6 Travel Tips for Longterm Trips

I’m in the air, en route to my hometown of Arnold, California. Fresh off five months of travel, I bring to you six suggestions for your next long trip, from pre-departure planning to lingering just long enough.

1) Plan around major plane flights.

First things first: book the tickets to your destinations of choice. Before leaving Buenos Aires, I had a rough itinerary through Argentina, Chile and Ecuador, and I purchased my major plane tickets accordingly. These flights kept me on track. If I’ve learned one thing from my own experience and from observing others, it’s that you’ll often want to stay longer than you anticipate.

Case in point: I chose to extend my return flight to California by a month and a half. So yeah, while it’s valuable to keep yourself moving, it’s invaluable to know when to stay. So if possible, opt for tickets with a low change-fee.

2) Get traveler’s health insurance.

This is a travel tip that I didn’t heed until my final couple months on the road — particularly unwise since the first couple months were spent backpacking around Patagonia. Oops! Fortunately for me and my bank account, I didn’t have any medical emergencies until getting an earache from spending a little too much time in the ocean.

Once I eventually got smart, I opted for traveler’s health insurance with IMG Global, a reputable provider of travel medical insurance, international health insurance, and trip insurance. I went for a simple health plan and was reimbursed for doctors’ visits and prescriptions. My two cents: Worth the cost.

3) Pack light, but bring one thing you feel great in.

People love giving travel tips (META!), but one friend’s pre-departure advice stood apart. She told me to save space for something pretty. And let me tell you: My black cotton dress with the slit got worn from south of Ushuia to Ayampe. I often wore the same thing for days or even weeks, so it was a simple pleasure to slip into that impractical dress.

4) Map out each chunk of time in advance.

How long is a chunk of time? As long as you want it to be. Some people prefer to stay in a place for a couple days at a time; others opt for months on end.

When Connor and I high-tailed around Patagonia, we made a habit of sitting down about once a week to plan for the upcoming moves. Later, when I stayed in one place for a month or longer, my time-chunks extended accordingly.

The idea is to think ahead, to budget your time (and money!) so that you spend it where you want to most.

5) Sell and trade things along the way.

I’ve got a 36-liter backpack, a daypack and a growing collection of purses. In spite of the new additions, my bags can’t haul very much.

In Quito, I ditched some unnecessary hiking gear since I’d moved onto beach and city. You can sell your spare goods on sites like MercadoLibre, Facebook or Craigslist. Beyond freeing up space, you make extra cash along the way.

In some Latin American countries, you can head to a gratifería: a clothing swap where you offload your worn stuff and pick up others’ items for free. You know what they say: Your old t-shirt is my new look.

6) Stay awhile without getting stuck.

Toward the end of my journey, I went to Ayampe, a seaside town in Ecuador. What began as a quick trip to the beach turned into five weeks of washed-up bliss. Leaving was hard.

But a friend reminded me to ask myself an important question: Was I staying because I wanted to or because I was afraid to miss it? I decided it was the latter; I wanted to end my trip in a place I loved. But sticking in one place isn’t traveling — it’s residing. This, of course, wouldn’t be a bad choice (Have you seen Ayampe?), but I wanted to remain on the move.

With this in mind, I set out for my final destination of Cuenca, a Spanish colonial city with rich indigenous history and culture. It was worth the trip.

When it comes to longterm travel, I weigh experience against cost and time. Is it worth the expense? Is it worth the hours or weeks or months? Only you know.

The best travel tip? Enjoy the journey.