50 sats \ 6 replies \ @carlosfandango 16 Jul 2023 \ on: Best traveling advice you’ve ever received? meta
Don’t use a large bag / suitcase as you will be tempted to fill it.
Always carry a towel (a tip courtesy of Douglas Adams).
Use a debit card that charges in local currency at the interbank rate.
Learn a few phrases.
Use paper maps from tourist information instead of your smart phone.
Use a sling bag.
Finally, like to use a compact camera for pictures rather than my phone… but that’s just me.
Ha! HHGTTG is my favorite series, and as a tribute to DA I carried a towel in my backpack when I first started going anywhere. It quickly revealed itself to be an incredibly practical piece of advice!
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What’s the secret of the towel? Usually seems like a waste of bag space to me
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Just comes in super handy in all these unpredictable ways. If you spill something, there's something gross you need to wipe away, you need a pillow or a half-assed blanket, you need to cover your head to sleep during the day, you need to pick up something hot, you need to swat a dog -- these are examples from my travels.
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It is more useful than you may realise and a medium size travel towel takes up next to no space. Sometimes I have carried a shemagh depending on the country.
To quote the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy;
‘A towel is just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can carry. Partly because it has great practical value….. More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value…. any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.’
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I may have to become a towel maximalist
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Towel maximalism is not to be underestimated. Don’t get shilled on some small flannel or disposable napkins as ‘the new towel’ :D
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