Before you let go of yourself completely and give in to the hype of traveling and the sense of adventure, there are some things that you cannot do without. First of all, the whole effort of your packing and preparing will go to waste if you find out in the boarding line to your plane that you have not brought your passport with you.
Preparing and packing with care will make your vacation much better if you make sure that you bring with you all the things that you really actually need. Before you go anywhere, a smart thing to do would be to do a bit of research about the place where you will be staying. Besides the most obvious things that you need like a plane ticket, passport and your personal hygiene, there are things that you also need to take into your consideration.
Before you decide to take a trip abroad to a developing country, for example, you need to be sure that you have considered everything. One of the first things that you should look into would be the clothing people wear. Finding out what is culturally appropriate to wear is an important way of how you pay respects to the place that you are visiting. If you pay attention to these little details you can avoid being noticed in a bad way. Having a comfortable footwear is always good and useful.
Wherever you go, you can easily expect to walk a lot so always bring something good for walking with you. Many hotels take your passport when you check in. It would be good to have a copy of it just in case. You can never know what can happen on the streets so if there is a need, you can have some kind of identification with you.
Always consult your Embassy before you leave home. In any case of the emergency, you can get some information about the next course of action. Contact your bank to make sure you always have enough money and it would be wise to have a contact card.