Traveling can be a special and fulfilling experience for you if you take advantage of it. Learning how to plan trips is not that hard, but it does require some research so that you don\’t end up getting lost or losing money on something you don\’t need. This list of tips should help you become a smarter traveler.

Before you leave for your next trip, make certain that you have a place assigned for your personal documents, including identification. Keep your passport or drivers license on your body at all times to avoid the panic and hassles associated with misplacement. Use the same place consistently so that each time you travel, you know exactly where it is.

If you\’re going on a road trip, make sure you print a copy of the directions. GPSs and cell phones are great help for navigating, but they can break easily. And you don\’t want to be stuck in the middle of no where without any directions! It\’s better to print the directions and not use them than to be lost.

A great travel tip if you\’re going to go on a cruise is to put up something on your room door so that you can easily find it. A lot of the doors in cruise ships look the same so it\’s easy to get lost. Having a picture or something on your door can make it stand out.

When you\’re traveling, if you\’re going to use a public computer, make sure you don\’t use it for anything sensitive like banking or checking your credit card balance. Public computers may have keyloggers installed on them so that once you log into your bank account, whoever installed the keylogger then has access to the account as well.

If you\’re traveling with kids, buy each child their own disposable camera. Tell them to take pictures of anything they find interesting. If they fill it up before the trip is over, you can get them another one fairly cheap. Then they\’ll have something to remember all the things they liked – you\’d be surprised how different the pictures your kid takes are from yours.

When traveling, never take an item from someone to transport it for them. No matter their situation or how nice they may seem, this is almost always a trap to convince an unwary tourist to transport drugs or other contraband into secure areas. Even \”gifts\” can fall into this category.

Keep hand sanitizer in your purse or pocket. When traveling, keeping hand sanitizer with you is a great idea. If you go through a lot of it, considering buying small reusable bottles. Buy one of the larger sizes of hand sanitizer and just continue refilling the small, reusable bottle.

When you are driving to an airport and parking your car in a lot, take the time to research what lots are closest to the terminal you will be traveling out of, if they offer direct shuttles to the terminals, and if there are any discounts or promotions running at the time of your trip. Then select the one that best suits your needs.

Do your best to stow your bag in the area close to your seat. This will not only help you, but it will help the deplaning process go a bit smoother. If everyone was to stow their bags in the first available compartment, it would force the people in the front of the plane to store theirs in the back and really slow things down at the end of the flight.

To reduce the impact of a possible theft while on vacation, bring only those financial items you really need. For example, you can safely leave all local store cards and your checkbook at home. Bring only a single credit card or preferably travel checks in your own name. This limits the number of cancellations you have to make should your purse or wallet get lost or stolen.

When traveling by air, there is no longer any reason to carry a separate toiletries bag. All of your liquids and gels will need to fit into a Ziplock bag regardless. That bag will already be sealed, and will be smaller and lighter than any bag designated for the task.

If your travel plans include photo opportunities through train, plane, cruise ship or hotel windows, pack a handful of moistened, single-packaged glass cleaning wipes in your camera bag. Don\’t miss out on some great photos or come home with a memory card full of blurry prints because of smudged, fingerprinted or dirty windows.

If you are traveling to an area that has a high level of crime, consider purchasing your own padlock for the hotel room door. These locks are more difficult to pick than the ones the hotel will have already and no one in the hotel will have a spare to let in \”visitors\”.

As you make your travel arrangements, consider renting a vacation home from the residence\’s owners. There is a large selection of properties online, and owners are usually very willing to negotiate the price of the home. At a hotel, the employees can\’t always authorize those types of changes to the rate. Always ask for references and make sure that you look at a lot of pictures of the home before you book your vacation.

Travel is a great way to see new places and to relax from the normal stresses of life. Stay relaxed during your trip so you can feel refreshed when you return to work.

As this article points out, there really are things that can make traveling fun and easy for you.

As previously mentioned, we all have places that we dream of being whisked away to. With proper planning you can plan how to make that dream become a reality. By using the tips in this article as a guideline, you may find that you can soon be on your way to places you have only dreamed of.