always I always eat street food.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

Yeah, so do I, so do I. And I remember when I first went to Thailand, I was trying not to. Big butt, and I'm not talking about yours, I'm talking about street food, only buy it from the place where there's a long queue of locals and not getting something that looks good and there's nobody else buying it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

Yeah, that that's a fair a fair point. And the other one is that with the street food, is that you can check that they're cooking it fresh in front of you and not heating it up. But yeah, I wouldn't shy away from street food just because it's street food. It often definitely not, it's the best. It's the best food, and it's you can see it being cooked. Healthy.

SPEAKER_04 2:50

Trust me, it's paradise. This is where the hungry come to feed. For mine is the generation that travels the globe and searches for something we haven't tried before. So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay the welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what? It's probably worth it.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

That last bit sounds true. So what's that from? It's from the beach, David. Oh, yes, I knew I recognized it, but I couldn't for the life of me. I wouldn't have remembered it at all. Great book, very good book. Uh Alex Garland. Yep. Okay, so today's episode is independent travel for beginners.

SPEAKER_04 3:39

And that seemed quite fitting.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

Well, yes, because obviously in the book he pretty much was a beginner, wasn't he? Yeah. Uh so if you've travelled quite a lot independently, then maybe you can skip this episode or or maybe you can listen to it and you can put in the comments the things we've missed. But if you haven't done a lot of uh independent travelling, and to be fair, it's quite a big mental leap, I think, to go the first time on your own to a foreign land that is maybe outside of Europe. I know it was for me. So these these things I've I've come up with a 10-point plan because you know round numbers mean it's right. Uh so I've come up with some ideas as to what I think you should be thinking about before you uh head out uh on your uh independent travel. And Malcolm, please do uh chip in uh with any comments, thoughts you've got on any of my points. Uh certainly will. Even any contradictions, quite happy to have a discussion.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

So you're thinking of independent travel like uh adventurous independent travel? Moving beyond interrailing and flight to Thailand for two weeks?

SPEAKER_03 4:51

No, I would I would class that as independent travel to be honest. Uh I'm what I'm thinking is not going as part of a group.

SPEAKER_04 4:58

Okay, you're thinking on your own, independent as in solo travel.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

No, no, not necessarily solo, uh, but just not as part of a group tour and not as part of a package holiday. Right. So where you're arranging it all yourself. So, you know, I would have considered when I went with Alan to India, that was independent travel. We booked all our own accommodation, found all our own restaurants, uh booked all of our own uh activities. Uh with two of us doing it, so it wasn't solo, but it was independent.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

I'm suddenly picturing what's that film with all the old people? Hotel.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

I watched it over Christmas. Well, it's like Hotel Gladiola or something like that. No, no, I can't remember. It'll come back to me. I watched one and two over Christmas. The best Marigold hotel in the world. That's it. The best Marigold.

SPEAKER_04 5:48

Yeah, I don't know why I suddenly thought of you two in India and that came to my mind.

SPEAKER_03 5:56

Well, we we we they are in J Paur in the film, and that was one of the places we went to. Uh and Alan did mention it as that that would be nice to go there because of the film. So you're not a million miles from the truth there, Malcolm.

SPEAKER_04 6:10

So so we're talking about non-group travel, no 1835 holidays or 1830 or whatever. It's probably it's probably 1865.

SPEAKER_03 6:19

No cruises, nothing where it's all laid on a plate for you, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. For many years, I went went with Explore and Exodus, and if you're in a full-time job, that's very good, convenient. You hit the ground running. None of the holidays I would do would count because I arrange everything for everybody. But if you're going off and you're doing everything yourself, this is uh these are things I think you should be considering.

SPEAKER_04 6:41

I think that's pretty much all of my travel. So yeah, probably so far away, and I'm gonna poke and pick at it as you go.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

Okay. So my my first point is personal safety, and my second point is stay healthy. And I think these two have a little bit of crossover. So, personal safety, I mean, the first thing I would say is, and the reason I sort of think they've got a crossover, get the right insurance in place. Uh, make sure you've got travel insurance that covers you uh for repatriation, for example, uh, in case of illness.

SPEAKER_04 7:15

I mean, in insurance is if something goes wrong, isn't it the first thing is don't surely for personal safety, I thought you were going to be talking about don't do crazy, stupidly adventurous things like swimming to deserted Thai islands, you know. You're going back to the beach. I I I was just using it as a jumping off point. That that's what I thought you meant by personal surf date. Don't rely on insurance policy, but do do sensible things.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

It it is, but because I saw stay healthy at the same time, I thought I needed to remember to talk about insurance. I think even if you do everything to avoid risk, it could still happen to you. So I think you're sort of your uh safety net is the insurance to cover you. And the thing I always do when I book my insurance is I make sure the medical cover is sufficient, and then as far as theft and loss of personal belongings, to be honest, I'll just go with the highest excess because I don't really have an awful lot of stuff of value anyway, and that just keeps the insurance down. So I'm basically doing it for the uh for the medical cover.

