The winter is finally upon us and though there are a lot of people who revel in this time of year, there are a lot who despise the cold nights and short days. These people usually enjoy heading away somewhere in the wintertime to enjoy some sun in another country. If this is you and you are wondering how best you can prepare for this trip, then be sure to continue reading as the below article is going to go into more detail about the different ways that you can properly prepare for some traveling this winter.

Be Ready for Delays

When it comes to flying in the winter months, the sad fact of the matter is that the chance of a delay increases exponentially. The poor weather and strong winds mean that a lot of the time a plane will need to wait before taking off or it may be that the flight has to be rescheduled all together. This isn’t the end of the world, delays are a possibility regardless of the time of the year that you are travelling, what’s important is that you are ready for them. There are a number of ways you can do this. The first is to keep chargers in your hand luggage. You don’t want to use up all of your battery and then be unable to get directions when you land because of that – you could even consider a portable charger for this purpose.

You should also make sure you have plenty of activities to do in these periods of delay. One of the most popular options at the moment is to play on different online casino games. The top paying online casino websites are easy to access, and airports usually have excellent WIFI you will be able to use to go on these.

Take Out Travel Insurance

Again, because of the delays that can often occur as discussed above, you want to ensure that you are covering your back by taking out sufficient travel insurance. There are a number of excellent providers available to make sure that you are fully covered. When you take out such insurance, it means that if there are any issues, you can rest easy knowing that all of the expenses which could be incurred as a result are going to be catered for.

Drive Safe

If you are going to be driving to the airport, then you need to make sure that you are keeping safe when doing so. The roads can be a lot more slippery at this time of year and as such, you need to stay alert whenever you are driving anywhere. This applies to if you rent a car in your holiday destination as well. Even though you might be going to get some winter sun, there is always the risk of potential storms that could lead to the driving conditions becoming more dangerous. As such, make sure that you are staying alert, no matter where you are driving to and from on your winter holiday.

Vietnam has become a fast-rising and popular tourist destination. The vivid and vast landscape of Vietnam may leave you sliding along a sand dune in the morning while strolling along the beach in the evening. Vietnam is a country with a rich, war-torn history and awe-inspiring natural beauty. Travelling here can be an absolute delight. Here are some travel tips to Vietnam that are important to keep in mind while travelling here. Some of the travel tips to Vietnam been enumerated in this article.

1. English is Not Very Commonly Spoken Here

In cities like Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, you will find plenty of English speaking people. However, in the villages and smaller towns, you are hard pressed to come across people who know more than a few English words. So it is a great idea to learn some common Vietnamese phrases and the Vietnamese words for a hotel, food, bathroom, petrol, etc.

2. Electricity, Money and Wi-Fi

The official currency for Vietnam is Vietnam Dollar (VND). VND is used most commonly, but some places accept USD as well. Vietnam does not have ATMs in remote areas and it is a great idea to carry loose cash stacked away safely. Exchange money from jeweller shops for better exchange rates. The plug points are all rated for 220V AC current. It is advisable to carry a universal travel adapter. Wi-Fi connectivity is quite good in Vietnam and you will find Wi-Fi in most public places and restaurants.

3. Be Prepared for the Weather

Due to its proximity to the equator, Vietnam experiences a tropical climate. During the rainy season, torrential rainfall occurs and this may a damper for a lot of tourists. Carry plenty of summer clothes – loose, airy cotton clothes and large bottles of sunscreen. Carrying a light jacket and an umbrella is also advisable. Due to the tropical climate, mosquitos are found in abundance. Do not forget your mosquito repellant.

4. The Roads are Fairly Safe

Vietnam has a lot of motorcycles on the road. Traffic rules in Vietnam are not very stringent, and many tourists may find it unorganised and difficult to crossroads. Walk with a steady and confident pace and do not stop anywhere. When you get over your initial shock, you will realize that Vietnamese drivers are considerate. Do not walk displaying your cell phone or other valuables as petty theft is rampant.

5. You Don’t Have to Tip at Restaurants

In your country, tipping the waiter at a restaurant may be the norm, however, in Vietnam, it is not expected. Very rarely do the waiters receive tips and those they receive from the occasional tourist. Feel free to tuck the extra change into your pocket instead of leaving it for the waiter.

6. Make Sure you Adhere to Temple Etiquettes

This is a very important travel tip to Vietnam. Temple Etiquette is of foremost importance in Vietnam. The land has a rich collection of temples that you can visit. Make sure that your shoulders and knees are covered inside the temple. Make sure you do not walk over the prayer mats, even if they are empty and do not walk between someone praying and the Buddha statue. Photography is generally allowed as long as you keep your flash turned off.

