1. Eat local food
One of the most regrets from the first year of my travels was not being brave enough to try local food. I was raised as a picky eater and that, combined with debilitating anxiety and an eating disorder, led me to believe that I would hate or be allergic to anything I had not tried before.
I was so, so wrong.
Food is now my favorite way to get to know a place better.
I love trying new things and have found a thousand amazing dishes that I would never have discovered if I continued to eat in supermarkets around the world. Trying new food is not scary, and you will build your confidence as you fall in love with more and more things.
Try everything, even if you have no idea what it is. I promise you will not regret. Or go straight into anaphylactic shock.
2. Plan as little as possible
One of the first lessons I learned along the way was that your plans will almost always change. You will arrive at a place and you will hate it and you will want to leave immediately, or you will fall in love with a destination and you will want to spend more time there. You will either become friends with a group of amazing people and want to change your plans so you can travel with them for longer, or you will discover a nearby city that sounds amazing and you will want to go there.
Sure, you should have a rough plan for your trip, but don't book everything in advance or you're likely to feel too restricted and end up regretting it.
Book a one-way ticket and your first nights accommodation; you will discover the rest along the way. It is not as intimidating as it sounds. If you are in a tourist destination, there will always be someone who is willing to take your money by giving you a place to stay.
3. Travel insurance is everything
Seriously.
If you only do one thing before you go, do it with travel insurance. I've heard too many horror stories of travelers getting hurt in remote places and ending up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Don't think it won't happen to you, because you know those travelers thought that too.
I have used World Nomads for my travel insurance provider for six years and recommend them to everyone I know. It was great dealing with them when making a claim.
4. Bring additional passport photos with you
People laughed at me when I said I had about a dozen spare passport photos, but they have been incredibly useful and have saved me a ton of time and hassle.
Who wants to wander the streets of some rural Cambodian town looking for someone who can take your picture? My friends had to do this!
I've used them to apply for visas all over the world, to get a new passport when mine expires while on the other side of the planet, and I even needed one to buy a local SIM card in Nepal! Having spare parts in my backpack meant I didn't have to waste a day researching and then wandering around a city trying to find someone who could take a passport-sized photo of me.
5. Keep everything important in your backpack
I am fortunate that I never had to deal with lost luggage, but my backpack was broken on a flight and I was thankful that I didn't have anything of value at the time. I've also been on dodgy buses in Southeast Asia, where we arrived at our destination and someone hiding in the luggage hold stole items from them while we were in transit.
If there is something that I would mind losing, I keep it in my backpack, which is always by my side on travel days. For me, that's my passport, laptop, camera, external hard drive, a debit card, and some extra money, purchase college research papers about this. As long as I have all of these, I can survive indefinitely.
6. Use sunscreen every day
When he travels, he is more in the sun than most people thanks to the months of traveling from island to island and to the beach, as well as the entire days spent exploring the great outdoors. Wear sunscreen every day, no matter what the weather and temperature, because you really don't want the trip of a lifetime to result in skin cancer or a body covered in leathery wrinkles.
I use sunscreen on my face and chest every day, even in the dead of winter.
7. Take more pictures of yourself
There have been almost so many times that I have been too shy to ask someone to take a photo of me in one place and I have always regretted it. After eight years of traveling, I probably only have about 200 photos of me around the world. The photos of the beautiful places you visit are great and all, but when you get home, they are not that different from what everyone else has taken there as well. The photos with you in them are special and will mean so much more to you when you look back at them.
Or maybe I'm just a narcissistic millennial.