Everything you work out twice on a trip: what time you land, what it costs in your own currency, how much to tip, and what you forgot to pack.
Holidays in your destination cut both ways: some are the reason to go, and others mean closed offices, closed banks and packed transport.
The ones that catch travellers out are multi-day national breaks — Eid, Lunar New Year, Japan's Golden Week and Obon among them. Flights and rooms get expensive, and in some places booking anything at all becomes hard.
Several countries add a substitute day off when a holiday falls at the weekend, so the same date is not necessarily a day off every year. Check the specific year.
The arrival time on a ticket is already local time at the destination. What goes wrong is the reverse: subtracting departure from arrival to work out how long you will be in the air mixes the offset into the result.
Flying east, you land at a clock time much later than you left; flying west, you can land at what looks like the same hour or earlier. Cross the Pacific and the date changes as well.
Where daylight saving applies, check whether it is in force on your travel dates. Start and end dates differ by country, so the offset to the same city is not the same in March as in November.
Plan on-the-ground timings in local time, but keep a world clock for the people you need to call at home. Waking someone at 4 a.m. is the classic failure here.
When you leave home should be derived from the gate closing time, not the departure time. The chain runs: gate closes (typically 15–20 minutes before departure) → security and immigration → bag drop cut-off (often 60 minutes before) → travel to the airport → leave home.
Two to three hours for international departures and about an hour for domestic is the usual advice, but in peak season a security queue can consume that margin entirely. Checking in online in advance leaves only the bag-drop deadline to meet.
With a connection, look up the airport's minimum connecting time separately. Changing terminals, or clearing immigration again in transit, makes the real requirement much longer than the gap on the ticket suggests.
On the way home, leave room after landing too. Baggage reclaim and customs take longer than people plan for, and appointments booked right after arrival are usually missed.
Packing problems are rarely about clothes. They are about what cannot be replaced locally: passport, prescription medication, chargers and plug adapters, booking confirmations and a working payment method.
A checklist works better when you add to it as things occur to you over the days before departure, rather than writing it in one sitting the night before. Then the last evening is a review rather than a recall exercise.
Liquid limits and battery rules vary by airline and country. Power banks generally may not travel in checked baggage and have to go in the cabin.
What matters in currency exchange is less where you change money than which rate is applied. Airport counters, local ATMs and card payments all use different rates and fees. When a card terminal offers to charge you in your home currency, that conversion is usually worse than your bank's — choose the local currency.
Whether tax is included in displayed prices differs by country. Europe generally shows VAT-inclusive prices; in the United States sales tax is usually added at the till. The same «100» is not the same amount.
Tipping varies just as much: effectively part of wages in the US and Canada, closer to rounding up in much of Europe, and not customary in Japan. Not knowing the local norm means either overpaying or causing offence.
VAT refund schemes have minimum amounts and paperwork, and the desk at the departure airport takes time. Budget for it on the day you fly out.
Holiday lists and tax rates change when the rules change. Confirm anything that affects money or entry with the country's official source before you travel.
Exchange rates here are indicative and will not match the rate applied to your actual payment or exchange.
Airport timings assume ordinary conditions. Peak season, strikes and heightened security all require more margin.