I have a long list of places I visited and if you look at the descriptions you will notice a pattern on how I usually travel. I decided to write this one, so I can refer to it most of the time. Here I’m going to describe how I like to travel when I’m alone or with my wife.

I currently have 2 kids and travelling with kids is a totally different kind of trip that I will describe in a different post.

Gear

I’m an adept of the onebag travel, so I mostly use only one backpack to travel.

As I’m writing this post, the Minaal travel and the PeakDesign Travel are our travel gear. I totally recommend both of them, but if I had to choose one, it would be the PeakDesign travel.

Schedule

I usually have a very packed schedule when I’m travelling and the pattern is mostly the same:

  • ~8:00 Wake up and get ready for the day. Have breakfast before leaving if available or just stop somewhere for some coffee.
  • ~10:00 Going somewhere I want so visit
  • ~13:00 Stop for lunch. Most of the time, I try to not spend that much time on restaurants.
  • ~14:00 Seeing more stuff
  • ~19:00 Dinner time
  • ~20:00 Depending on the season and how tired we are, we go for some nightly sightseeing. At night, some structures are quite beautiful.
  • ~23:00 Going to sleep

It’s not strict, but that’s usually the structure I follow. Going back to the hotel/hostel/BnB during the day is not something I usually do. I also tend to eat in places with decent toilets because it’s an important part to make this whole plan work

Free Walking tour

I’m a big fan of walking everywhere. If possible, I would totally avoid any kind of transport and will go walking. It’s common for me to have 25k+ steps registered on my watch in one day while travelling.

Because of that, I discovered “Free” walking tours. They are not actually free, but it’s a Pay what you want kind of tour, and I really enjoy it.

Every time I arrive to a new city, I try to book a walking tour because it is cheap, fun, and gives me a bunch of information to see the city in a new way in the next following days.

You also get some bonus information on places to eat from someone who actually lives in the city.

I have so many learnings that I got from these tours. Just to give some examples:

  • Simbols spread over the city have meanings. On the next following days I will spot most of them and understand why they are there.
  • Local restaurants that local people go, not tourists.
  • General tips like: Don’t enter a restaurant if there are pictures of food in front of it, there’s a good chance it will be a tourist trap.
  • Unwritten rules about doing safe travel on that city.
  • The list goes on. I highly recommend starting your trip with something like this.