Travelling outside of the country needs so much planning and preparation especially if you are travelling with a kid. I list down some of my takeaways during our recent Hong Kong vacation so I won’t forget this once I prepare for another vacation.
LAID BACK ITINERARY. As we were travelling by a group of 7, and with a little boy with us, we need to make a doable itinerary. We made sure that we won’t feel so tired and frustrated because of too much plans in a day.
LOTS OF WATER. If you can bring lots of water during the trip to the various tourist attractions, please do so. Water and meals are expensive in Hong Kong.
BOOK A BIGGER ROOM. We booked a cheap accommodation and ended up having to squeeze ourselves in small rooms. We just slept and bathe in the guesthouse, but still, it would have been nicer to have some room to breathe properly.
COMFY CLOTHES. We are fortunate that even though we didn’t bought a stroller with us, Neo cooperated and walked during this trip. He was able to do it because we made sure he was wearing comfortable clothes. We also packed his slippers so when he gets tired in his rubber shoes, we can change right away.
EXTRA MONEY. Whenever I travel, I make sure that I have extra money aside from the travel budget. You may never know when you would need to buy extra things. In our case, water was something we bought a lot of times. I read blogs and forums about Hong Kong travels and that they survived in 30HKD per meal. That was not the case for us. L The extra money didn’t go amiss.
MTR APP and OTHER ONLINE RESOURCES. One of the most useful thing we had. We may got lost in some areas, but because of these resources, we still made our way back to the guesthouse and back home. I am not sure if this is the case in our countries, but Hong Kong is such a country that people seem to love Chinese language. Everybody spoke to us in Chinese. Whenever I say: “Sorry. I can’t speak Chinese”. They would respond: “No English.” My dad used to say: “Pag may pera ka at marunong ka magtanong, hindi ka mawawala”. This is so true – unless the person you asked can’t understand you.
BOOK ONLINE. Booking online saves you the hassle of falling in line and will give some discounted treats. We fall in line for more than an hour to get our Ngong Ping cable car tickets. As we don’t want this to happen again to us in The Peak, we booked online – and were given HKD30 discount per person for a package.
BARGAIN / HAGGLE. If you’re planning to buy things at Mongkok, don’t forget to haggle. This will save you a lot of money. Start by dropping 50% off. If the vendors still don’t want to give it, try backing off and going to the next stall. You will be surprised that the first vendor will follow you and offer their product at a much lower price.
PS: This was originally published last December 2014 in my previous blog: Baby Neo’s Mama.