SPEAKER_04 8:17

I haven't paid for travel insurance policy for a long time.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

And and I think if you're staying in Europe, and I know you don't just stay in Europe, but if you're staying in Europe, I think that's fair enough. If you're doing diving trips or skiing or trekking in the Himalayas, the cost of uh a helicopter uh off the mountain is quite pricey. So, and and obviously when you're going to the US, you might want to think about it.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

Well, that's what I was gonna just gonna say. We are actually gonna take a multi-trip insurance policy this year. You we haven't had one for for quite a long time. I'm trying to think of the last time I bought one. Um, yeah, a long a long time ago before COVID. I think we probably looked at them around COVID, but they never covered I mean COVID cancellation costs anyway, so there was not much point in having one. That was the last time.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

And I think, as I say, I think in Europe it's not really a big deal. Uh and my global annual multi-trip, excluding US and territories, is 35 quid. So you're not talking a you're not talking a lot of money for a bit of peace of mind. Excluding the US, did you say though? Yes, yeah, yeah. As soon as you go US, it gets a lot more expensive. It gets more expensive. I don't know whether it's a lot more, but it gets more expensive, hence why. A couple of weeks, exactly. We could have a addendum to this. When I first uh thought about personal safety, you're right, it it wasn't really the insurance thing, but I just thought I need to get that bit in. I was actually thinking about research where you're going, understand where is dangerous, where isn't dangerous from a theft perspective. Also, look at uh what sort of activities you're going to be doing. Are you fully qualified to go scuba diving? Should you be riding a moped if you don't ride a moped back in the UK? You know, all those sort of things, just thinking about things sensibly. Yeah. But I mean in previous episodes we've talked about theft, and I've not found the Far East to be uh in any way dangerous from a theft perspective at all. And Ollie talked about it in uh one of the episodes a couple of uh episodes ago, and he he was of the same view.

SPEAKER_04 10:20

When I was in South Africa, it was you know quite a while ago now, and it was probably a bit more violent. Well, it's still violent, isn't it? Uh there were certain areas where people said just don't go there. Like I say, very unsure about me getting the sort of locals minibus rides back for a long distance, and in the end I got I managed to get a lift with somebody. But actually I did take a hitchhiking and this guy uh Redneck picked me up in a well, he was in a Land Rover and in the front a Land Rover, a pickup, and in the front he had his wife and child, and he said, Well you can sit in the back of the pickup. So I sat in the back of the pickup and we went down this big bouncy track, and um after about ten minutes he got out and he opened a cooler box in the back of the and met poured himself a large vodka and orange and then carried on driving, and he must have stopped three times in the journey to pour himself a very large stiff drink, and I was bouncing around the back of this pickup drinking I'm not sure that's such a good idea, actually.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

I I I must admit, Malcolm, being in your company often drives me to a very large gym. So what can you say? And you talk about travel insurance. You talk about travel insurance. Do you see what I'm holding up? Yes, I do. It's the NHS, I don't know what it's called, but the health uh card which works in Europe. Does that still I presume that still works?

SPEAKER_04 11:45

Well, it used to be an NI NISC card or something like that. That scheme fell over with Brexit, but in place of it, there's there's this UK global health insurance card, and it basically works exactly the same. You have to apply for it, and and it's got your your um national insurance number on it and everything, and it gives you essentially I mean not all medical care, but emergency cover through EU countries. So I can I mean it wouldn't repatriate me back to England if we had a health issue in check, but it would pay for any emergency care hospitalization, and I carry it with me in my wallet all the time.

SPEAKER_03 12:27

So it's and you say you apply for it, but it's free, isn't it? Because I've got as well.

SPEAKER_04 12:32

Yeah, it's free.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

Yeah, yeah. So definitely the EU. That that's uh that's a bare minimum, you should definitely have that in the EU.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

And actually, we've used it when when I was travelling in check with my brothers. My brother came down with something, and we went to the hospital and showed them that, and they treated him. So you know, it it does actually and it wasn't you've got to pay now and claim it back later. We showed them the card and and it was all fine. So it does work, get one.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

