1. WeSwap

The easiest option to spend money abroad is by carrying your credit / debit card around to withdraw cash or use it for debit transactions in shops, but this is also a very costly choice since you will be charged with international transaction fee every time you use it.

That’s why WeSwap could come in handy to solve this problem. This app is basically a more sophisticated and flexible form of travel money, with better rates on top of that. You can save money in multiple currencies using just one card, controlled by a mobile app. So how does it work?

First of all, you will have to register to create an account. You can then arrange an order for a WeSwap card which will be sent to your address in approximately a week. Think of this as a pre-paid card where you have to top-up your balance before spending for debit transactions or withdrawal in any currencies. In this case, the card balance has to be loaded with money in GBP currency (since this is a UK-based startup) using debit card or online account. Make sure that you always use YOUR card for this loading balance process, or else WeSwap team will contact you for further clarification about the transaction and thus made the top-up process takes much longer time. 

Loading balance using card usually will be processed right away, while loading using bank transfer can take up to one week (excluding bank holidays). Now that you have balance in your card, you can seamlessly swap your money to any of the 17 currencies supported by the app. For this swapping process, you will have three different options with different transaction fees. If you want your money to be swapped right away to the desired currency, you will have to pay for transaction fees by 1.4% of the total amount. However, there are also options to swap in 3 days and 7 days to get less transaction fees compared to the immediate swap, which are 1.3% and 1.0% respectively. 

Good deal, isn't it? You can plan your budget accordingly before your trip to decide which currency needs to be available, and by when. Don't quite get the point? Let's say you just got your WeSwap account , so you just loaded your balance and you need to travel to Italy tomorrow. You will need to swap your money to EUR right away, since you need it to be available soon. However, you will also visit Switzerland in three days, so there is no rush in swapping your money to CHF immediately. You can choose the second option instead, i.e. swap in 3 days, to have a less transaction fee. The same strategy also applies to when you have a plan to travel in a week—or more—from now. I hope this explanation doesn't make things get more complicated than the way it actually is, LOL. Because honestly, this WeSwap card has helped me A LOT during my travel. You can basically use it for any card-based transactions on any machines with Master Card logo, be it cash withdrawal or debit card transactions in shops. You will only be charged with international transaction fee when you swap from one currency to another, but will not be charged by any additional fee when you’re using it as a debit or credit card. I highly recommend this if you are based in the UK and plan to have a trip to several countries with different currencies.

2. Google Maps

I bet most of you all have used this app in one way or another, or else you won't get anywhere far in this world LOL. But I have some tips for you to be utilised for traveling, especially to explore any city you want in a more comfortable way. There is a feature in Google Maps where you can save multiple places and create a list out of it. To do this, simply go to "Your places" menu in the main sidebar, and create your own list from "Saved" tab. I usually create a list for each city I plan to visit. For example, I have a list which I named "Budapest" that contains tourist spots I want to visit in Budapest. Once you create a list for a specific city, you can now search any places or attractions you want to visit in that particular city and save each of them to the list.  The way I do it, usually I will use Pinterest to look for “top N things / places to do / visit in city X” and did my own research starting from that. I will read at least 3 articles from the search results, filter spots I should visit in the city, and save each of them in the prepared list. Now that I have a list containing places I am planning to visit, I can then plan out my route based on the distance of each spot (If you are keen enough, you can apply “traveling salesman problem” here to come up with a route with a minimum distance from one spot to another 😜 *calling all computer science geeks*). You can also share this list with your travel partners or with friends planning to visit the same city. 

For example, you can access my list in Budapest here with screenshots provided below. As seen from the pic, you can see all the saved places pinned to a map. This is very useful to plan your route accordingly and explore all the spots that you have saved. In my case, I usually also save my accommodation location and planned restaurant to have lunch / dinner at to the list.

3. Splitwise

This app is actually not just for traveling, as it is basically an app to sort out bills or other shared expenses between two or more people. This is practically useful when you are traveling with your friends, because at some points during your trip either you or any of your friends will have to pay for shared expenses—yes, either you or them will need to lend money to the others. Splitwise will make things much easier for you regarding this matter, since it allows you to track any money you lent and owed, in many different choices of currencies. All you have to do is logging in every shared expensed, choose how many persons are included, and settle it up in the app when you’ve paid someone. This app can show you a tally of who owes what, and It can even optimise the amount of money you owe to someone (this in fact is my most favourite feature from the app!). So what does it mean by optimising? Let’s say A owes money m pounds to B, B owes m pounds to C, and A owes n pounds to C. Splitwise can optimise this simple problem using its program by making A owe m+n pounds to C, so that A does not owe any money to B and B does not owe any money to C. Very basic one indeed, but trust me this will make things much simpler to sort out with your friends because you don’t have to reimburse each other right away. Believe it or not, most of the time the debts will even out between each of you by the end of the trip. Split wise also allows you to create group so I usually created a dedicated group for each travel journey. When you open the group page, you can see a balance sheet for all participants of the group.

