Tomorrow I'm travelling to London with a friend, so I wanted to share something useful about travelling. We will make a hardcore sight seeing tour, so this tips are more for this type of travelling.
Plan enough days. When I'm travelling, I want to see as much as I can, but since I'm problably seeing the places just one time in my life, I also want to enjoy and memorize them as much as possible. So when I'm visiting a beautiful castle for example, I don't just want to make the 30 min guided tour trough all rooms, I also want to take a walk through the park, dream a little how it would be to live there and take pictures of everything beautiful.
And since I'm a girl, I can't resist to go a little bit shopping, even if I planned NOT to do this. So in my opinion, 5 days are perfect if you want to go shopping for a day and do hardcore sightseeing, 4 days if you don't want to shop, but 3 are too less because you have to hurry too much and can't really enjoy everything. More then 5 days is always good but it's also a question of money, isn't it? ^^'
Dress like a princess. Do you know the feeling when you come home from a wonderful trip, want to share your pictures with your whole family and then you think: "OMFG what am I wearing there? O_O". When I leave the house for university, I want to sleep as long as possible in the morning and don't want to spend too much time to get ready. So I put on a little bit make up to look fresh and choose clothes which are elegant and cute, but still comfy. I can wear a pencil skirt and chiffon blouse the whole day, so why I can't wear them also on a sight seeing tour? You don't have to look like a typical tourist to have a great trip!
As a second advise, look at your closet for your more fancy stuff, because in a foreign city/country many people feel safer to wear their flashier stuff, because they can't meet anyone they know who could think something bad about them. It makes much fun to wear flashy stuff and it looks always better in pictures :D
Have your beauty sleep. Or not. When I'm on a trip I want to enjoy day and night, so I'm often not sleeping very much. I always think "I can sleep when I'm dead" xD For me, it's easy to have a little nap around midday so it's okay if I don't sleep so much at night, but nothing is more worse when you are tired to death and can't enjoy your trip. So as a tip, try to sleep longer every 3-4 days, so your body can recover and won't be completly exhausted after your trip so that you need a second vacation!
Have your tea time. I'm not a very sportive person and usually I don't walk around for 8 hours per day, so it can be hard to follow your strict schedule when your body is not used to such an effort. Having little breaks during the day is very important, but don't get worried that you are wasting time! There aren't only new things to see in a foreign country, but also new things to eat! So take your break as an oppurtunity to discover new
culinary specialties. Or do you love to visit museums? In many museums are seats from which you can see the whole room, so don't walk from artwork to artwork, but sit down to choose your favourite ones and take a closer look to them.
Take pictures. During the trip I always have the feeling that I'm spending too much time with taking pictures, but when I come back home I'm regretting it not to take one of this or that. Trips are always special memories you don't want to forget, so tread your camera as if it were your diary! Of course it isn't fun to look at 100 buildings you visited, so try to find something special, maybe a little detail not everyone would pay attention to at first glance, to make your pictures more interesting.
Travel alone. You don't have to travel alone the whole trip, but if you are travelling with several people,
it may happen that everyone wants to see something the others don't want to see. So choose a day or few hours which everyone is spending alone or in little groups, for example the last day, so nobody is sad in the end. I did this during my first trip to London, because one friend wanted to go shopping, the other friend wanted to visit a museum and I wanted to visit the Buckingham Palace.
Eat indigenous cake. Like I said before, you should make a break and taste something new. Okay, maybe you aren't a person who likes to eat things you don't know, but I have the feeling I would forget something if I only eat at McDonalds or similar. It's hard to learn more about a culture if you are staying in a foreign country just for few days, but eating is always a great oppurtunity to enjoy at least a bit of the culture. Even if you tried something totally strange which tasted bad, you have become richer of one experience at least.
I hope you like the guide and find it useful, but you can give me also suggestions in the comments if you want ^_^ I hope I didn't made too much english grammar mistakes xD
Have a wonderful week and stay tuned for my next post about my London trip ^__^