Yeah, mad not to have one. Very, very uh good recommendation. And then the other side is stay healthy that I was thinking of. Uh, I'm sure you'll have other things to add, but work out what vaccines uh you you need. Uh Izzy and I are going to Indonesia in two weeks, and obviously I'm traveling regularly, so I didn't need any vaccines for this. But she's had the hepatitis one, she's had the uh Japanese encephalitis discussing whether she needs a follow-up rabies. So, you know, there's uh there's there's lots that you need to do, and of course, the last time she travelled to anywhere like that was in 2020. So she also had the tetanus and typhoid and all that sort of stuff, um, which you can get at your GP. So some of these you can get at your GP, some you have to pay for. But again, it it doesn't some of those diseases are pretty nasty, so you're far better off having the vaccines and then sort of not having to worry about it later.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

And going back to the Safari episode, um, and my medical advice that I didn't need malaria for South Africa, I suggest you double check and go to your GP with with a research list and let them tell you something otherwise. Be on the cautious side. The advice I got wasn't spot on.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

You know, that that's probably gonna be the case all over all over as well, because it's a very general advice for they do have little sections of company of countries for I'm talking about malaria specifically, but you know, there might be an air something that they don't know about, a rabies outbreak or whatever somewhere. Uh I I've for many years didn't get the rabies jabs because I was never really doing what was considered high risk, which was going raural for a significant amount of time. Uh, but then a nurse at the VP's just one time said to me, Well, why don't you get it there? Because you're traveling so often, and if you were to get bitten, it's such a because you basically need to go to the closest place that can give you the the vaccine, it'd ruin your holiday. And just having the the first vaccine or the you know the the vaccine just sort of buys you extra days. You might not have to come all the way back to the UK, for example, with rabies, because sometimes the initial shot of rabies isn't available locally.

SPEAKER_04 15:05

Yeah, and you like dogs, you like dogs, you engage with them, whereas I tend to steer clear of them. So, you know I do in the UK, but I don't tend to in those countries.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Well, unless they're a pet. If if they're obviously that's what I was meaning. You yeah, that's what I was meaning. But the ones which are roaming free, I'd pretty much ignore. Same with the cats, just because you don't know.

SPEAKER_04 15:23

And you seem quite friendly with that large fox in the meadow we saw.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

Yeah, but I didn't pet it and was very happy that there was a fire in between us and it. Uh so the stay healthy. The other thing I'd say is the water. Try not to drink the water. Don't drink the water, don't try not to. When you go out for dinner, the salad isn't always a healthy option. Exactly. Ask questions. And I I, you know, you talked about getting blase on another. I do get blase about forgetting to ask is the ice made from min uh mineral water or tap water? Has the salad been washed in tap water or otherwise? And the but the best thing there is if you're not sure, don't don't take it. Depends how long you're there for. If you're there for many weeks and months, then you know, a little bit probably will help you get used to it. And but if you're only there for a week or so, and if you're sick for four or five days, then you've taken a lot of your holiday, so it's just not worth the risk. Street food is an interesting one. So I've always I always eat street food.

SPEAKER_04 16:23

Yeah, so do I, so do I. And I remember when I first went to Thailand, I was trying not to. Big butt, and I'm not talking about yours, I'm talking about street food, only buy it from the place where there's a long queue of locals and not getting something that looks good and there's nobody else buying it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Yeah, that that's a fair a fair point. And the other one is that with the street food is that you can check that they're cooking it fresh in front of you and not heating it up. But yeah, I wouldn't shy away from street food just because it's street food. It often definitely not, it's the best it's the best food, and it's you can see it being cooked. Healthy. Sun stroke, actually. Quite a lot of people get caught out by being in the sun too much. Uh and it's not just getting burnt. I mean, if you if you get burnt, I mean I remember I did my first tour that I ran in Thailand. Uh, a couple of the girls got there a day early, went out on a boat trip. Uh, one of them got burnt really badly, and she's had to stay out of the sun for the next four days just because she hadn't because because I wasn't there at the start, I couldn't breathe her, sort of like get covered up. If you're on a boat, it reflects off the water a lot. You can get really bad sunburn. And if you're really unlucky, and I've had it a couple of times, you you can get sunstroke, which really sort of wipes you out.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

Yeah, I've had it as well, it's horrible.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

But easily avoidable. So it's things like that, sort of just uh you're responsible for your health, so take care of it. You've paid a lot of money to get to these places, so you don't really want to spend four or five days being sick. One, it's you feel shit, and two, you're not getting the most for your money.

