I was going to make this a generic blog post about mistakes first-time travellers make, but then I decided it would be more interesting to talk about my own mistakes - because I've made plenty, and why not learn from it?
I did not chill out on my journey over here
Flying makes me nervous. I get anxious when it comes to time-keeping. I struggle to sleep on planes. These are all warning signs that I'm not going to do well on a long journey. I was so tired by the time I got to Abu Dhabi (I flew Newcastle-London-Abu Dhabi-Sydney) I booked myself a sleeping pod for 3 hours because I was there for 9; I didn't sleep a wink because I was so nervous about missing my plane.
I slept as soon as I got here
As you can imagine after reading the above, I was shattered when I got here. But everyone told me "sleep when it's night time - ride it out and you won't get jet lag". That's difficult after 37 hours of no sleep so as soon as I sat on my bed I fell asleep; I had jet lag for four days. Oops.
I have a classic case of over-packing syndrome
Not only did I have a backpack that was the size of me, I managed to overpack it on numerous occasions – it's even been labelled oversized at airports (it weighed 26kg at one point). I looked like an ant carrying its final meal. I literally had to hoist the backpack onto a seat so that I could sit down in front of it and strap it on before standing up.
I blew my money in the first few weeks
I worked my ass off at home to save $5,000 to get over here, and I blew it in a matter of weeks. I definitely don't advise that. Here's a blog on a one month Australia travel budget.
Similarly, until recently I haven't really saved my money
Why change the habit of a lifetime? But no, honestly, don't be me. I ran out of a money on a couple of occasions, and at one point had to go and work in the Outback to get myself in a good position again.
I forgot my own fashion sense for a while
For some reason, coming out here made me think I didn't need to care about what I wore (and believe me, sometimes I still don't look like I care) but when I first got here I wore a bumbag. Genuinely. I wore shorts that came to an awkward length – about an inch above my knee. And nearly the entire time I worked on the farm I could have been mistaken for a man. Sorry fashion world.
Drinking the night before a flight
Now I have no idea why I did this because I know how horrific my hangovers are. But there I was on a night out, with a flight booked at 11 am and an apartment inspection at 8 am. I got in at 5.30 am. Safe to say I was there about 2 minutes before check-in closed. That was not a good day, or flight, or very long swervy taxi journey once I got to my destination.
When we road tripped from Sydney we spent waaaay too long in places
We were meant to road trip from Sydney to Cairns – we got as far as Brisbane. My first mistake was I only saved for three weeks (see, I wasn't any good at saving) the second was that none of us knew anything about cars so we got taken for a ride (accidental pun there) and the third was that we stayed everywhere for too long. Ever heard of a place called 'The Entrance'? No? We hadn't either, there was nothing there, yet we stayed for five days! And we lived on a Brisbane campsite for about two weeks. Here's a blog post on the trials and tribulations we faced on that whole trip.
I've booked more than one long bus journey
I had a horrifically long bus journey from Brisbane to Longreach: it took 18 hours. I vowed never to do that again. I've just booked a 22-hour coach from Alice Springs to Darwin. So, lesson well learned?
And last but not least, I made my way down the East Coast instead of up
I have no idea of my reasoning behind it. It meant that every time I made mates, I'd ask "where you off to next?" And every time they'd say somewhere I'd just been.
So there we have it, my first-time traveller mistakes. I'd like to say I've learned from them, but let's be honest, you make the same mistake at least five times before you finally get the idea.
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