Generally in my diaries, I try to cut out the practical realities of being a traveller, the finding of buses, the dilemmas of what shoes to take, how I try and stay healthy and so on. I've done this deliberately,

because I don't think these mundanities are very interesting to read about, "Although I bought a ticket for the slow boat, in fact I ended up travelling on the fast boat, which left...". However, I've been thinking of collecting a load of tips and suggestions and how-tos into one article for a while now - and I recently received an email from Australia suggesting I write some something like this, because, "This may seem mundane, but I think a lot of people don't travel off the tourist trail because of fears of the simple things, or that they feel they are not prepared etc".
So, here it is, hope it is useful and enjoyable, happy for travelled readers to post other suggestions. There are three sections, a basic bit about how to catch buses, find hotels etc (probably the least interesting part of the piece), a second section on techniques I use to make travelling easier, and a final section on some mental attitudes I think are helpful.
NB This is a guide based on my travelling experiences, so may not be appropriate for Africa or India.

Part One: Basic Nuts and Bolts

How to find a place to stay for the night: The easiest option is to travel with a tour, so that the decision has already been made for you. Going travelling with someone like Intrepid who do small group tours and they will handle where to sleep, where to eat and how to travel on to the next spot. The only worry would be making sure the places the tour chooses meet your expectations - perhaps avoid the "Five Elephants" rated trips for your first week abroad...
The next easiest option is to pay someone to sort it out for you before you leave - such as a travel agent or your current guesthouse (if you are already travelling). These services are everywhere in SE Asia, much less so in Mexico / Central America. Tell your guesthouse manager where you want to go, he will be able to book you a place probably - or go into a travel agent's office and they will sort you out.
The next level of difficulty up is to arrange it yourself - this has the benefit of being much cheaper. Generally when I do this, I look in guidebooks, on the Internet (hostels.com, roughguides.com), pick up a flier in my current guesthouse, or ask other travellers for tips. Call the place to reserve a room/dorm bed if you want, it isn't usually necessary, write down the address, and when you get to the next city, tell it to the taxi drivers who will inevitably be waiting for you as you dismount. If feeling more adventurous, get directions to the guesthouse/hotel/hostel and take public transport there.
The next level on is just to go and find a place when you get there. In smaller destinations, this is fine, you can just wander around until you find somewhere you like. It is a bit more work when arriving in cities, especially as the cheap hotels may be in a neighbourhood some way away from the bus station. But, often the bus station has a tourist information desk, they can supply you with a list of cheap options and a map.
A rather brave choice would be to arrive and just start knocking on peoples' doors until someone agrees to let you stay in their house for the night. This would be a rather hardcore option to do on a regular basis - most travellers stay in places set up for them. The less rugged and probably better version of this is to arrange friendly people to stay with beforehand - I would massively recommend doing this wherever you can sort it out. Utilise distant friends of the family or travellers' communities like Bootsnall.

How to catch a bus: As with hotel beds, the easiest options are to travel with a tour or to book through your guesthouse - often in SE Asia someone will pick you up from outside your hotel.
But in most of the developing world countries I've been to, there's no problem with showing up at the bus station and buying a ticket for the next one out. For cheap buses, usually it's fine (or obligatory) to pay on the bus, for first class long distancers usually one buys a ticket in a booth. But these are things you'll figure out quickly once in the country - just leave some extra time on your first few trips for inevitable mix ups. Bus and train stations are at times simply confusing - navigating them is one of the trickier parts of being a traveller I think. But there are lots of people who will try and help you, and no one has ever deliberately got me on their long distance bus knowing that it was going in the wrong direction for me.

Ok, now start exploring! Once transport and accomodation are resolved, sit down with a guidebook or tourist information bumpf, and work out what you want to see in wherever it is you are. Pick a few famous sights, maybe a museum, a good restaurant to try the local food, and book in some time for lounging and resting. My only suggestion would be to do your lounging somewhere where there is potential for something to happen - nurse down a coffee in a cake shop and see if any locals want to talk to you, read a book in the hostel's sofa area and see if any other travellers plonk themselves down near to you. Begin with any one of the standby traveller questions: "Which country are you from? Where have you come from? How long is your trip and why are you travelling? What have you seen here so far"?