SPEAKER_04 17:54

Yeah, and and it's not just you know malaria, that there's all sorts of things like ticks, you know, is a is a common thing as as we uh discover all the time when you're hanging around in the woods, and that and you can get seriously ill from those as well, and leeches and all sorts of stuff, it's worth doing a bit of investigation in advance.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

I mean the thing I'd say about ticks because people do panic quite a bit on my walks about ticks, because it's what's the name of the is it Lyme's disease you can get from a ticks? Yes, it's something like that, yeah. But the thing about that is that if you find it, certainly within 24 hours, it's possibly even as much as 48 hours, and remove it, you can't get Lyme's disease because it doesn't have a chance to infect you. And then also the number of ticks carrying it is pretty small. So by all means be aware, regularly check yourself because you don't want a tick in you anyway, whether it's going to infect you or not. But at the same time, don't let it put you off doing stuff because the risk is reasonably minimal and it's I don't want to say non-existent, but it's very low if you k check yourself properly and find the chicks, ticks, and get them, uh find the ticks and get them removed. Even better get chicks to take you for ticks. That must have been what was going on in my head, Malcolm. Anything else on the the personal safety and the stay healthy before I move on?

SPEAKER_04 19:14

Well, stuff about driving. We'll do that on a separate episode about driving now, I think. Well, you know what?

SPEAKER_03 19:19

I've got stay legal on next on my list. And I think you know, driving can fall under that. I've mentioned it a few times about if you're going to drive abroad, you need an international driver's permit. When I say abroad, I'm talking Asia, I haven't really checked, you don't need it for Europe. But you need the right license, you need an international driver's permit. Just because they'll rent you a car or a scooter or a motorbike doesn't mean you're legal, it's your responsibility. Other things, drugs are very available in a lot of these places, but it doesn't mean it's legal, and it doesn't mean that if you get into trouble, they're not going to throw the buck at you.

SPEAKER_04 19:56

Well, I think you probably need to check check what's socially acceptable, don't you? I mean, you can access drugs in Singapore. Um, I wouldn't advise it. Um, it's probably the same for the Philippines. In other countries, it probably is perfectly fine.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

You just need to understand that that that's I think my my example here was Indonesia uh on the island on Guinea Tea, they're selling mushrooms all over the place, but it's not actually legal, and that they're selling it in shops very prominently, so you might assume that it's legal. So I'm not telling people to not do it, uh, that's your personal choice, but I'm just saying understand what is legal and the risk that you're taking if you do do things like that. Uh from stay legal, I'm gonna move on to respect local customs, which you kind of light started to touch upon, so I thought that's why I'd move on to it now. I think if the local customs aren't to abuse alcohol or aren't to take drugs, then I think you should be respectful of that. You know, choose where you're going to drink. When you go to temples, make sure that you're wearing uh your knees covered up, your shoulders covered up, all that sort of stuff. Uh it looks like you want to say something, Malcolm.

SPEAKER_04 21:06

When in Saudi Arabia, if you have a disagreement with somebody, just lop their head off.

SPEAKER_03 21:10

Uh yeah, actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

Respect some local customs.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Yes, respect the local customs. I said respect, I didn't say necessarily 100% follow them. But I think that's important. Uh you'll get far more out, and it kind of leads on to my next point, which is engage with the locals. I think if you respect what the locals' customs are, then you'll be in a far better place to engage with the locals.

SPEAKER_04 21:36

I mean, you well, just covering uh staying legal, respecting local customs and engaging with the locals. A lot of people go to Dubai and the sort of acceptable part of the Middle East these days. Dubai's a regular holiday occ uh location. Or was well, yes, or was. But you know, they have quite strict rules about um. Engaging with locals and even you know non-married couples travelling together. And you know, you need to be very careful. You can that there's often an article is about somebody getting banged up in jail, isn't there? For for getting banged up, and that's not a good thing. You need to be very careful about it.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

I'm probably on shaky ground here, and I'm probably gonna sort of be jet very generalizing. But the uh the Instagram set seems to want to go out to the Middle East, and I'm not sure they're the right people to be living in the Middle East and respecting local customs, but maybe I'm just being out of order there, but it doesn't feel like it. And I just I just think if you're gonna go to a place, uh why why are you going there? That's your Instagram account being cancelled, David. Exactly. If you're gonna go to a place, why wouldn't you want to fully engage with what that place has to offer rather than just try to bring Britain or wherever you're from to a place that's better weather? To me, that's that's not travelling.

SPEAKER_04 23:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

Okay, so I mean that that's the first five.

SPEAKER_04 23:07

Except when it comes to fermented fish products, in which case I'm not agreeing. Uh and yes, but you can respect local customs without having to always engage in them. But engaging with locals is I mean, in general, is a good thing, isn't it? Going on local guided tours, perhaps it can still be independent travel if you go on a walking tour. Guided by a local. You know, we've always a a lot of the things I've said, I've been very lucky to do travel and go to places where I know people already, and in and a lot of my travel is like that, and and you get great hints and tips and invited to things which are much better than the normal tourist experience. And that comes and Ollie made that point, you know, very strongly. You interact with local people and you get a much better experience, and and you should take every opportunity to do that, even if it means hanging around in places that you might think are perhaps slightly less healthy or personally safety, personal safety-wise, if you see what I mean, where the locals are is probably where the interesting action is. If you sit around in your four-star hotel sipping a gin and tonic, you're not getting quite the same experience.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

Totally agree. And to be honest, if you go with a local, I think chances are it you might not feel it might not be a place you would go to for safety reasons, but if you're with a local, there's a very good chance that it is safe and you're with a local who can look after you in case something does go wrong. I regularly, when I go away, sort of hire a local guide to do stuff, and quite often you get invited back to their house afterwards and meet the family, or one guide took me back and that sort of wandered around the garden looking at all the uh the local spices and everything.

