Introduction<br><br>
You have finally made it into your first country……What do
you do now? This entire section is dedicated to providing the
much needed first steps in travelling. Usually it takes around
two weeks or so of trial and error, during which time you
make it up as you go along. These are all the lessons I learned
while travelling. You are going to refine all these suggestions
to your own liking as you progress. Near the end of my
travels, I was able to pass on a lot of my experience to first
time travellers. I started to realize that what I was doing had
become a habit, and was not necessarily common knowledge
to everyone.<br><br>
When my plane touched down at my first foreign country I
was making it up as I went along. I was relying on the advice
my travelling buddy found on the Internet a couple months
prior on where to stay. We went up to a bank machine and had
no idea how much local currency to get out – 10, 100, 1000,
10000 Bhatt. Without a map, but with some crudely waved
directions from the cab driver we started walking towards the
guesthouse area. Is this the right area of town for backpackers?
We were able to compare prices and compare some
accommodations. Were we paying too much? What makes this
a good place to stay? Should we be looking for something
else? Eventually selecting a place and stuffing our packs in
our room, we then had no idea what to do after that. Where are
the good places to visit? We walked around without a map,
since we didn’t know where the maps were to see if we could
find anything of interest. Surely there were places in the city
where we should not go, some scams that we should be aware
of? Sure there were, but where do we find that information?
<br><br>
This section is to answer these questions and make your first
backpacking experience much. It assumes that you have just
touched down at your destination.