7. Napkins are Not Free

You may be used to the waiter getting you unlimited napkins and not having to pay a cent for it, but in Vietnam, that is not the case. Iced tea or Jasmine Tea is free as soon as you order off the menu, but each napkin costs VND 2000 or VND 3000. The waiters even linger at your table and count the number of napkins you have used.

8. The Locals Like to Overcharge

The locals like making an extra buck by overcharging tourists to almost twice (or thrice) the actual price. Shop Owners and Marketing employees are overwhelming here and will try to overcharge you for anything including a branded cloth item. Bargain hard and save myself loads of money.

9. Take your Visa Seriously

Tourists often get turned away for not having the right Visa documents. Be polite to the immigration officers and double, triple check if you have all the necessary documents for your pre-approved visa or visa on arrival. You do not want a visa issue putting a damper on your vacation. Also, check if you need a visa at all. Some countries don’t.

10. Booking Hotels and Hostels Online May Not Save Money

Vietnamese love business and bargaining. When you book a hotel or stay online, you price is fixed, but often in person, you can negotiate for a lower price. In Vietnam, the price of a room is always cheaper on site than online. Also, some of the most picturesque hotels may not show up online. For the best value hotels, check out the back alleys.

11. Don’t Put Your Valuables on the Table

Vietnam is a fairly safe country as long as you do not flaunt your valuables. There are innumerable cases of people losing their phones or wallets on seconds because it was in the table. Escape via motorbike is very common on these kinds of petty theft cases. Loop the strap of your day bag or purse under the leg of your chair. Keep your phone in your front pocket and don’t limp-wristedly take photos in super-busy areas. Place your bag or purse between you and the driver, if riding on a motorbike. Be wary of any strange, sexy women approaching you at night. Don’t let it all hang out.

12. Pay Close Attention to the Money You Receive

If you are paying in VND and receive change in the same currency, remember to cross-check whether you received the right amount. Since you are unlikely to be familiar with the currency, handing over more than you intended or forgetting to check if you were given the right amount may cost you a day’s budget.

13. Be Careful with Street Food

Vietnam has mouthwatering street food and you may be tempted to try out all of them. However, remember that health comes first. Ensure that the surrounding surroundings are hygienic and if the food is hot, that it is boiling. This simple trick may save you from a lot of stomach diseases.

14. Book Your Train Tickets at the Station

Vietnam has excellent train services which give you a unique glimpse into the landscape. Always buy your ticket at the train station instead of the hotel. Your hotel will end up charging you a ‘basic’ service fee of VND 200,000. Instead, buy your tickets at the station when you arrive. Make sure you buy your tickets in advance as they sell out fast.

Get off the ‘tourist’ trail. Vietnam is not just about the big destinations. It is about the unexplored parts of the country that is just sitting there and waiting for you. Vietnam is about the friendly locals and excited school kids who wave at you as you zoom past in your motorbike. Keep these travel tips in mind and enjoy a spectacular,hassle-free holiday!

Going on a vacation with your family can be a tricky affair for there are a lot of things that could go wrong. But if you’re a smart traveler and are genuinely willing to put a little thought on these family travel tips, you can not only have the most amazing vacation with your loved ones but can also ensure their safety and happiness in the most hassle free manner.

So whether you’re going on a holiday or just thinking about some family vacation ideas, we suggest you read these 10 fabulous family travel tips before you make that big move and book your tickets.

10 Essential Family Travel Tips For Everyone To Follow

1. Choose your destination wisely

This is the tip on which all of your other family travel tips are based on. Consider every family members’ preference before you make your mind but most importantly make sure its practical for every family member (kids, parents, spouse etc.).

Example: You might find going on a vacation to Europe in the middle of winters a fascinating thing but for your parents or kids, it might really not be the best idea.

2. Reserve everything in advance

One can genuinely feel the true importance and convenience of reserving hotels, flights, tickets for sightseeing and other attractions when one is traveling with their family. The fact is that it is not about the convenience but more about having not to worry things that can be easily taken care of by just a click of a button. When on a family vacation, it is all about that bond and living in the moment – and reservation allows you that.

Tip: Booking your hotels, flights, tickets to sightseeing and attractions well in advance can not only result in a worry free vacation but also huge discounts.

3. Keep your travel documents safe and handy

This goes without saying but you don’t want to lose your travel documents in a foreign country while traveling and yet at the same time, wanna keep them handy. So what is the solution? Keep a passport holder or a small bag preferably with a sling so that it is handy and safe at the same time. Adults can take care of their own bags, but if you’re traveling with kids, it is better to keep theirs with you and be a just a tiny bit extra careful.