SPEAKER_04 24:46

Familiarise yourself with what local marriage customs are in advance. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 24:51

I I I I'm a bigamist. I'm I'm married seven times over and I don't realise it. All to men. So any anything you want to add on? I mean, I we all of those kind of in some way or other bled into each other, and I kind of think that makes sense because it it's all about understanding being aware of your environment and what you're going to be putting yourself in. So I think they all kind of make sense.

SPEAKER_04 25:15

But it's about being aware, isn't it? You need to do some research in advance. You need to you need to understand you know the location, the circumstances, the culture. Then you won't be finding yourself accidentally in a position which is inappropriate or unsafe because you hadn't understood what you're letting yourself in for.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Totally agree. And you know, you're well aware of this. My old job, I was a risk manager. So I I'm not for avoiding risk, I'm for understanding it and making an informed decision. That's always been my uh approach on life. So the next number six, have a plan. And I don't think that has to be detailed. And in my old job, I was a project manager. So we're now coming on to your area of expertise. And you know, when I was putting together these notes, when I said have a plan, and it doesn't have to be detailed, the interrailing thing immediately came to mind. And for those of you that haven't heard our interrailing episode, it doesn't sound like we have much of a plan. But I'd argue we did because we took a tent, we planned to camp, we planned to sleep on uh on the trains, if we could, to save money, uh, and we planned to see stuff when we were in those places. And you know, sometimes that's enough of a plan. You can fill in the details when you're there.

SPEAKER_04 26:31

Yeah, absolutely. It's important to have some plan but not too much plan. Uh a minute by minute itinerary of where you're oh okay, yeah. Some people don't like the uncertainty, I guess. But but but you need to um I think the ability to be spontaneous is important and you have to build in time for spontaneity, otherwise, you know, it just won't happen, will it? Uh and that sort of comes with research as well to some extent, you know, understanding when you go to countries, is it a bank holiday you're arriving on and nothing's gonna be open? You know, yeah. Uh those sort of things.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Festival going on right near the bus station that you're planning to get to to go to your next destination.

SPEAKER_04 27:10

Exactly. And and that can be because you do want to see the festival or you don't want to see the festival. But you just want to get to the bus station. If you don't understand about festival, you're gonna get a shock. So uh or a disappointment. So that's all about planning and it and it feeds into everything else. I mean, I think all of these points feed into themselves, none of them are uh uh completely independent, and that's the excitement of it all. Everything affects everything else, doesn't it? It does, and it becomes a bit organic the more you do it.

SPEAKER_03 27:39

You're listening to Unravel Travel on independent travel for beginners. And as you're saying, feeding into everything else, my next point is plan for failure. So these days I tend to take essentials as carry-on uh onto the plane because your bag can be lost. I think I've had twice in the last three years a bag, either mine or a pat my travel buddies bag not turn up, and three times in the course of my life a bag not turn up. So these days I take things like you know, swimming trunks, toothbrush, toothpaste, spare pair of underwear, change a t-shirt, because it can take 24, 48 hours until your bag turns up. If you're doing a trek, wear your trekking boots on the plane, because those are the one thing that it's really difficult to replace a comfortable pair of boots if you're doing uh if you're trekking in the Himalayas or wherever. Yeah, and also they're lighter than putting them in your bag. And you can take them off on the plane if you're uncomfortable anyway, if you don't like wearing heavy boots on the plane.

