Directions. People give directions in different ways. Some uses landmarks and roads to provide you with some sense of guidance. Others rely on vague gestures and if you are lucky, that person will bring you there instead.

Getting lost is fun and interesting when you discover new and awesome adventures. It’s less so when you are trying to navigate your way back to your hostel or to a specific landmark and keep turning around in circles and different people keep giving you conflicting information.

And then, the era of the smartphones dawned on us and with it, I fell in love with GPS.

It may be more expensive to have a local SIM card with data plan or to rent a smartphone from the airport. However, this has saved me countless times when I was overseas navigating my way around.

I once got dropped off at a neighbourhood in Seoul, Korea. In the middle of high rise apartments, it was obviously not my destination. With no one around to help or even speaking English, I eventually managed to find my way to a subway station, with the help of Google Maps and GPS.

In Sydney, I relied heavily on my GPS and Google Maps to let me know which stop to get off from the bus. I would have been travelling blind and relying on people around me if I had not had these. Sure, it could have made the trip more interesting since there are a lot of unknowns but it also saved me more stress than was necessary.

This is definitely a personal preference but these 2 friends are my lifelong partners for sure. 🙂