Safety & Health
Travelling in the off season
Winter and low-season travel has specific requirements and specific rewards, and the risks are weather rather than anything exotic.
Joon Park
24 articles by Park
Money
What travel actually costs over a lifetime
Treating travel as a budget line rather than as a series of decisions changes what becomes possible.
Planning
Travelling with parents and older relatives
Multigenerational trips have specific requirements, and most of the difficulty comes from unspoken expectations about pace.
Safety & Health
Insurance claims, medical care and getting treated abroad
Needing treatment in an unfamiliar system is manageable, and knowing the process in advance removes most of the difficulty.
Where to Stay
Homestays and staying with people
Staying in someone’s home changes a trip substantially, and the conventions are worth understanding before arriving.
Flights & Transport
Flying with less impact
Aviation emissions are a genuine problem with a small number of meaningful individual responses and a lot of ineffective ones.
Food & Culture
Etiquette, gestures and not causing offence
A small number of conventions differ enough between cultures to cause genuine problems, and they are easy to learn.
Where to Stay
Hotel loyalty, upgrades and getting a better room
A small number of practices reliably improve what you get, and most of them cost nothing.
Flights & Transport
Missed flights, cancellations and getting home
Disruption is common, the entitlements differ by jurisdiction, and the response in the first thirty minutes determines the outcome.
Planning
Trips with a purpose
Travelling to do something rather than to see something produces a different trip, and several forms are worth knowing about.
Food & Culture
Religious sites and how to visit them
Active places of worship are not attractions, and the conventions are specific and generally straightforward.
Where to Stay
Accommodation for groups
Group travel has specific accommodation economics and specific ways of going wrong.
Flights & Transport
Getting around a city you do not know
Urban transport systems are more learnable than they look, and the first hour determines how the whole visit goes.
Planning
Choosing a destination when you have no idea
Starting from a list of places produces poor decisions; starting from constraints produces better ones.
Food & Culture
Language, and how much you actually need
Fluency is not required and a small vocabulary changes the trip substantially, for reasons that are social rather than practical.
Money
Points, miles and whether they are worth it
Loyalty programmes have real value for some travellers and consume attention out of proportion for most.
Planning
Overtourism and travelling responsibly
Visitor concentration has produced genuine problems in specific places, and the responses available to individuals are more limited and more real than either side of the argument admits.
Food & Culture
Festivals and how to attend them
A festival can be the reason for a trip or the reason it goes wrong, and the difference is planning and conduct.
Where to Stay
Solo travel, practically
Travelling alone has specific logistics and specific advantages, and the accommodation choice determines most of the experience.
Flights & Transport
Budget airlines and what the fare excludes
The advertised price is a component rather than a total, and the model works if you understand what you are buying.
Planning
When to go: seasons, crowds and prices
The shoulder season argument is usually right, and there are places where it is wrong.
Money
How much a trip actually costs
Budgets fail on the same categories every time, and building one that survives contact with the trip is straightforward.
Safety & Health
Travel health before you go
Vaccinations, prescriptions and insurance all require lead time, and the consequences of leaving them late are avoidable.
Flights & Transport
How far ahead to book, according to the data
Airfare pricing follows patterns that are describable, and most of the folk wisdom about it is wrong.