SPEAKER_04 28:33

Uh planning for failure, I've got an I've got something I'd like to mention there if that's okay, because I've I've noted down in my section below technology, and uh I had an issue when my my kids think I'm an idiot because I I won't do banking on my phone and I carry around a separate bank card. But a couple of years ago my phone fell out of my pocket and absolutely smashed a smithereens on some rocks when I was in the woods and and it was dead within 30 seconds. Now that gave me a problem because I didn't have a phone, you know. I could have uh and and I couldn't put my SIM card into another phone because it was on on a service. But if it my banking had been on that as well, that would have been a real problem. Have a banking on your phone by all means, but carry carry your card somewhere with you or as a secondary thing, because everyone relies so much on their phone these days. Indeed. You can break it, you can lose it, somebody can mug you and nick it, and therefore you'll be in all sorts of trouble.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Absolutely. And I've heard of people having their phone stolen. And and you know, this is quite good in the plan for failure section. When I went scuba diving in the Philippines, I thought about taking my phone out on the boat to be able to take some photos, not in the sea or anything, but just of the the islands and such like that would be going past. But I thought, actually, if I drop my phone, it's going to the bottom of the ocean, and that is where all my bookings are for the hotels, and you know, you can always get another phone, and most of these stuff are saved elsewhere. But what a pain in the proverbial that would be. So, you know, think about these things. If you if you're going to take it on the boat, maybe have it in a see-through thing tied around your neck, or just make sure you hold on to it really firmly. I mean, these days I put mine in the the strongest case, you know, drop drop case thing going. So I do drop my phone quite regularly, and I'm usually outside when I do it, so just to protect it. So I think that's a really good point. And as you say, take two bank cards because if you lose one or it gets broken or kept by a machine, it's nice to have a backup.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

I had my bank card eaten by a uh an ATM in Bratislava train station once when I was trying to get my me and my daughter back to England so she could catch a flight to Singapore the next morning. And uh didn't didn't think wasn't sure if I had enough cash to get a taxi to the airport, and we'd messed around with a card and missed the last bus to the airport, and it was a bit of a nightmare because I hadn't I wasn't carrying any extra cash with me and just one bank card. It all worked out okay in the end, but it was a pretty hairy because you know, if you miss the plane, then you miss the expensive flight to Singapore.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

So and you know what? Actually, that's that's the the thing that's coming to mind on all of these is you and I you're probably gonna disagree with me, but we're not geniuses. We're we've come up with these ideas because we've had experiences that we've gone, well, I'd quite like to avoid that, or it was a lucky escape. And you know, you learn from experience and from other people's experience. So, you know, we're we're just anybody who hasn't done any independent travel, we're just giving you the benefits of uh uh near misses or maybe not so near misses at times.

SPEAKER_04 31:38

Yeah, I mean I I you know you can't duplicate your passport, but I have photos of our passports that I carry with me.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

Yeah, that sort of thing. Because if you do lose it, it may apparently it makes it a lot easier if you can show them a copy of it when you go to the embassy to get another one. It it does make a difference.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

My my ex-mother-in-law put my in Singapore, put my jeans in the washing machine after we arrived from a flight to England. My passport was still in the jeans back pocket. Oh dear. Uh, and and I was actually only staying with them for a couple days because I was off on a business trip to Australia and New Zealand. Uh uh luckily the I mean the embassy turned around or the high high commission turned around my pass new passport in under a day. You'd never get that done in England if your passport were through the washing machine. It'd take you I mean in the summer summer holidays, it'd take about three weeks, wouldn't it? I mean you can get an emergency one maybe, but these things happen. It's in it's helpful to know about where you can go to get these problems addressed. And actually, they're really helpful. They were they were really helpful, the high commission.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

They were just glad you weren't laundering your money. I'm here all week. And then my other point under plan for failure is build contingency into your timeline. So those that listened to an earlier episode realize that I got stuck on a particular island when I was in the Philippines because the sea was too choppy for the boat to go. If I'd have got the boat the next day, I would have missed my flight. So luckily I'd got extra days so I could get a different flight and still make it back to get my main flight back. I mean, I'm probably overly cautious when it comes to making sure I don't lose miss my last flight, but I'll quite often because I'm there for a month, I can spend an extra day sort of near the airport, but I'll quite often, even if I I I'm flying later in the day, I'll uh book a night very near the airport before I leave, just to make sure that I've I've got that extra day if I need it.

SPEAKER_04 33:34

I never do that normally, but I'm normally flying shorter distances, and like if I get I like the early morning flights, um and if you miss it, which I have done once, you can just get a flight later in the day to somewhere else, a European city close by and travel more. And it might cost you a 50. It might cost you another 50 quid, but then you don't want to spend an extra hour at the airport every time you go for the next 10 years. I I would rather gamble like that.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

I think that's perfectly reasonable, but from my flight out to Asia or anything between 800 and just well, the boat Singapore uh to um Indonesia's 1250, and that's booking it way in advance, so it could easily end up being double if you're trying to do it last minute. Yeah, no, I I agree. Yeah, absolutely. And again, it's I'm spending 30 days there anyway, so one day out of thirty is less of a big deal.

