10 Tips For Going Away On A City Break To Keep Everything Running Smoothly

These ten tips will help to ensure your city break trip is a success wherever you’re going - you'll want to remember them for your next trip!

The likelihood is – if you haven’t already – you’ll plan on going for a little break away to a random city one day. Whether that’s to visit friends at their universities, to explore a new area across the other side of the country or going abroad to somewhere like Amsterdam or Prague. These ten tips will help to ensure your trip is a success wherever you’re going as they particularly focus on stuff you probably hadn’t even thought about doing.

1) Fully investigate your accommodation

Whether you’ll be staying in a hotel for your city break or an Air B&B, check out everything you can about it. Look out for things like free Wi-Fi and being within close proximity to the centre of the city as possible to cut down on transport costs around the area.

2) Pack and plan for appropriate weather conditions

Have a little look at the weather app on your phone to see which weather will be greeting you on your city break away. It will help when it comes to packing your bag for the weekend so that not only are you not taking things you won’t even need but you’ll be able to make sure you’ve got the essentials too!

3) Physically write down the exact details of your accommodation

As great as our phones are for storing all the information we could ever need, it’s still a piece of technology that could let you down at any time. The most important thing you need to begin your city break is finding where your base will be for the holiday. By writing the address and check-in/out times on a piece of paper it’s a good backup.

4) Plan ahead for transport when you’re there

It’s as simple as downloading apps on your phone and searching online for the cheapest taxi, bus and train services. It’s likely that there will be something you want to do that’s beyond walking distance so knowing the cheapest way to go about travelling there beforehand will keep your costs down too.

5) Make an itinerary

When it comes to planning a city break there are two types of people: the easy-going ones hoping for a refreshing and relaxing getaway and then the super active ones who often tend to be a little too aspirational with all the things they want to do that day. From personal experience, the minimum I’d suggest to do would be to pick a specific area of a part of the city to explore each day and pick out one thing you could do in the day time or the evening.

6) Utilise maps on your phone

This city break tip is an easy one. The majority of map apps you can get on your phone will give you easy step-by-step walking directions to wherever you want to go as well as listing some of the highest-reviewed cafes and restaurants around too.

7) Get up early each day to make the most of your day

Self-explanatory but handy to make the most of your time in a place that you don’t often go to!

8) Carry an empty bag on you

You never know what things you might fancy buying when you’re out and about on your city break away. Whether it’s souvenirs or cheeky impulse-buys, having something a little bit nicer and more durable than a shop-bought carrier bag would be perfect. Another tip is within your wallet or purse, keep your ID on you. Especially if you’re off out in the evening to different bars and venues, you never know when you’ll be asked for it.

9) Prep food and drinks to take out with you

This money-saving tip for your city break is to find a local supermarket and buy things like a loaf of bread, sandwich meat, crisps etc. so that you aren’t frequently spending lots of on lunches out and about because it all builds up!

10) Pick up your hotel’s business card

Finally, this is the best tip for a city break away abroad. When you arrive at your hotel, pick up a few of their business cards with their address on so when you get taxis and you can’t speak that country’s language, they’ll get you to exactly where you need to be with your hotel’s address in full.