4. Journi

This one is a special app for those of you who love journaling. As for myself, I enjoy journaling for a sole reason that I tend to easily forget an event that just happened days—event moments—ago. This often leads me to thinking that I haven’t done anything for a week, which feels really bad. But as I start journaling and keep track of my activities, I realised that I have actually done and accomplished many things, but I just don’t realise it. This trip is so precious to me, because it’s my first ever Eurotrip and who knows if it can probably also be my last—though I really hope I’ll be able to do another in the near future (with a life-partner, maybe? :)). Journi is specially designed to be an app for travel journal / diary. You can create multiple journeys containing moments where each moment can have at most 10 photos attached to it. (sadly for now it doesn’t support video attachment to a moment). I created travel diary as a way to cheat with time, by stealing moments from it to make them last forever. For some of you, this might be troublesome and photos are just enough to capture the moments. However, with travel diary you can create not only photos, but also any interesting thoughts or unique experience you encountered during your trip. For example, I saved most memorable phrases that I found during the trip to a country as a separate moment in a journey. Mostly it will be signs that I found in stations/terminals, catch-phrases, and even words that are often used in public announcement. I usually also saved any interesting conversations by locals that I accidentally overheard.—(INTERMEZZO: I still remember there was this one time in Brussels when I overheard immigrants talking about how they feel living far away from their home country, about how they long to be home because even though they’ll suffer, they'll still be happy nonetheless.) I also created a special note on my visit to Milan about how my friends and I were tricked multiple times by sparkling water because we mistakenly bought sparkling water for still water, and it happened multiple times before we learnt, the hard way, how to differentiate them.

These special moments are what made travel diary / journal different from just a gallery of photos. You can save stories, not just photos. Besides, keeping travel diary has successfully kept me from constantly checking on my social media, especially Instagram stories. Just think of it this way: would you want to spend your data quota to upload something that will only last for 24 hours—and drains your battery on top of that—or would you rather keep a journal, private only to your self, that can last forever? My sense told me to always choose the latter over the former. 

Before you plan your trip and apply for Schengen Visa, make sure you have valid passport with expiration date no less than 3 months after your planned return date from the Schengen state. For Indonesians currently living in the UK, if your passport expiration date turns to be less than 3 months ahead, you can actually renew your passport in Indonesian Embassy without going to the embassy consulate office in London. There is an online system provided by the embassy which allows you to renew your passport by only filling the form provided in the website and send compulsory documents to the consulate address. Make sure you have reported yourself online to the embassy (which can also be done online) before you follow this procedure. In my experience, it took only 5 working days for me starting from the day I sent the documents (via Royal Mail) until I got my new passport sent directly to my address. I really appreciate the consulate’s fast service in this matter. Kudos to the team!

Now I have tips for you to kill your free time like when you are on bus, plane, or when you are waiting for the next flight. Taking a rest is definitely one of the options, while some of you may prefer checking or updating your social media feed. But I usually avoid this since I think I still need to feed my brain with useful stuff even though I am in the vacation mode. So here is the list (and suggestions) of what I usually do to kill my free time on road: 

1. Reading books. This is my primary option to do when I am on road or in airport waiting for my next fiight, or before I go to sleep (basically any idle time). It doesn’t always have to be heavy reading materials, but still something which can  activate your brain. During this trip, I managed to finish two books: Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist and Ian McEwan's Children Act (which I got when I was in Prague, when I suddenly stumbled upon Shakespeare bookstore). Sometimes I also read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, but since I got only the soft copy and I don't have kindle, I can only read it in my phone—which is uncomfortable and draining my battery.

2. Listening to lectures / podcast / audiobook. This option is practically useful for you who can get motion sickness very easily, making it unbearable for you to read books on bus. You can prepare for those situations by downloading podcast or audiobooks before your trip, or you can just stream it if your bus / train provides WiFi connection. I did this once on my trip when I didn’t feel like reading (because the bus shook too much), so I streamed to one of the lectures from my favourite Ustadz, Nouman Ali Khan. I even managed to take notes on the important parts and eventually published it as a blogpost here.

Finally, last important tip that I want to share with you guys who will travel in group: embrace each other! It’s okay when you or your partners make mistakes—even silly ones—during the trip. Don’t blame anyone at those times, because it can only give you nothing but anger and annoyance. When anyone suddenly makes mistakes, like leading you to the awfully wrong direction, focus only to find a path to make your way back to the right direction instead of blaming your friend. Seriously, blaming and condemning will not solve anything. Always remember that you have to protect each other during the trip. No excuses! 😄

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And that's the end of my notes which I have kept for so long. I hope you've gained something useful after reading this series. Don't forget to share it with your friends or travel partners so more people can benefit from this. Until next time: go find those cheap tickets and plan another trip! :D

Cheers,

Elsa