5 Travel Planning Essentials for 2023

3 Minute Read | Written by Erin Roche

There are SO many things to consider while you’re planning your next trip abroad, so we’ve decided to take the list making off your hands with this easy to follow checklist of the most important steps!

After years of travelling abroad, working in foreign countries and two moves overseas, we’ve nailed down the most essential preparation tasks for post-2020 travel!

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First up…

Clothing

We’ll get the apparel sorted out first as there’ll be plenty of time to overpack your bags later!

What season will you be travelling? This is the most important thing to consider when planning your outfits as you don’t want to be doubling the weight of your luggage with extra jeans if you’re heading for a tropical island vacay.

Clothes are mostly an individual thing, we get that, our biggest tip would be to start with as little as possible and only add the essentials. With that said… We take A LOT of clothing on our adventures, whether that’s essential weather-specific gear or 20 different dresses for Erin, our bags are usually overflowing as we put them on the airport baggage weigher with our fingers crossed! In the past we’ve had to deal with our luggage allowance not accomodating all our stuff, so keep reading because we have a super useful hack for that further down!

Banking

Second only to entry requirements, banking is one of the most important steps in your prep for heading overseas, if your bank charges super high international conversion fees, or even worse, doesn’t allow them at all, it could put a pretty big dampener on that long-awaited getaway!

We recommend you look into this no later than 8-weeks prior to departure, if you need to switch up banks, apply for a travel card or open a new account you do not want to be going through that process at the last minute.

Between our time living in Australia, Scotland and Indonesia, we made sure to open accounts with banks that offer 0% international transaction fees, fee-free international ATM withdrawals and easy to reach customer service in case of any issues. There are quite a few online banks that are perfect for this nowadays, as you’ll never hear those pesky words “You’ll have to go to your local branch to sort that one out”.

SIM cards & Mobile Data

Once you’ve landed it’ll be time to switch off airplane mode and let all your friends know what they’re missing out on, this can be difficult without a local SIM card or your own from home with roaming enabled. Roaming can cost a fortune depending on your carrier, and while some offer reasonably good deals for short trips, local SIM’s are always better value and in our experience, super easy to organise.

Make sure you do some research about how you’re going to stay connected while away, and what the situation is for local SIM’s in your destination. Every country we’ve spent more than two weeks in we’ve bought a local SIM, it means we can access the internet in remote places, while in taxis/rideshares and let people know where we are. Prepaid SIM’s are usually inexpensive and will be enough to get you by on your trip.

If you’ve decided to go the local SIM route, our advice would be to leave the airport first. Jump on the airport wifi if you need to figure out your way to the hotel, but we (usually) skip the kiosks in the airport arrivals hall as their pricing is generally more expensive than what you’ll pay at a local carrier store or supermarket.

Luggage

You’ve planned your wardrobe, but what should you pack it in? Two little suitcases? A backpack? A 120L?  How much local travel you plan on doing will decide that for you. If you’re spending your three week Canada trip in only a couple hotels, it makes sense to take one or two big suitcases. They only need to be taken down to the taxi then they’re out of your hands. If you’re heading away for a month of island hopping in Thailand, you’re not gonna have fun lugging those huge suitcases on and off the transfer boats, a backpack or smaller, lighter suitcases are a necessity.

But maybe you’re going for a longer period of time? Heading to another country for a working holiday? Your employers offered an international relocation? Or like us, you’ve just got WAY too much to cram into bags for the already cramped flight? There is an easy & reliable alternative…

When we moved from Australia to the UK, to Indonesia and back to Australia, there was no way we were fitting our entire European winter & Australian summer wardrobes into an acceptable weight allowance on flights without paying MASSIVE additional baggage fees. While on the verge of getting rid of 75% of our luggage to afford to leave, we discovered Send My Bag.

Send My Bag is the solution to avoiding ridiculous baggage fees with airlines, and lengthy delays with other baggage services, and is going to be your best friend for your next big move so you can avoid the hassle of taking surplus luggage on flights. Their service offers premium door to door luggage shipping worldwide, with a lowest price guarantee, music to our ears!

If you’re planning an overseas move or heading on a longer trip away, check out Send My Bag with any of the links in this blog to score yourself an extra 5% off worldwide luggage shipping!

Travel requirements & health

While always a critical element of trip planning, this has been taken up a few notches in this post-2020 world. Can you even enter your destination?

If you’re heading internationally, you’re going to need a passport at minimum, for most countries it will also need 6 - 12 months validity remaining! If you don’t have one, these can take a considerable amount of time to get so we’d recommend applying as soon as you’re starting to plan.

Entry requirements are different for every single country and will vary further depending on what kind nationality your passport is. Visas can be confusing, but for most of the commonly touristed countries they can either be sorted out once arriving or online before you travel, a simple google search of “entry requirements for x country for x nationality” will usually get you all the info you need.

We also just wanted to touch on medical requirements & vaccinations, countries can require/recommend certain vaccinations to enter, and we’re not just talking about THAT vaccination. At the very least we’d advise you visit a GP before you travel to ask about local illnesses in the location you’re visiting. Things like rabies, hepatitis and cholera are much more common than you think in certain destinations. And you DO NOT want any of them.

That’s It!

If you’ve made it down here, thank you so much for reading!

These are the 5 most essential considerations when planning to travel in 2022. Let us know below if, like us, you’ve ever been caught out by anything we’ve discussed here!