Repeat this three step process (take a bus, find accomodation, do some exploring) every few days until you want to come home or your money runs out.

Part 2: Some suggestions to make your travelling life easier

How to be safe: Not that I'm an authority on this, and touching wood furiously, but some of my observations are...

Is travelling an unsafe thing to do? I think the mistake is to think staying at home is a risk free option. For those of us who live in first world cities - our home is the dangerous place. This article says it very well.
That said, one has to be careful and take precautions when travelling - especially when solo, as there is no one else around to rely on.
The first level of protection to arrange is travel insurance. It's worth reading exactly what situations your policy covers - mine covers me if something is stolen from my person or from my locked accommodation, but not, I think, from a dorm room or from the roof rack of a bus.
I try to prioritise my possessions: my passport and credit cards need to be the most secure, so I usually carry them on my person, then most important are my camera and typewriter, then everything else. I have little combination locks on both zips of my rucksack, so feel fairly safe leaving it around. I wouldn't buy anything more than zipper locks for bag security - I haven't met anyone chaining their bag up to their bedpost etc. I don't think that those skin coloured under-the-trousers moneybelts are worthwhile - surely every crim must know to check for them now. It is possible to get a pocket sewn inside your trousers, or even a normal looking belt with a zip that holds cash if you are worried about theft. Don't flash little pouches and shoulder bags that are clearly designed to hold one's valuables, have the day's supply of money in a pocket or wallet so that you are not constantly pulling out the bag with your cards and reserve cash in.
I think that acting confident, quiet and assertive are good ways to ward off a lot of trouble. If someone is getting pushy enough that it makes you uncomfortable, a very firm and loud NO or GO AWAY seems to work. Swearing is I think a potentially serious mistake - everyone in the world knows the word "fuck", and may get provoked if you insult them.
The traveller who had experienced the most troubles and hassles on her trip of anyone I've met once said to me, "I like people, I want to trust people, but I don't feel I can anymore". The thought this solidified for me is that liking someone and trusting them are completely different things. Or, I get the impression that you are a good person, I trust you in a general sense, but I'm not going to extend trust to you, I'm not going to put myself in a situation where you can damage me. If I keep my valuables on me or locked up, or don't go off with you somewhere remote and deserted, then I don't have to worry about whether I should trust you.

It felt like the primary risk (not that it was that high) for travellers in Mexico/Central America was getting robbed or mugged. Every place I came to I asked my hotel what time of night the area got risky, and asked for advice whenever I was considering going somewhere remote.
Asia feels a far physically safer destination - the main risk to travellers seems to be being conned or overcharged. I've heard a few different stories, I read the warnings posted on some guesthouse walls, and generally try to act in a way that dissuades would be conners (I hope!). Meeting so many people each day, I think I am building up a sense of who is being friendly and who is trying to act friendly. The latter usually have a forced enthusiasm, they loudly introduce themselves. I frequently give such people a witheringly cold, "Yes?", which seems to work. But who knows, the whole point of cons is that you don't see them coming - so touch wood. A lot of cons seem to revolve around being fed false information. From a helpful man outside a temple: "The temple is closed today, come and see this special sale at a shop"; From your travel agent selling you a train ticket to Malaysia: "You need to enter Malaysia with one thousand ringgit cash, and the exchange rate is 20 baht to one ringgit". I find that cultivating a strong habit of doubt to be very useful. Even if it isn't a scam, the person could well be misinformed. If something sounds wrong, overly expensive, contradicts the guidebook - maybe doublecheck before dashing off? My oft solution to dubious sounding advice is to smile and say that I'll go and see for myself.

