No matter how well planned your business trip is thanks to your own SAP Concur Malaysia, or whether you just want to take a vacation and nothing more, your efforts still make a difference in your visit to a foreign country. Your visit will either be fun or a nightmare to experience while your anxiety is already stabbing you in the gut.
Even if the country also speaks English as its main language, there are still customs, peoples and the current status to be wary of. You don’t want people to see you as a foreign alien that isn’t aware of what they are doing or speaking. Feeling unwelcome by the locals is enough to tell you that you should probably finish your business quickly and leave.
Research
No matter how familiar you are with a country, research is still a very important step in the pre-travel phase, way before your plan is drafted and you start packing up. You don’t have to know a country’s historical lore, although it is useful information if you are going to visit historical sites, monuments, and other similar areas.
Know the country’s customs, etiquettes, areas worth visiting, cuisine, and other important information you can find. Besides the Internet, you can also read books about the country. If you are unfamiliar with it at all, tourist-friendly books will be your best entry route.
If a country is ever in conflict, save your skin and forget it. It may not be in a war, but events such as riots can still endanger you, and they can happen in major cities or states. The only reason you would go there would be a journalistic one.
If you know anybody that has travelled to the country before, you can ask about their experiences and advice. This is great if you want more specific, personal information since you get the chance to know about anything that general online and offline sources do not cover.
For instance, your buddy may tell you about their negative experiences with certain areas that turn out to be tourist traps in their perspectives. Now you have tourist traps as your homework so you know better on what to expect about the areas. Such areas may be mostly harmless to go, but if you haven’t had prior knowledge about it other than general info, you will feel ripped off or miserable from having to endure heavy crowds.
Either be wary or better yet, avoid them altogether. There are always better places to go. You just have to keep finding.
Learn the language
You don’t really have to learn every aspect of a foreign language, whether it is Japanese, German, Korean, Norwegian or others. This measure, however, yields a big advantage to you while you are staying in the country. Although English may also be written and spoken there, it is much easier if you do this in the respective language.
Not only you may remove some of the language barriers, but it also makes actions such as looking for directions easier to perform. To start with, you can learn the alphabet as you would to English as a child. Start with the basics, never in the middle of advanced lessons.
Simple, short phrases and words will be your next step after alphabets. Usually, the phrases are greetings, short questions or even telling locals that you do not understand their tongue.