Manila, Philippines – Dreaming of going out of country for the first time for a travel vacation? Here’s how to plan your trip in case you have no idea yet.

Here are 9 Travel Tips For Planning First Trip Abroad:

1. Search for lowest flight tickets

 

Whether for work or for a tour, the first thing to do when your planning a trip abroad is to check for the affordable flight tickets based on your budget.

There’s an easy way to check on the flight prices. Just go to skyscanner.com or google skyscanner.com and enter your destination and intended travel dates, it will show you available airline that’s flying to your destination and the flight prices from lowest to highest so you can compare. Skyscanner is an efficient search engine for comparing flight prices, and very useful when you don’t know what airline is flying to your destination.

After seeing the prices, just search for the website of your chosen airline to book your flight directly at the airline. Prices may vary at the airline but the airline which has the lowest fare would still be the lowest fare compared to others. You should always book your flight tickets directly at the airline to be sure you bought a valid ticket.

Watch How To Search And Compare Flight Prices:

 

2. Search for affordable hotel accommodation 

 

You can search for your hotel accommodations through hotels.com. It has a wide selection and comparative hotel prices from small rooms to big hotel rooms. You can easily find a place to stay, just search on it the location you want.

 

This small room was our hotel room with twin beds when we toured Singapore.  We found this room at hotels.com by searching with a location keyword “city center Singapore”, and this was indeed at the Middle Road of Singapore. We find it at hotels.com but we booked it directly at the hotel’s website just to be sure our booking will be valid.

 

3. Book an online tour attraction 

Tour attractions are already available online, so if you have certain attractions to visit in a country you’re touring, you can search for it and book it online. You just have to print a copy of your booked tickets or save a copy on your phone to show it upon entry. It can save you time from lining up or queuing in person for buying your attraction tickets.

 

4. Plan Your Itinerary

 

After you have booked your flight tickets and hotel, you can already prepare your itinerary as your guide on where to go. You can list here your daily activities and your accommodations from your arrival to your departure. This might also be your checklist so that you won’t forget doing an activity.

 

5. Travel With A Buddy

 

Find someone who can travel with you to share with the experience and of course the expenses! When you travel with a buddy, you have someone to take your photos and have someone to get lost with for braving your tour.

 

5. Take a taxi

 

Taking a taxi will ultimately take you anywhere in a city the faster way, especially when a city is very  reachable from one point to another and you’re just there for a short visit and want to go to a particular place in a snap.

When we visited Singapore, we just take taxi to the places we want to see. And taxi costs us around Sgd 8.00 to 15.00 or Php 300.00 to Php 600.00 for getting around city, and our longest ride from airport and going back to airport costs Sgd 25.00 to Sgd 35.00 or Php 1,000.00 to Php 1,400.00. We didn’t take anymore their bus or metro because we just stayed for 2 days.

 

6. Bring A Copy  Of Your Hotel Booking While Touring

When you’re already at the country you’ll be touring, don’t forget to bring a copy of your hotel booking because it has directions on how to get back to your hotel via taxi or it will tell you what metro station you should be taking. We forgot to bring our hotel copy when we go out at night to the Sands Skypark in Singapore. When we stopped by at Marina Square to dine, we wanted to take metro but we don’t know what station we should be going, and I remember our hotel copy has indicated a direction on getting to our hotel.

Hotel booking is also helpful when your filling up forms for your departure and arrival cards at the immigrations because you have to write down your address to your destination so you just put your hotel address.

 

7. Eat budget foods

 

We mostly ate noodles when we we’re in Singapore. We only eat rice meal at the Mcdonalds on the evening of our departure when were in Universal Studio. When you’re in a travel, you don’t actually feel hungry at all. You don’t crave for foods you use to it and just grab every food on the go and you’re already full. Eating budget foods will help you cut your travel costs.

 

8. Carry ATM or Cards

 

If you have an ATM or a credit card, don’t forget to carry them if you’re doing an out of country trip to back up your travel or for emergency use.

ATM today comes in a debit card, it can be used to book tickets online or withdraw currency in a country you’re in. Credit cards are also very handy and dependable to use when you’re abroad, be it online or for using it over the counter payments. But credit cards imposed rates for using it if you don’t pay in total amount at your due date, so you have to know how to use it carefully.  Credit cards are offered at any banks, you can inquire at the banks to apply for it. But if you can’t afford to have a credit card, just open an ATM account to start saving if planning to travel, the opening amount and maintaining at BPI is at Php 3,000.00 only with just one valid ID.

 

9. Passing Thru Immigration and Final Security Screening

Be calm when passing thru immigration counter, they may or may not allow you to push thru your travel.

When we passed at NAIA Terminal 3 immigration for touring Singapore, we filled up a departure card and presented our passport with our flight ticket, our hotel booking, and our Universal Studio ticket because we said we’re touring for the Universal Studio. We’re asked for our company ID and we showed it. If you are working, it is helpful if you bring along your employment docs like payslips, certificate of employment, ITR or Income Tax Return and company ID so that you have a proof you can fund your own travel. The immigration officer generally asked for a company ID to prove you would return and would not seek employment opportunities in the country of your destination.

In Singapore, we were not asked for anything or show anything when we passed the Changi Airport immigration, The officer just stamped for our entry, and in few minutes we’re officially inside the country of Singapore.

After passing thru immigration, you will proceed for the final security check where you put your luggage to the scanner machine and have yourself screened too. Just take off your belts, gadgets and coins from your body and put it along with your luggage so that you have an easy security check.

 

Be Safe Always

That’s it for the 9 travel tips for planning your first trip abroad. You can always search for the Do’s and Don’ts at the airport or of the country you’re touring so that you could avoid being in trouble. Because of Covid 19 pandemic, travel today would require every traveller to be Covid 19 vaccinated, so don’t forget to get your vaccination and booster shot.

Have a safe and happy travels always.