The 23 essential travel lessons I learnt the hard way

The tips from the pros can help you make a perfect lemon souffle or polish your golf swing, and so too with travel. You can do it well, or you can do it badly. Get it wrong and travel can be traumatic and damaging to wealth and health. Distilled from several decades of wandering, and lessons learned the hard way, here are some tips to keep you safe, sane and credit-worthy when you’re out in the great wide world.

I’ve just had a horrible lunch at a restaurant in Spain’s Ronda. I should have known better but it was raining and it was close to the city’s famous gorge. Eating in a tourist zone, or close to a major attraction, is almost a guarantee you’ll pay more and eat badly. Walk a couple of blocks away and look for a place where locals are eating. If a sign outside a restaurant says “English spoken”, run.

What 3 words is a geolocation app I use a lot when I want to remember where my hotel is, or where I parked my hire car. It assigns three words to your exact location, accurate to just a couple of metres anywhere on the globe. Save that location, label it “hotel” or “parking” or whatever and when you click it on the app you’ll be guided back.

Are you prone to leaving your passport or other valuables locked in your hotel safe when you check out? The night before you leave, put one of the shoes you plan to wear in the safe.

You can’t have too many labels on your check-in luggage. Get bright ones in fluorescent colours and you’ll never have to wonder which is your bag on the carousel.

Packing cubes are a gift from the travel gods, essential for separating shirts from trousers from t-shirts from socks and underwear. They come in different sizes and the best are compression cubes which can squish all the air out for space-saver packing.

Freetour is a worldwide network of free walking tours. They’re usually conducted by students or retirees, group size can be 20-plus and quality varies, but if you don’t know anything about the city you’re in, they’re usually a decent introduction. Although there is no charge, the guide’s efforts should be rewarded with a tip. If they’ve gone the extra mile to make it amusing, enlightening and entertaining, dig deep.

Need a hire car for your next trip? Book it as soon as your travel plans firm up, prices increase as the supply dwindles. You can usually reserve a car without prepaying provided you hire direct from the agency rather than through a broker. If a cheaper option becomes available closer to your trip, grab that instead.

In a new city? Start with a hop on, hop off bus tour. They’re cheap as chips and it’s a great way to get your bearings. You don’t need to investigate the key sites along the way but make a note of anything that looks interesting and come back later for a longer look.

Food tours are a brilliant way to get a handle on local culture, and they’re available in just about every major city. Why the people of Fes in Morocco eat snail soup in winter and why Koreans might eat rice with a metal spoon while the Japanese and Chinese use chopsticks tells you a lot about their respective cultures and histories.

Store important travel documents like itineraries, airline tickets, passport scans and insurance details in Dropbox or Google Drive and also email them to yourself so you can retrieve them in an emergency.

Travelling somewhere hot with small children? Plan a substantial chunk of downtime in the middle of the day. Fit activities into morning and evening, with several hours poolside in between. Happy kids equals happy you.

When driving on toll roads in Europe, have at least two credit cards when you pass through the toll booths, you never can tell which is going to work.

Throw a tube of superglue into your luggage next time and you can save a flapping shoe sole, mend a suitcase handle or just do what I usually do and glue your fingers together.

Stressing out at the baggage carousel, wondering if your luggage is on board? A tracker, like an AirTag or Tile, saves all that. If the worst happens and your bag fails to arrive, you can help baggage services find out where it is and get your bag back to you as quickly as possible. AirTags are only compatible with Apple devices but similar trackers are available for Android and Google users. July’s CaseSafe luggage has built-in trackers compatible with both Apple and Google.

If you want to save on meals, eat your main meal at lunchtime and graze over dinner. Restaurants charge more for dinner than for lunch, even when they serve the same dish.

If your hotel or cruise ship offers a loyalty program, join up. It costs nothing, and members often receive valuable benefits from the get-go. It might be faster Wi-Fi or an early check in/late check out, and you’ll start accruing points that might lead to room upgrades.

When you’re packing to leave your hotel room, lay everything out together on a white bed sheet, scour the room to make sure nothing is left out and then pack your case. Before you close your suitcase, snap a photo of what’s inside. If you need to make an insurance claim for lost luggage it will help your case if you can prove what’s missing.

When you’re out and about, take only one debit and credit card and whatever cash you’ll need for that day. Don’t stash everything in the same place and if there are two of you, divide your cash and cards. Unless you have a specific need for your passport, leave it locked in your hotel safe or hidden inside your luggage in your room.

When you apply online for a visa or visa waiver, beware of non-government websites offering to help. They’ll charge an additional fee for their service and do nothing to speed up the process. Make sure you’re at the official visa application website, usually with “gov” in the website’s address.

Flights that depart early are less likely to be delayed. Any delayed flight will impact all subsequent flights, and that’s more likely to happen as the day wears on. Short-haul flights are more susceptible to these concertina delays.

If your flight is operated partially by a partner airline, a codeshare flight, check the fares offered by both airlines. The difference between the two can often be several hundred dollars. You’ll know if your flight is operated as a codeshare in the booking process, usually under the flight number with the words “operated by”, showing the partner airline’s name.

Worried about the weight of your carry-ons? Wear it. Jumper, hiking boots, jacket - and you can stuff the pockets with whatever weighs most, no questions asked. The small, underseat bag that airlines allow you to take onboard in addition to your carry-on case rarely gets weighed.

Got a beef with your airline? If you can’t get satisfaction through the normal channels, go straight to the top. Write to the CEO. Airlines’ complaints staff are there to stop your grievance from going any further. A letter or an email to the CEO gets their attention.