SPEAKER_04 34:21

So but it's horses for courses, isn't it? In context, then you know you and you know if you do this journey regularly, well, that's when you become lax and then there's a road accident and you move to the body.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

Well, if you do regularly, you're kind of self-insuring as well, because you know, if you're doing it 200 times or whatever, which you probably have you probably have got close to that uh over the years, then if it goes wrong once, it's not so much of a big deal, but if you do it sort of like three times and it goes wrong, then you know, more of a big deal, I guess, in the whole scheme of things. Yeah. Okay, so that was Plan for Failure point. My next point was plans change, seize the moment. And I think you made a a comment about this earlier, Malcolm, that don't have anything that's so rigid that you you miss out on opportunities. Sometimes the best plans are the ones that you've put in place before you get there, but when you're on the ground, you just get more information. So be fluid, allow events to sort of sometimes take you over as long as you're in control. I mean, I don't know about you, but I've had some great experiences doing stuff I never would have known about from planning back in the UK.

SPEAKER_04 35:23

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. Definitely. And actually, they're sort of two flow into each other again. Um, sometimes when there's a failure and you end up doing something else because you miss a plane or a boat or something, then you know that's that story, isn't it? And part of the enjoyment of it. If you stay calm. Are you reading ahead?

SPEAKER_03 35:43

No. Because my next point was embrace adversity, and the final final point was stay calm. Oh, that's it. Try and claim they're your points now. So embrace adversity, and I think I'm just repeating what you said, they will often be your best stories because it's how you deal with it, how you get over it, what you get out of it. You know, that sticks in your head, all of these things. I I know you're very smug over there. And then stay calm, work on what you can influence. If you can influence it, by all means expend effort and you know emotional energy on it. If you can't influence it, go with the flow and then start worrying about it when you can start influencing it again. So, for example, when the the boat wasn't running, I knew it wasn't running, and I was immediately on my phone to try and work out what other options I had, flights and such like. And you know, within 20 minutes I'd got a flight the next day and all was calm again. Uh so you know, realize what you can influence and what you can't.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

I think that comes with time and experience though, doesn't it? You know, independent travel for beginners. I mean, that's a sort of salutary warning, but it never quite feels like it the first time something goes wrong. You know, you might be panicking a bit. Your many years of doing it now allows you to go, ah, well, there'll be another one around the corner in a minute, or there's always another way of doing it, not oh my god, I've missed the whatever it is.

SPEAKER_03 37:05

Yeah, I and I think there's two points uh to that that I want to make, I'm sure there's many more points, but one of them seems to be that bad things always happen when you're probably at your worst, so you've you've had no sleep for 36 hours, you've just been flying halfway around the world and you find out your hotel's not available. So that there were a few fucks and shits and all that coming out of my mouth when I found out about that. But then, yeah, you take a deep breath, you realise that's not happening. There are other hotels in this place. There are a few fucks and shits. You're staying in the wrong place, Dave. Yeah, yeah. You've interrupted my flow now, forgotten what my other point is gonna be. Point two, I think. And my second point is that really, the more you do this, you realise that money solves everything. So if you're budgeting, always allows some contingency for things that go wrong, so that when you come to spend it, you won't feel bad about it. Because you know, if you've missed a flight, you can always pay for another flight back. If you're sick, you can always go to a hospital and get the best care. So that's where the insurance comes in from earlier. But basically, things can be solved, but it helps if you've got a few uh lo quids or local currency in your in your pocket.

SPEAKER_04 38:14

Definitely that's the case. And if you if you're sort of young and early to this, you might not have quite as much free cash floating around. Credit card, something like that isn't always an option. Not suggesting people max them out, but just for emergency purposes to have a line of credit available.

SPEAKER_03 38:31

Totally agree, and you know, we've talked about this earlier. When I was young, I have slept on beaches. So, you know, when you're younger, you don't necessarily need money to solve the problems. But these days, my arthritic knees, I kind of like a bed to sleep on. Hence why I put myself into the marital suite that time in the Philippines. I'm still having nightmares. It was the worst decorated room I've ever been in. And I'm not talking about maritable aids, I'm just talking about gilded. Guild, thank you. Gold guild everywhere. It was shocking. But anyway, they were my saviours, so I was very grateful. So those were my ten points. Uh, very well enhanced by Malcolm's uh comments as well. Was there anything you wanted to uh I I I'm looking down the the list and we didn't mention universal chargers, uh which I think is quite an important point. Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_04 39:19

I mean you're often this sort of travel, you're often carrying all your own stuff, aren't you? You're not got yes, you know, yeah, uh and therefore you want to minimise it. Universal chargers if possible, or universal plug adapters are a very good thing to carry. A towel, it's very hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy, but you should never go anywhere without a towel, really.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

Actually, I don't tend to, but the one thing I have rather than a towel is toilet paper. Okay, well, I don't use the towel for that. No, but the number of times you're going to a public toilet and they won't have any toilet paper, and the bum gun is sort of a dribble of water. You're thinking, hmm. So yeah, it saved me a few times. I just have it in a little waterproof bag and it's always in my rucksack. Uh, you never know when you'll need it.

