It's all about timing...

Paper and pencil.  The OG of planning.  

It may seem a little archaic, the idea of writing down plans on a piece of paper and scratching out as you change them.  And with so much tech out there to plan for you, the actual art of writing something down is disappearing.  (Minus sticky notes.  Sticky notes will be around forever.)

But there's something to be said for planning using paper and pencil.  Your brain actually processes information differently when you use your hands to write out what you are trying to do.  Planning for big things requires your brain to process multiple steps at once.  You have to think about the every day, the hiccups along the way, and then the overall timing of getting to where you need to be.  When planning for a bigger trip with multiple stops, writing it out helps you process things like driving time, airport waits, train switches, and a variety of other time suck things that can happen on a trip.

Because if you don't plan accordingly, you lose so much time you could have had for actual adventures.

Traveling around the world requires you to know time, and not the what the hands on the clock mean. The world operates on 24 hour time notation, or "military time", when it comes to things like train and bus departures.  For example, when looking at a train schedule, the time 07:00 means 7 AM, whereas 19:00 means 7 PM.  You won't see AM or PM on schedules.  This is to ensure that there is less confusion for arrivals and departures, but if you don't understand it, it can be really confusing.

Check out our SHOP Link for resources and practice for 24 hour time notation.  Practice writing it out and using the schedules to teach your brain to convert the time automatically to help make planning easier and to avoid losing time during your trip!

Side Note:
Dates and times are key understandings in international travel.  While the United States writes dates as Month/Day/Year, you will see the dates outside of the US written as Day/Month/Year.  Remember this as you look up things to do.  It can be disastrous if you plan an event to happen on July 8th, only to learn you booked it for August 7th!