Staying healthy: Again, just some suggestions.
Before I started this trip, I imagined I would be eating lots of all-you-can-eat buffets, trying to save money by stuffing myself full of solid, filling food. But in fact, cheap, filling food is what poorer people everywhere eat - you will have no problem with hunger. The difficulty is in getting nutrious and varied food. Making an effort to eat more fruit when travelling is probably a good idea - in fact, I should do that.
Many travellers become very agitated about the quality of meat in places like Mexico and Thailand. In Mexican markets, one seeing whole halfs of a cow hanging up in the sun - in China I've used restaurant toilets with a big bowl of meat defrosting near my feet. I think it isn't worth getting too worried about this though. If you're willing to eat from a doner kebab shop in England, don't get pompous. Those racks of cow you saw in Mexico get bought, carved up and eaten the day they arrived - so refrigeration isn't such a necessity. And my experience is that the key is whether the meat is cooked properly. Eating tepid food that's been sitting around is the most likely way to get the runs - and especially risky are those diners the long distance bus stops at for everyone to get a meal.
And, carry and use sun cream, maybe also a hat or a parasol.

Crossing borders: My list of things which I try to remember each time I am about to cross a border includes: go to the Rough Guide website and check whether I need a visa and whether I need to get it beforehand at an embassy or can just collect it at the border. I check what hours the border is open and so know when I need to arrive. Then go to http://www.xe.com to check exhange rates, work out how much the new currency should be worth of my existing money.

Useful travel gear: Firstly, a good rucksack - a wheeled suitcase would be fine too, but heavy to lug where there are no smooth surfaces and hard to store on buses. Your rucksack is something that will take a bit of wear and tear, so is something to spend a bit of cash on. Buy as small a rucksack as you can. The bigger your rucksack, the more junk you will put into it. The delight of a rucksack you can easily carry will be worth the stuff you leave behind. I have a Karrimor sixty litre bag - that feels about right for size, maybe a bit smaller would be better.
I carry a school style backpack too, not an expensive one or anything, this carries my stuff during the day when I am wandering around exploring. When on long distance buses and trains, I put all my valuable and fragile possessions in the backpack, and keep it with me at all times, and put everything else in the rucksack and stow it in the bus's hold. I started off with a shoulder bag / satchel as my day bag - but I found the weight of carrying it always off one shoulder uncomfortable and bought the backpack. For footwear, I would recommend carrying two pairs: a dark, sturdy pair of trainers with good grips, and a light pair of sandals. The trainers will do you for hiking, cold weather and going to bars and job interviews - the sandals will be good for wearing to the shower in dodgy hostels and for wandering around town in hot climates. But, right now I only have a pair of Teva sandals, and am doing fine here in SE Asia.
Carry a small number of clothes, maybe three or four days' worth - any more and you will be weighed over carrying around your dirty laundry. I bought a pair of specialist type travel trousers and am pleased I did (from ex officio) - they are good in very hot weather, dry fast and have lasted well. I'd recommend bringing a thin jumper, maybe with a collar, for cooler evenings, trips to nice restaurants and in case you go somewhere colder. If the temperature is dropping, a wooly hat, when combined with your thin jumper and all your t-shirts layered on should be enough. But if your trip is going to start in Tibet, clearly you may need more stuff.
Resealable ziplock bags are amazingly useful. I use them to carry documents, tea leaves, washing powder, a bar of soap, my toothbrush, batteries, my passport and credit cards. I pick more up in supermarkets whenever I need them.
An umbrella, not black. This will keep you drier and looking less silly than a big raincoat, and is very effective at keeping the sun off (unless it's black, which will just absorb too much heat and cook your head inside it).
A lighter, a swiss army knife, a little roll of gaffa tape, a small torch. Not that you'll be building huts in the jungle with them, but useful for opening and repairing things - and a torch is really the polite thing to use in a dorm room if everyone else is trying to sleep.
I've got a pack of sterile needles, some washing stuff to handwash my clothes, a cheap looking watch with an alarm clock function, and a silk / polyester sleeping sheet, which is occasionally useful when the hostel bed looks a bit peaky. I've also got various random bits and bobs that I never use.
And don't spend lots of money on water purification equipment - in eleven months of travelling I've needed to purify water once (during a hike in China), didn't have my bottle of iodine on me, so myself and the three travellers I was with drank stream water and were fine.