SPEAKER_04 40:03

Okay, well, there you go. You heard it first.

SPEAKER_03 40:06

Top tips.

SPEAKER_04 40:07

This is sort of independent travel for beginners, uh, and I'm gonna circle back to sort of where I started, which is best locations for starting independent travel. You know, I I guess some people might just venture out the country for the first time ever and go backpacking down the Andes or something. But but they might do, but you wouldn't necessarily advise it. That's that's my question. Um, where would you think are a good locations to start something something because it has to be interesting and a bit challenging, but you don't want too much challenge straight away. And and perhaps, you know, sort of Olli's just coming back to Olli's thing again, you know, he worked his way down through Europe and Greece and Turkey before he hit Iran. I know he'd done some travelling before, but that probably warmed him up nicely before he hit the the challenging stuff.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

Well, my first independent one, as best as I can remember, was with you interrailing. I know you said you'd done some stuff before, but that was my first one, and it's a good place to start Europe. If things go wrong in Europe, it's less like especially Western Europe, it's less likely to be such a huge issue. It's just more expensive to do it that uh travel in Europe.

SPEAKER_04 41:22

Although Eastern Europe not not so much, you know, you depends where you depends off obviously where you go, but if you go down sort of towards the Balkans, you know, relatively cheap, quite exotically different.

SPEAKER_03 41:33

Trade-off is the prisons aren't so good.

SPEAKER_04 41:36

But but uh and uh a relatively cheap flight from home if anything goes wrong, you know, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

Yeah, yeah, very true. Uh so I I don't think there's a right or wrong place where to start. Uh if you follow the ten points, you'll probably work out where you want to go anyway, because the first bit, as we talked about, it's kind of like split into two, those tens points, isn't it? It's it's risk assessment planning and then it's trip planning. And I think when you do your risk assessment, you'll figure out whether you want to be in the middle of the Andes without a satellite phone or whether you'd rather be in Rome as to what your comfort level is for risk. So yeah, I don't think there's a right or wrong place. If you uh I've done a lot in Asia and I find Thailand a very easy place to travel in. So if you wanted to be a little bit more exotic, I'd say Thailand isn't a bad place to start. Ollie's been in touch about trekking with me, and I've done trekking where I've hired local guides out in Nepal. You know, that that's maybe a little bit more on the edge of the risk side of things, but the local guides are so good out there that it's a managed risk. I I I think it it's all about finding what's right for you and looking at the risk and your tolerance for risk.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

I think uh um we're gonna have my brother Stuart on at some point in the near future talking about some of his travels, and I'm just gonna uh spoiler alert that the the first his first independent travel was to attempt to walk to K2 base camp unaided without any Sherpers or guides. It didn't end particularly well.

SPEAKER_03 43:06

But he's still with us, he is still with us, yeah, just about, you know, physically I'm looking forward to that. I actually I was back in Louth, as you know, uh last week and went out for a drink with him actually a week ago today, and he's looking forward to doing the episode, and I'm looking forward to hearing it because he has had some adventures and he's a bit of a character, you're stew.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

Yeah. In a nice way. Yes, absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, you know, you can bite off more than you can chew, I think, is the point, and it's good to perhaps ease yourself into it without going too too big, too quick. That would be my guiding principle, I think.

SPEAKER_03 43:46

Yeah, but I mean I maybe we can ask Stu about this as well, because I'm sure uh but I'd like to think that he was aware of the risks he was taking. You know, I mean that was an expedition, and not expedition not every expedition is a success, but as long as you come back down safely. Then you can consider that the trip's been a success. You know, you might not have achieved your goal of getting to base camp, but you also took the right decisions to make sure you came back to go another day.

SPEAKER_04 44:10

Yeah, I don't want to pre-judge it by saying he did or didn't. So so I'll do neither. I'll just leave it hanging there in the air and I'll let other people make that judgment.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

Okay. And I know he listens, so Stu, I tried, but he wasn't having it. Okay. Anything else to add on this uh this episode or shall we wrap it up?

SPEAKER_04 44:30

Don't think so, no. Uh uh well, I mean about half a dozen things which I'll I'll remember in about 20 minutes' time. So, yeah, that's it. And please do send us some questions if you've got any or notes or feedback on it, and we'll be happy to share that.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

Yeah, and another thing, uh uh we've had Ollie recently, we've got Stu coming up. If anybody would like to be involved, thinks they've got something that we could spend sort of 30 minutes chatting about some of your experiences travelling, then drop us a line. We'll get in touch and uh find out what you want to talk about. Perfect. Right, I think it's just time to say goodbye from me then.

SPEAKER_04 45:05

And it's goodbye from me also. Speak to you all soon. Bye, everybody.