PS – Always keep a xerox of your originals and never keep all the original documents in the same place or same bag.

4. Get to know the do’s and don’ts of the destination before you travel

This is as essential as your travel docs for your safety and trip experience depends on it. If you’re traveling to a new destination especially international, it is very important for you to be in sync with the culture, do’s and don’t and special rules of the place for if you don’t, it could lead to unnecessary fines, embarrassment, or heck, even jail time. Know about the basic mannerisms / etiquettes of each country before or destination that you visit.

Example: Wearing short clothes in the middle east or in religious places would certainly mean jail time and fine for both the genders.

5. Travel light but don’t forget the essentials, especially a first aid kit!

While it is often considered a practical thing to travel light and only keep the essentials – one must never forget to keep medical contingencies in mind, especially, if any member of your family has a history with it.

Tip: While a basic first aid kit is considered as a traveling essential, it is also important to keep your family members with special medical needs in mind (example – an inhaler for an asthma patient or medication for a diabetic patient).

6. Carry things that would help you pass time

Be it a Gameboy, a tablet or even a game on your phone, have at least something that would help you pass your time. One of the best things to carry here would be a book though but if you’re also want to pass some meaningful and fun time with your family, you can always go in for a few rounds of Mafia.

7. Use card more than cash

We all know it is always risky to carry cash, especially in a foreign destination so until and unless, the destination you’re traveling is filled with local shops that only cater to local currency, it is always better to use international debit or credit cards for transactions.

8. Put an ID in each of your family member’s pocket

Write down a contact number (buy a local sim if you’re traveling international), contact details, and anything else one might need if one of your members is lost or meets with an accident. This is not only great for senior citizens and kids but also for first time travelers.

9. Buy a local sim

To save cost on your calls and messages, it is always better to get a local sim with an internet connection than continuing with your native operator. This would not only save you a lot of money but would also ensure better connectivity due to the local network access.

10. Take care of the food

Carry light snacks because with family and kids, you never know. If any of your member is sensitive to a certain kind of food, it is always better to look for an alternative or trust international food chains like Mcdonalds and Seven Eleven.

Say you’re on vacation at Niagara Falls. You want to take an amazing photo that captures the thundering beauty of the waterfalls – but you don’t want to take the same photo that everyone else is taking. The thing is … you’re not a professional photographer. So, what do you do?

As a photographer and visuals editor at NPR, I know that with practice and a few pointers, it’s possible for anyone to take vacation photos that are distinctive and tell a great story. And with just a few more weeks left of summer (and likely a few last trips for some of you) there’s still time to give these tips a whirl.

I asked documentary photographer Daniella Zalcman, whose work has appeared in The New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine, and Jeanne Modderman, an experiential designer at Instagram and a former photo producer at National Geographic, to share their best photo advice.

They say that with intention, a keen eye for detail and a basic knowledge of your camera features, you too can step up your photography game.

1. Think before you snap

Before you take a photo, ask yourself: What are you trying to document?

“Understanding the intention behind a photo is absolutely critical to creating an image that will last forever and have significance to you,” says Zalcman.

That may be as simple as saying to yourself: “OK, I’m going to take a photo of my niece acting like the general contractor of this sandcastle, because it makes me laugh,” or “I’m going to take a picture of this painting at the museum because I like the colors.”

Having a “why” can help you focus on what you want to remember. And it may even help you take fewer photos, giving you more time to – heck – live in the moment.

In fact, taking photos without having a “why” may actually make you forget what you saw.

A study published in the journal Psychological Science found that people on a museum tour actually remembered fewer details if they took photos of an object as a whole. However, when people zoomed in on a specific part of the object, taking photos did not impair their memory. The study’s author, Linda Henkel, says the additional attention and cognition required to focus on those details may have eliminated loss in memory recall.

So rather than taking photos willy-nilly, zero in on what matters to you.

2. Make a shot list

Professional photographers often create “shot lists” – a checklist of every photo they hope to capture, along with notes on style and composition – to ensure they get the coverage they need at say, a wedding or a sports game.

You can try this same approach on your vacation. For example, if you’re going on a beach trip with your girlfriends, you might jot down some of the shots you hope to capture in advance: A great selfie during a night out on the town, the sunrise you know you’ll catch with your early-bird BFF, a photo of your crab boil. That way, you won’t leave the trip wishing there were more photos you could have taken – or get too caught up in wasting your precious vacay time on photos you didn’t need to take.

