Ehm, from where to where are you traveling exactly? Overseas can mean a lot of destinations depending on where you travel from.

Bring earplugs. Multiple pairs.

There’s always more noise than there should be.

if this is your first time doing a big trip together, honestly, forget about it being prefect. it won’t be, and that’s ok. trips don’t need to be perfect to be meaningful, in fact, i’ve found the opposite to be true. the more wild and unexpected the adventure is, the more memorable and important it becomes to me.

so I’d say it’s best to keep an idea of things you’d like to see or do, but also be flexible and willing to adapt. traveling with someone that forces everyone to stick to a rigid itinerary is never fun and is a good way to ruin the trip. all it takes is one lost bag or one missed train to throw all your careful planning out the window. better to roll with the punches than self destruct when that happens.

We always just pick some key places, get transport (usually a hire van) and just go explore. Best thing is to go into small local places and ask them about cool stuff around. People are always friendly and love hearing about where you’re from and what you’re into, and the local suggestions are always stellar. Lots of times we’ve had people tell us a popular place is pretty shit and another lesser known place is way better. Most of the trip is unplanned apart from the key locations and expected travel route. But we’ll skip stuff if we find something cooler or get advised to check out another place a day out of the way. We’ve diverted from plans lots of times, and because that’s loosely the plan, it’s super fun and rewarding.

It’s also important to go do your own things and get out of each other’s faces. Im into a lot of stuff she isn’t and vice versa. So some days we go check out our own stuff and do our own things, then at the end of the day we share our adventures and anything cool we found we think we should check out later. I also tend to make friends easy, so it’s not unusual for her to meet me and some fellow travellers at a bar and we exchange how our trips are going, what’s cool, what’s not, and suggestions on where to go next. Locals and other travellers are always friendly like that and it’s obviously super interesting learning more and sharing about yourself and home country, where they should go if they ever visited it.

Lastly, don’t stay in one place too long unless there’s a reason like you’re snowboarding for a few days, or something like that. Things can get real boring when you’ve seen enough but are still stuck there for a couple more days. That’s why we usually opt for a 5 person van over hotels, little hotel room on wheels and costs about the same. It’s also frustrating getting to a new place and it’s awesome, but you’re meant to fly out soon and you wish you didn’t waste that extra day or two at the place you weren’t having much fun.

It’s important to remember, everything is just another town or city like where you came from. It’s the culture and experiences you’re chasing there which you can’t get back at home. “Can I do this at home? Yeah.” move on.

Make sure you will have internet access. You may need to buy a SIM card at the airport, or buy a plan/package from your provider that supports the country you will be visiting. It may be costly but it will be worth it.