Tips for Travellers—Part 2
Bring your sense of humour—helps you to appreciate the weird and wonderful such as this sign in the Boomerang Cafe/Bar near Gallipoli.
It’s about time for a few more traveller’s tips.
These will seem like the bleeding obvious, but so many people forget to do/bring some of these essentials, so I think they’re worth mentioning.
1) Bring your chargers—all of them. If you can, bring both plug and cigarette-lighter versions. Our truck can charge two 240-volt plugs at a time (English plugs only, so you may need adaptors too) and eight cigarette-lighter items. The truck has enough battery reserve that we can usually charge overnight but, with more than 20 people and all their gear, outlets can be at a premium. And no charging is allowed when the truck sits for longer than just overnight. Otherwise we might have to push all 24 tons uphill to get it started.
2) Mark your stuff. Lots of suitcases and backpacks look the same. Lots of sleeping bags and mats do too. Poor John tied ribbons to our cases and put striped tape around our sleeping bag bags. Our roll mats are bright green. It’s so easy to spot everything of ours in the storage area. When we saw Belgian Emma, one of our past exchange students, in Brussels, she gave us two little souvenir toggles from Korea. Poor John wondered what we could do with them, until I suggested that he tie them to the bags that hold our camping chairs. Makes them also very easy to differentiate from everyone else’s.
3) Bring dental floss. Many people hate it, but dental floss is your friend. The dentist once told me that flossing is almost more important than brushing. I can’t verify that because I do both. But floss has more uses. While it’s not quite as versatile as duct tape, I have often used it in place of string. It’s thinner, lighter and usually just as tough.
4) Bring your sense of humour. This is absolutely critical. Travel is fun, tiring, challenging, frustrating and exhilarating. It’s all a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable if you can laugh at yourself, those around you and the quirky stuff you encounter.
Where to next? 
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