You can even make a game out of it. “I adore the idea of giving yourself an assignment or a scavenger hunt while you’re traveling,” says Zalcman. For example, if you’re in Paris, you could tell yourself to take photos of inspiring street fashion, or if you’re camping, all the insects you find in your tent.

And mix it up. Make sure to add variety both in subject matter (people, objects, nature and architecture) and in style (details and wide shots, posed photos and candid shots).

A shot list can help clarify your photo goals — and pinpoint what you’re most excited about.

3. Capture the specific and the ordinary

Now that you know your purpose and have your shot list, Modderman says you might ask yourself, “How do I put my signature on this?” In other words, what specific details can you add to the image to make it yours?

Think about capturing moments or objects that may seem “inane or ordinary,” says Zalcman. These scenes may not feel epic enough to photograph in the moment, but they’re ones you’re likely to want to remember after your trip is over. The images may be as simple as taking a photo of your dad napping on the plane or your beloved, threadbare backpack — the one you travel with everywhere you go — in the foreground of a vista.

Tapping into your senses is another way to add dimension to your pictures. “Before you snap away, take a beat to experience the scene with all of your senses,” Modderman says. What’s grabbing your attention? “Is it the wind whipping that one strand of hair against your cheek, or the taste of the freshly picked blackberry that makes your mouth pucker?”‘

Then try to capture those sensory cues through your image. For example, if you’re in a boreal forest and you love the way it smells, instead of a wide shot of the trees, take a close-up of a balsam fir branch. Long after your trip is over, the image may evoke a memory of you rubbing the needles in your hand and sniffing its pine-y goodness.

4. Know your camera settings

So, how do you make your photos look good on a technical level? Learn how to control your camera settings so that your photos live up to your vision for them, says Zalcman.

Light: Pay attention to where the natural light is coming from. For example, if the sun is behind your subject, they’re going to be backlit, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing — it could create a cool silhouette. But if you want to see their face, ask your subject to turn themselves toward the light.

Taking photos during golden hour, the time right after sunrise or before sunset, sets a beautiful stage for images and creates what Zalcman calls “some of the most beautiful, soft incandescent light that gives everything this nice sort of orange, yellow glow.” Sounds great, right? You can use a golden hour calculator to determine when it happens in your location.

Distance: “A very common beginner mistake is not getting close enough,” says Zalcman. She says that beginners often feel timid or worried about invading someone’s personal space. But if you’re taking a photo of say, a person or a dog, you want the main subject to be obvious in the image — not just a tiny speck.

Photographers call this technique “filling the frame.” Basically, it means to fill your image with more of the subject. Remember, that whole rectangle (or square) is at your disposal, so use it up!

To take a good close-up, don’t just zoom in or crop the image with your camera. The photo could become pixelated. Move your body closer to your subject. If you’re worried about getting too close to the subject and making them feel uncomfortable, Zalcman suggests asking an icebreaker question to put people at ease. Her go-to? “Tell me about your dog.”

Exposure: Controlling the exposure — how bright or dark your images are — can give you a lot of influence over the mood of a photo. Smartphone cameras are really good at automatically picking a decent exposure, says Zalcman. But that doesn’t mean you have to let your device override your vision.

It’s easy to adjust exposure on most devices by tapping the screen and dragging the exposure up or down. Use that feature to ensure your sunsets aren’t overexposed — have too much light — or the details of a person’s face aren’t lost in shadow with too little light.

Perspective or angle: “We sort of just constantly photograph from our own eye level,” says Zalcman. It’s an easy angle for most of us because all you need to do is raise your camera to your face without moving the rest of your body. But experimenting with different angles can alter a viewer’s perception of the image – with powerful results.

For example, squatting down and then photographing up at your subject can make them look monumental. Or getting high up (even just standing on a park bench) and pointing your camera down at your picnic blanket can isolate the subject, remove the horizon from the frame and give the viewer the feeling that they’re peeking in on a private moment. Have fun experimenting with how different perspectives impact the feel of a photo.

5. Study your photos

It can be hard to appreciate your photos in the whirlwind of a trip, so wait until you’re back home to study your images more carefully.

“You’ll most likely find some surprises,” says Modderman. “A knowing glance of a friend in the background or a dangling flower from a tree branch that may have been cropped when hurriedly posting [on social media].” Keep an eye out for anything that delights you or makes you take a second look.

Above all, know that it doesn’t really matter if anyone else thinks a photo is “good” if it’s meaningful to you — that’s what matters.