Planning
Most travel expectations are different than reality. Leave some room for improv. Consider going in low season to some places. It might be cheaper, less crowded and easier to wing some booking. Use Lonely Planet, Instagram, & other guides to find places you want to see but don’t over commit.

Insurance
Plans from World Nomads be useful for situations due to medical emergencies, natural disasters, petty theft up to $1k but typically most will not cover a cancellation due to change of plans etc... You will need to browse other plans like TCP for professional gear coverage

Money
Have a backup situation! Carry cards from different banks and store them in separate places. If you lose one you can transfer money to other easily.  I prefer ATMs over exchange kiosks. Be careful for pin scams. TransferWise is a great solution for a 2nd money source with free intl debt card + fast & cheap intl bank transfers.

Water
If I had a top 5 travel tips one would be to drink enough water. Get a water bottle and use it. Feeling sluggish and tired will kill your travel vibe. Really helpful to have something around 20-30oz on a long flight. 

Food
“If you see it, eat it.” Eat street food. Go with your gut on food safety but don’t over judge it. When ordering food remember that just because you order a “salad” doesn’t mean it will be a salad. This rule applies to EVERYTHING. 

Phone
A backup battery is a must. I prefer FaceTime audio for calls for the quality. If you plan to use foreign SIM cards unlock your phone one week before your trip. Google Fi has a good unlimited data plan that works in most countries.

Culture
Learn some language: Hello, thank you, delicious. Being able to ask "what's your name" is always a good icebreaker. Put yourself in other people’s shoes. When in doubt concede.

Lodging
Agoda.com is great in Asia. Essentially same company as booking.com but I prefer Agoda's interface & process. Filter by their community rating system (8+) not the 1-5 stars. AirBNB can sometimes be more of a hassle especially upon depature when wanting to leave luggage to finish exploring a city.

Taxis
Use taxi lines and always ask for the meter to avoid overcharging. It's best to have the address you’re going to written in the native language, especially in places like Korea or Japan.

Music
Big headphones are clunky travel shit. Make sure to download your playlists offline.

Scooters
If you aren't confident don't rent them. Wear a helmet. Travel insurance usually does NOT cover scooter accidents. 

Notes
Keep a tiny notebook. Having all Airline information in an offline setting, outside of email, is less stressful. Apple notes works great especially synched. Google Trips has a nice littel app for organizing plans.

Flights
Cheap flights do exist but it takes work to find some or you have to be willing to travel on flexible dates. I use a combination of Momondo, Kayak, Skyscanner, & Google Flights. 

Reserve Budget
Travel plans change and things emerge while traveling that you weren’t expecting. Maybe you want to stay one more night in one location or a flight is canceled from weather. It helps if you have a reserve budget for these situations.

Two Day Rule
Generally I try to stick to a 2 day rule before switching locations. It always sucks to check into a hotel and have to leave in the morning. And most places take longer then 24hrs to get an idea of what they are like.

Camera
Use something that makes documenting your trip easy and fun. A pocket sized camera always works and is less distracting. Ricoh GR II is a great, affordable, pocket camera.