Well-prepared backpacking: these are all the tips and you must arrange this in advance
Backpack around your back and vamos! You can go. Easy, you might think. Until the time actually comes, because what about money matters? And insurance? And oh, what should I take with me when traveling? So total panic. The world is your oyster, but if you do it right. We'll give you a helping hand with this one tips to go well prepared backpacking. And whether the year, month or date is unknown: useful for everyone and every destination.
Per destination, but useful: get your vaccines and necessary visas.
Okay, not the most fun thing to arrange (we'll save that for last), but perhaps the most important. And we hope (fingers crossed) that this really won't happen to you, but imagine... Imagine that your luggage gets lost at the airport or that you have to go home unexpectedly due to private circumstances. With insurance (aimed at backpacking) you are prepared for all kinds of situations. This often saves you a lot of high costs and it is also reassuring. Even if only to give those staying at home a nice feeling.
And if we could give you another tip, it would be to take out backpacking insurance from OOM Verzekeringen. Then you choose the OOM Temporary Abroad Insurance, with which you are well insured for medical expenses and damage. So two birds with one stone. This means you are insured worldwide, even if you are in the Netherlands in the meantime. In addition, the insurance is flexible and can be canceled daily (useful if you don't know how long you want to go) and there are many choices. Lots of options up to you. For health coverage you can choose from Light, Regular and Comfort. This way you decide whether you are only insured for basic or complete insurance.
Another 'must' is purchasing a credit card. While you can often get away with your bank card here, credit cards are generally more often accepted as a means of payment abroad. Are you going outside Europe? Then it's one anyway black.
Another advantage of the credit card is that an amount can be reserved on the card, which is often used at hotels and car rental companies. This is not possible with a normal bank card.
Always take your Mastercard credit along. So that is safer, easier and also cheaper cash withdraw from an ATM.
- Authorize someone for your banking affairs. If you lose your debit card, you often have to pick up the new card yourself, but if you authorize someone in advance, they can pick it up and send it by registered mail.
- Are you going far away? By this we mean outside Europe. Then check whether your bank card settings are set to 'world'. You can often arrange this in your banking app.
- Check the exchange rate of the country you are going to. This way you know whether you are getting what you should get for money.
- Find an ATM. Mastercard has one easy site to see where you can pin.
- Be smart, because losing money is very annoying. Flip's tip: put a fake wallet in a logical place and your real wallet in an illogical place (in a sock in your toiletry bag). Thieves search quickly, so if they find something they don't look any further (or you're very unlucky). In any case, make sure you never have all your important things in one place.
Money matters and insurance, check! From now on it will be more fun. Then the eternal question remains: plan everything or go by the wayside? If you ask us, we would say: don't plan too much, but don't plan too little either. Plans while backpacking change a lot and often. That can really add up in costs (missed tickets, hotels, trips). So take a good look at what there is to do in the area, so that you don't miss the really fun things, but don't block everything right away. Maybe you meet a very nice travel partner who is going in the other direction and then you are either you buddy lost, or a lot of money.
As long as your bag fits properly! Also useful if you can access the bag in multiple ways. So not only from above, but also from the front or side, for example. Then you don't have to empty your entire bag every time. If you are going for less than a month, we recommend a small backpack (40-55 liters), a normal backpack (55-65 liters) if you are going a little longer and a large backpack (65-80 liters) for longer than three months.
And that backpack doesn't have to be a hassle. At the Lidl they often have good options too!
We have a list of the best tips for traveling light – the best packing tips by Bart's Booklet. But a number of things are useful especially for backpacking:
- Shoes that look a bit nice, but that you can also take a good walk with (mountain boots are very nice, but mega bulky and you don't actually wear them enough to carry them around for months).
- Small pocket knife with all kinds of things: scissors, knife, tweezers and corkscrew. You have them in too fit, then they can go in your wallet.
- A multifunctional adapter is one black if you go to multiple countries that all have different plugs.
- Quick dry towels.
- Basic, but don't forget slippers.
