How to maximize your travel time? Here are 7 useful tips for you!

Unless you are a full time traveler, it is important to ensure that you have a travel plan that will make the most of your travel before you go back to reality or daily hustle.

1) Minimize your travel time

It sounds funny when the title is “maximize your travel time”, but what I mean is, if you have 3 days to spare, and you try to cover 2 cities in a day (which will take about 6 hours to reach your destination by car), you probably will get so tired and you might not be able to enjoy much. Instead, you can try to look for a night train or buses so that you not only save your accommodation cost, but you can also start fresh the next day. Or better yet, just cover the nearby cities and take it easy, you will be able to connect with the surrounding, cultures and people a little bit better.

2) Take advantage of the public holidays

In a way, I’m blessed to stay in Malaysia because we are surrounded with beautiful, friendly, awesome people of various background and we get to celebrate every holiday together! We get 2 days off from big holidays like Chinese New Year and Hari Raya Aidilfitri! And we also have Deepavali, King’s birthday, Christmas, and many more! However, these are peak seasons so expect the flight and accommodation cost to be super expensive if you book near to the date. It’s important to look at next year’s public holiday months in advance to enjoy better rates. I guess that is why more expats choose to work here too ;)

3) Travel and work

Yes, that would be awesome if you work in hospitality and tourism industry right? If not, take profession which allows you to attend trainings in Barcelona, conference in New York or covering news in Bali island while sipping that fresh coconut and enjoying the sunset. I’d love to become a dive master and take my students to diving trips so that I could be on the beach and swim with cute baby shark do-do-do! I’ve met a couple whose husband is a geologist, so he constantly travels around the world with his wife and I secretly want to enjoy that life too. Whilst there are many ideas you can try, it is best when you can get paid while travel.

4) You don’t have to do all the Must-Do’s

Try to do more research of the place that you are going, read as many reviews online and if you have friends who has traveled to the same place that you’re going to, then get their advice on the places that you must see. I would go to places where it isn’t too far from where I’ll be staying so that I don’t have to rush from one place to another. For example, I would fly to Melbourne to experience arts, cafes, nightlife and then drive to Great Ocean Road the next day to enjoy a scenic coastal drive.

5) Choose flights with long layover

Well, I would. I know it is tiring, but hey, the point is to maximize your time right? Turkish Airlines provide layover options in Istanbul inclusive of hotel accommodation and travel packages for free for long flights. Air Astana provides long layover options in Almaty and Astana for you are keen to explore Kazakhstan's beautiful cities and natures. So if you are going for a long distant flight, make sure you look for layover options for you to rest, explore the city and at the same time adjust to the time difference - jet lag is not that great.

6) Rent a car or get a train pass

An example would be if you are travelling to US, you can rent a caravan with a group of friends and travel across different states. On top of that, you can also save on accommodation! All you need is a group of friends who can play guitar, excellent in reading map, prepares great meal, makes you laugh and carry a gun (ha ha). But yes, you can also travel all the way to Mexico too and visit my friend Speedy Gonzales ;)

Euro Rail Pass or Japan JR Pass is great when you want you are traveling alone and covering most number of cities in a convenient and cost effective way. A one-way train ticket can be more expensive compared to a 7-day pass which has no limit and you can travel anywhere at any time within the places covered in pass. I bought the 7-day JR pass in Japan and I covered Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo. I wanted to stretch to Hokkaido but just not enough time.

7) Just go

Even if you have only 1 day, take a slow drive to a nearby city, eat the famous pau kaya, chilli crab, old town coffee or find that hidden waterfall – just make sure you have emergency plan/ contacts with you. There’s never enough place to visit and always something new to discover.

Happy travels!