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To live a life without travel is like owning a spectacular and precious ring, but never wearing it. We live in a beautiful world and travel can stimulate and educate - but it can also exasperate. Poor weather, delays, lost possessions, over-enthusiastic shop traders and a multitude of other irritations can tarnish your holiday if you're not physically and mentally prepared.

These tips may not make the sun shine, but they'll brighten up your holiday.

VACATION LOCATION SELECTION

Choosing the right place in the first place will go a long way towards ensuring a happy holiday.

- Make sure everyone has an input into choosing the destination so that you have everyone's buy in', including any children.

- Use holiday review websites to get feedback on the hotels and activities in the area.

- Make sure you're going at the right time of year. Are you going during a festival or special event? This may mean shops are shut, or perhaps a party atmosphere.

TO PLAN OR NOT TO PLAN

Before you set off you will need to get yourself organised. We all know that prevention is better than cure, so a degree of planning will be necessary to help avoid any nasty surprises. However, if you scrutinise every last detail you are mentally reinforcing that everything needs to be perfect, which will make it harder to deal with if things do go awry.

Here are the important things that you need to get right; the rest you can embellish to taste:

- Passports: make sure you have everyone's, not just yours! And make sure they're up to date within at least 6 months.

- Tickets: have you got all the tickets you need for every member of the group? Flight and hotel tickets are easy to remember, but what about car-hire, trains, coaches and pre-booked excursions?

- Do you need visas? If so then order them well in advance because there can be delays.

- Travel insurance can be crucial depending upon what you're doing and where you're going.

- Have you had the required jabs if you're going somewhere exotic? It's hard to beat a tropical disease for creating stress

- Don't rush! Give yourself plenty of time to do everything, before and during your holiday.

Now you have the bureaucracy out of the way you can be fairly confident you will get there and back alive. There's still more to think about though

PACK APPROPRIATELY
Create an inventory well before the trip so that you can plan what to take. Taking too much or not enough can both be frustrating, so make sure you take the right things for what you want to do.

- Check the luggage

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