Travel is always a great way to bond with friends! This year, I took three trips with friends; Japan with my high school best friends, Taiwan with the wives of Mor’s good friends and South Korea with girls from our Bible study group!
From all these trips, I’ve picked up a few new tips about traveling with friends. Hopefully, these will help you the next time you take a trip with the whole gang! Have fun!
1. Assign & Share!
There’s no use for everyone to bring these things individually if you can just share them! Talk about who will bring things you can share, such as these:
- First Aid Travel Kit: For emergency purposes. Click link for a guide on how to assemble one.
- Sunblock & Insect Repellant: So you don’t end up bringing one full bottle each.
- A multi-socket adaptor: More on that below!
- Pocket-wifi: Also more on that below!
2. Bring a portable multi-socket adaptor
When sharing a room with friends, you will most likely run out of available sockets (or universal adaptors) so it’s good to have a portable multi-socket adaptor. You can charge all your phones, powerbanks, cameras and pocket wifi’s together without fighting over the sockets!
This PowerCube is my latest discovery and I love it so much that I’m currently in the process of writing an entire entry about it! Because the plugs are not positioned beside each other, you don’t have to worry about your plugs not fitting because they’re bulky! So smart, right?
If the sockets are still not enough, you can just attach another cube (as seen in photo). How awesome is that? Now you don’t need a lot of universal adaptors anymore either; you just need one!
3. Rent a pocket wifi and split the bill
Staying connected is now a must for every traveler so instead of frantically looking for free wifis you can leech off from (and getting frustrated that it’s so slow!) just rent your own pocket wi-fi.
I personally use RoamBuddy for all my trips and what I love about it is you can share it with up to 5 devices! So it’s perfect when you’re traveling with friends and very cost-efficient. Just split the bill and everyone’s happy!
(Get a special discount with RoamBuddy if you use my promo code! Click here to learn more!)
4. Have a “Common Fund”
At the start of the trip, assign someone as a “banker” who will bring a purse (or a wallet with two zippers) for the common fund. Have everyone contribute a particular amount. All money in this purse will be used for shared and common expenses like transportation fare, entrance tickets or even for meals instead of having to split the bill (if you guys shared everything on the table anyway).
At the end of the trip, you can just divide the remaining money again. Saves everyone the hassle of having to give the exact amount every time!
5. Use only 1 camera for group photos
It’s takes up a lot of time when you ask someone to take a photo using 10 different cameras (as in, one for everyone in the group) Just always use one camera per group shot and share the photos after.
Additional tip, you can create a Google Drive folder, which every member can access. Here you can dump all the photos taken during the trip from all of your devices!
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Any other tips you want to share? What are new things you’ve learned from traveling with your best friends? Would love to hear your tips and maybe we can come up with a part two of this list!
18 Comments
Pia
October 30, 2016 at 6:07 pmNumber five is a really good tip! Especially when you’re all IG-conscious hehe. And number four is a smart move — will definitely do it on our next trip so no more hassle. Haha!
http://pepperonipia.com
Sheena Sy Gonzales
October 30, 2016 at 9:12 pmHaha glad these were helpful Pia!
Mohit
November 2, 2016 at 3:24 pmNever be on a trip with one who is not of your kind. There are lots of mismatch like if you want to explore more and the other wants to just sit behind in the room and rest.. So its better you discuss and agree to each others thoughts…
Sheena Sy Gonzales
November 2, 2016 at 11:11 pmIn a way, yes that’s true. But it’s also nice to try new things sometimes!
Galia.Vu0107
November 2, 2016 at 4:31 pmwow! That’s all I need to prepare for my travelling. Thanks for helpful information.
Sheena Sy Gonzales
November 2, 2016 at 11:10 pmHope that helped!
neha
November 2, 2016 at 5:56 pmv useful tips indeed!!
Sheena Sy Gonzales
November 2, 2016 at 11:10 pmThanks, glad you found it useful!
Amy Arnold
November 2, 2016 at 8:38 pmTraveling with friends is the best and these are such great ideas to make it easier for everyone!
Amy Ann
Straight A Style
Sheena Sy Gonzales
November 2, 2016 at 11:09 pmThanks Amy! Yes it’s fun to travel with friends!
Rejoyce Canaynay
November 5, 2016 at 10:35 amhmmm.. Your number 4 and 5 is absolutely helpful. Do check out mine aswell if you have time, I have an entry something similar to this.
love,
reeejoyce.com
Sheena Sy Gonzales
November 5, 2016 at 10:36 pmGlad it was helpful Rejoyce!
Daryl Romion
January 14, 2017 at 7:07 amIt’s So nice to travel with Friends.. In the first. We need to bring first aid travel kit. Thanks for this blog.
IG. @dharomion
Sheena Sy Gonzales
January 14, 2017 at 9:49 amThanks Daryl glad it was helpful!
Agness of eTramping
June 20, 2017 at 7:38 pmAwesome tips! Travelling with friends has lots of pros, Sheena!
Sheena Sy Gonzales
June 20, 2017 at 10:06 pmThanks Agness, that’s true indeed!
anna
January 4, 2018 at 6:14 pmwhen me and my friends travel, we used to have a common fund and a treasurer too, but because of technology, we found out about SPLITWISE – an app which lets you track who paid for what and how much is a person’s share. I find this very useful for the following reasons:
1. you don’t need to actually give your money to a designated treasurer or keep a separate wallet – someone can just volunteer to pay for the bill and log it into the app. (i was almost always the designated treasurer so i was always fretting about making sure that i don’t mix my money with the common fund or to not lose the money too which sometimes adds stress to the travel)
2. the app can divide or calculate your share in different ways, can be split evenly or based on percentages
3. there is audit trail and you can go back and check if everything logged is correct or not before settling with each other.
Sheena Sy Gonzales
January 4, 2018 at 9:40 pmThat sounds like an awesome app!! Will check it out next time!