1. Good Karma

The world should be gov­erned by well trav­elled people. We know how import­ant it is to do well by the people we meet, be they loc­als or fel­low trav­el­lers. And in the end you will get back whatever you paid for­ward. This is some­thing I strongly believe in.

2. Food

Being a trav­el­ler is like being a sol­dier. Eat while you can. You never know when your next meal will be. Food is one way of tak­ing in a new cul­ture and exper­i­en­cing new things, so when it comes to food you should always go local or at least have a go at it.

3. Cam­era Memory Cards

Murphy’s Law in this case states that whenever you see some­thing truly amaz­ing your cam­era will angrily flash at you and give you the fin­ger. By the time you deleted some of those old crappy stu­pid pho­tos your first ever ele­phant will have van­ished into thin air or only show you his bum. Always have enough memory left by the time you leave your crappy gues­t­house room in the morn­ing and always have a spare memory card, so you can switch. And always switch early rather than too late.

4. Patience

If you’re not patient on the road you’ll be miser­able a lot. There’s mis­un­der­stand­ings, people around you when all you want is being left alone and there’s wait­ing, a lot of wait­ing actu­ally. There are lan­guage prob­lems, a lot of hassle with touts and loads of other people try­ing to take advant­age. Just take it easy. After all you could be sit­ting in an office being bored bey­ond witless.

5. Pass­port Photos

This is some­thing you ser­i­ously can’t have enough of. You’ll need them for visa applic­a­tions, visas and then some more visa applic­a­tions. In some places get­ting just four pass­port pho­tos made can be ridicu­lously expens­ive, so stock up when you’re in a cheap place. Get like 20. You’ll thank me later.

6. Con­doms

Although it might be slightly awk­ward car­ry­ing an extra large pack of your favour­ite fla­voured little friends around it’s always a turnoff not hav­ing one ready when you so des­per­ately need one. Remem­ber to pack them in a cool and shady spot in your back­pack and use them fast. They don’t travel very well.

7. Drugs

Mush­rooms, ganja, alco­hol or whatever else takes your fancy. Trav­el­lers love try­ing new things and drugs seem to be very much part of the rite of pas­sage. On the low side they can get you into deep trouble. The kind of trouble where you look at the same room for 10 years or even the kind of trouble that dra­mat­ic­ally reduces your life expect­ancy to zero. On the high side drugs, if used spar­ingly and if you stay clear of the hard stuff, can make you per­ceive your sur­round­ings in a com­pletely new and dif­fer­ent way. Drugs travel even less well than condoms!

8. Time

Without time you only have haste and that’s the death of every genu­ine mem­or­able exper­i­ence. 23 coun­tries in as many days is not the way you should travel. I’m the last per­son to tell you how you have to travel, but just this once I’ll have to do exactly that. Take your time, travel slowly, and get to know a place rather than rush through it. Not see­ing everything you wanted is just a reason for another trip.

9. Fun

This one’s quite obvi­ous and it almost didn’t make the list. It’s very import­ant, though. There are many times when you have any­thing but fun. When you’re sick, frus­trated or just plain fed up with it all. This is nor­mal. The trick is to have more fun than not and maybe develop a bit of a select­ive memory. For­get the bad stuff, except when it makes a great story, and remem­ber the fun.

10. Diarrhoea Pills

Bom­bay belly, the bane of all trav­el­lers. Very hard to avoid unless you have a stom­ach that’s not upset by copi­ous amounts of chilli, for­eign bugs or under­cooked chicken. Once you stood under the shower for hours with food and drink com­ing out of every open­ing you real­ize that what you need is the biggest and most power­ful stop-the-runs pill ever pro­duced. Ser­i­ously, pack some!

11. Money

Some back­pack­ers have hit the jack­pot. Lit­er­ally. There was one Eng­lish dude who won a mil­lion bucks on New Zealand’s Lotto sys­tem. In case you haven’t been that lucky and mum and dad don’t feel like fin­an­cing your global escapades, then you need cash. Spend it wisely. Not say­ing you need a lot of cash to travel, but the more you have the longer you can travel without the incon­veni­ence of work.

12. Com­mon Sense

Some­times you can get your­self into a bit of a situ­ation. Thai­l­and and its lady boys or drugs or gambling or a com­bin­a­tion of all of em are just a few examples. Just ask your­self what would your mum want you to do? And remem­ber, if she’s got big­ger hands than you, put that drink down and have a closer look before you take her home.

Do you have any­thing to add to this list? I wel­come your comments!