Managing your money: Set up internet banking accounts for your money, perhaps with a separate current and savings account, so you can monitor how much you are spending. What policy does your bank have if your credit/debit card is stolen? Nationwide Building Society doesn't charge fees for the use of its cards outside of England, and possibly neither does Citibank - so avoids those 1.75% fees for withdrawing money abroad. Although it does charge fees on purchases made abroad, I think American Express will post you a replacement card to anywhere in the world - so could be useful.

Keeping costs low: How much you can avoid spending is a very personal decision, one that can be very fractious between travelling companions. But some advice would be: Stay in dormitories or find cheap guesthouses; eating street food, which as long as you watch it get cooked is usually fine; not drinking a lot of beer - beer seems to remain relatively expensive everywhere; and avoiding the tourist infrastructure. Tours, backpacker cafes, humous and pita bread for lunch (outside of Greece and the Middle East that is), arranged bus tickets - these are all great and sometimes necessary, but often, you pay a lot for your home comforts.
One mistake I find hard to avoid, however, is confusing consumption with investment. Paying 50 for a t-shirt or a vaccination is not the same as paying 50 for a meal - the former two will be useful to you for months to come. Scrimp on consumption, but be careful about making silly investment decisions like not buying some warm clothes when arriving in cold climates.
Plus - bear in mind this is quite possibly the trip of a lifetime, and some things should just be bought, regardless of expense. You may never be able to buy that Morrocan carpet for such a low price again, or learn how to cook a green curry - these are things that will stay with you the rest of your life. Better to finish the trip a little early than to spend time later wishing and wishing you'd bought that Chinese lacquer antique or learnt how to give a tantric massage.

If things start to go wrong: Travelling has been a fantastic experience for me, but there have been some very low points. I've had times where hotel room after hotel room for a week was twice the price listed in the guidebook, I've had times when it felt like everyone I'd come to visit wanted to cheat and look down at me, where I've felt no friends in the fellow travellers sharing my guesthouse, where my digestive system was under siege, where I felt surrounded by monsoons, political unrest and avian flu. And days when I've simply felt depressed for no discernable reason.
Some solutions I've found to these low points are: cut yourself off from the world for a little while - so go to the cinema, read a book, listen to music, spend all day in an internet cafe playing Starcraft; don't travel too fast, don't try to do too many things, don't push yourself beyond what you feel ready for; tear up your budget once in a while, get a good hotel room, eat whatever you feel like; if your stomach is unhappy, stay somewhere with a kitchen and cook your own meals.
It is important to remember that as a traveller, you are the richest, most free, most powerful you will ever be. What else is wealth but freedom from work - and as a traveller you can go anywhere, do anything, tear up plans, buy a cheap flight, simply buy your way out of troubles. If you don't like the look of your hostel's neighbourhood - upgrade yourself to a hotel for the night.

Part three: Some attitudes I find helpful

Take responsibility for yourself. All I mean by this is, if you and some friends are being picked up by your guesthouse's driver, and you can see he's stark raving drunk - if you don't feel comfortable getting in, don't get in. Who cares if everyone else thinks you're a weirdo, let them make their own decisions - pay for a taxi. Even in less serious examples, maybe like deciding whether to buy a camera from a very forceful salesperson, don't be that person muttering after the event, "Oh, I knew it wasn't going to be a good idea, but.." My worst regrets on this trip are things I did, knowing they were a mistake, but did them anyway, because, I don't know, I didn't want to be rude to someone, or I didn't have the energy to argue. Recognise as a traveller, as someone cut off from all your old friends and safety nets, you make your own decisions, and they may be completely different to what everyone else decides.

