Travel like a seasoned pro

You don't have to be a grizzled globetrotting veteran to know the inside track. Make the most of your trip with our helpful suggestions.

Flight upgrades are not so easy to come by, but to at least get detected by the upgrade radar sign up for each airline’s frequent flyer program. For one thing, collecting points could mean discounted flights for you in the future, but more to the point, the check-in staff member is more likely to offer you a free upgrade if you are registered with their frequent flyer program.

Being familiar with the going rate will save you the pain of realising too late that you’ve been overcharged, and wanting to kick yourself for not getting the best price possible. This is why we find ourselves haggling over what equates to 25p when buying T-shirts off a street vendor – it’s not always about saving money, but preserving pride. And more importantly, in places where haggling is the norm, getting into the spirit of the occasion is sure to be fun and will hopefully lead to snagging a bargain. If you do pay a few quid above par, don’t let it ruin your day. It’s all part of the travelling learning curve, which means you’ll know better next time.

There is so much more to enjoying your travels than making sure you’ve squeezed the most value out of every quid. And once you’ve learnt the ways of the shrewd traveller, the real joy of travelling comes from the riches of social awareness. Revelling in the cultural nuances of your destination is surely one of the greatest drawcards of straying from the motherland.

Learn the basics of the local language, even if it’s just hello, yes, no, please and thank you. As well as being courteous it’s a way to engage with locals, especially if you’re in an area that doesn’t see too many tourists. Trying to pronounce something in a foreign language and totally botching it can be a wonderful icebreaker. Ask for directions, or what the diners at the next table are eating – or simply offer a warm smile to someone you think you might want to talk to.

When you start chatting, you’ll also find many people who will want to practice their English on you, too (sometimes with unwittingly amusing results). Spending a couple of hours with people willing to let you into their world, even if it’s just sitting at a bar mostly communicating in nods and laughs, is as fulfilling a travel experience as many items in people’s bucket lists. Remember that people you meet in your travels are often as fascinated about your life back home as you are of theirs.

Social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter are wonderful ways to keep people up to date with what you’re doing and where you are in real time.

You may gain a certain level of dark satisfaction from letting all your friends know that while they’re at work you’re eating barbecued fish at a beachside tavern bathed in warm sunshine, along with a picture of your barbecue-seared dinner in that sandy paradise. Just don’t forget to tell them you wish they were there too.

What's more amazing is that keeping in touch can be done mostly for free. Many hotels, restaurants and cafes now offer free wi-fi access for patrons. So as long as you have a laptop in tow or a phone with web-browsing capabilities, you’re never far from hooking up with your life back home. Needless to say, the last thing you want to do while travelling halfway around the world and back is spend those precious hours catching up on Twitter or playing Farmville.

A travel blog is another good way to inform everyone what you’re up to. Just remember that unless your blog is locked to friends only, anyone can read it (including your mother). 

It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago we had to wait until we got home from our trip before we could see our holiday snaps. As with the advances in personal communications, now we can upload them for all to see with just a few clicks. There are a host of photo storage websites to use, such as Photobucket and Flickr, and of course you can show them off on Facebook, too.

Facebook is the simplest option if you have to rely on internet cafes as pictures upload quickly and there are no upload limits as with some sites. Keep in mind that Facebook doesn’t store images in high resolution, though, so don’t clear your camera’s memory card to make more room – better to just buy another card or 2 on the road than to lose your once-in-a-lifetime travel memories.