I think that a crucial attitude to enjoying travelling is to recognise that your beliefs and culture is just one of many on this planet. I met some travellers in China who were captivated by how FILTHY China was. But the thing is, the Chinese think we're pretty unhygienic too - sitting on all those communal public toilet seats as one example. You may think it's odd and a bit wrong to eat curry or noodle soup for breakfast, but you are in the minority on that - one billion odd Indians and one point three billion plus Chinese probably think cereal, milk and toast are the odd choice.
Equally, I sometimes think dwelling on how CHEAP everything is can be a mistake, a way of objectifying the country you're in. Life goes on in this society you're visiting, people live their lives just like we do, so constantly remarking about how "at home..." things would be different makes me wonder if the remarker is seeing this place as some fantasyland - as always a holiday from their real world.
Not that travelling will leave you with no opinions or beliefs about life, just that perhaps it can show you which of your old ones are unfounded or illogical. Through travelling, and keeping an open mind as best you can, perhaps you will just start classifying what is different between home and away. Maybe things can be put into categories, like: 1. Simply different ways of seeing things, like eating noodles for breakfast; 2. Things you've tried, given a fair shot, but just don't like, "I just can't eat beef, eggs and rice for breakfast the way the Guatemalans do"; 3. Things you disapprove of on an intellectual, scientific basis, "It's unhygienic to eat with your hands"; and 4. Things you find yourself unable to accept morally, things that, you hope, in some universal moral way, are wrong for people to do, perhaps like the way hardline Islam views women's rights. All I'm saying is to go through this process, challenge some preconceptions, meet the person that thinks your idea of politness is the height of rudeness, meet the person that thinks your "YUCK!" makes no sense, and that their "YUCK!" is based in perfect logic. Perhaps when you finally get back home, you'll find yourself smiling at how odd and unfounded all everyone's customs and taboos are.

For me, a key part of coming to be a content traveller is the realisation that I cannot see everything. It took me some weeks to get to this mental point - for months it frustrated me that I hadn't seen Mount St Helens, Las Vegas, some beach in Baja with a nice hostel and good surfing, the Copper Canyon, even the Grand Canyon for God's sake. The list of things I haven't seen is massively longer than the one of things I have.
The necessary realisation is that this is inevitable. We are human beings, limited, with finite amounts of time and money. While the world isn't infinite, it might as well be in terms of our ability to see all of it. And even the bits you did get to see, perhaps you were just seeing a fraction, a shard of reflected light, not the whole. I've been to Yosemite National Park, but not in late Spring, when the waterfalls are said to be at their most beautiful. I've passed dozens of nights in London's Soho - but all of them spending money in bars and cafes, I've never spent one of them sleeping rough and begging for money.
The good thing about accepting that you cannot see everything is that it frees you. The person telling you you've GOT to visit x beautiful spot - sorry, there are a thousand beautiful spots I've already missed, today I feel like doing something else. I watch the people travelling at high speed "because we've got so little time" - so do I, but I don't think that speeding up will help me see anything. I think one has to be relaxed about one's imprisonment in space and time - I've seen more than if I'd never left England, let's leave it at that.

And so a final suggestion is to set yourself as few deadlines as you can. Take full advantage of your year or two of freedom - don't pin it all down while still at home. At home, you have no idea, really, of how long you'll want in each country. I've met travellers in the first weeks of their trip, already mentally ripping up itineries, already examining their RTW ticket for how far back they can push their next move. Stuff happens when travelling that can't be predicted - and these events often form the best memories. If you get into a great conversation with some stunning member of your preferred gender, and then he / she says, "Me and some friends are going across to Vietnam in a couple of days, why don't you join us?", would you want to be the person replying, "I'd love to, but I have to be in Malaysia by Tuesday so that I can get down to Singapore then activate my Indonesian visa"... Travelling without deadlines allows a different way of seeing your trip - it makes you more open to strange occurances, more reflective, more wiling to getting off the must see list of destinations, makes it easier to meet local people, as you're not keeping an eye on the clock.

--

Having offered all these suggestions, somedays things just won't be good. Some times, all the advice you've digested won't cover some problem, some days you'll just find yourself running across a sweaty town with all your bags for a bus that's probably already left. As a parting comment, it may be those times that stand out strangely fondly in your memory. I was unhappy, I was stressed out and arguing with my friends, I was so alive. The difficult times, the mistakes, these are where you learn, learn about yourself, make silent decisions like "I won't let that happen to me again". I sometimes look back at my past travelling experiences and marvel with such admiration at the Daniel that did all those things. More or less utterly ignorant, at times scared, quite naiive, incredibly brave.

Daniel, 23 July 2004

For more suggestions, read, in order of recommendation:

Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts
First time around the world, by Doug Lansky (for the Rough Guides)
Read This First series, by the Lonely Planet