traveling light

1. never discount the value of sunscreen. even if you're brown as a walnut already and have spent most of your life in muggy subtropical hills facing the sun every morning for an hour for the school assembly. wash off your sunscreen in the ocean and lie baking in the 7pm sun on a bourgie beach on the east coast and your face will feel unpleasantly warm, invite comments on a becoming blush the next day and then gradually feel like the tanned, dried out hide it is. after this, all you can do is wait for it to peel off. so yes, remember to put your sunscreen in your bag along with the sunglasses, beach towel, water bottle, camera, maps and book.
2. do your laundry before you leave. that way you don't have to return to a week of doing laundry everyday to eliminate the mountain you've accumulated.
3. you really don't need four dresses for a weeklong vacay.
4. sensible girls don't go dancing on feet that've been killing them already.
5. flats are not sensible walking shoes. invest in some before you decide to walk 13 miles in one day.
6. always eat at vietnamese or thai restaurants if you cannot abide american fare and shelled sea creatures. they're cheap, lighter and more flavoursome than the hunk of grilled salmon and buerre blanc and greens you'll probably end up ordering elsewhere. but always go a few fancy places. after having checked their menus out of course.
7. never order a virgin pina colada.
8. never tell the waitress that you don't drink alcoholic beverages when she arrives with one at your table compliments of someone or the other in a fancy restaurant on the waterfront which doesn't allow men in the bar unless they're properly attired. reserve that attitude for bars.
9. if you meet a competition sailor with a cute accent and he follows you to the pier to ask if he'd scared you off earlier with some harmless remark, do not lie back on the deck chair with your book, clearly unwilling to vacate it, and just let him ask you if he could show you his boat.
10. never entertain invitations to boats extended by tipsy persons.
11. when you do get on a yacht, remember to take pictures instead of focussing all your energies on retaining everything they say about sailing for some vague future reference which will never materialise. 
12. kids selling lemonade for 50c along a beach trail will charge you a dollar for plain water.
13. the picture will never replicate what you are seeing. stop trying to make it so.
14. don't flip out when the greyhound is late, you don't have tickets, the ticket counter is closed, and you really need to check-in to your accommodations in a different town in order to avoid paying two establishments for a night's stay.
15. when someone offers you a ride to a place you can't engineer a day-trip to using public transport, take them up on the offer instead of taking the ferry elsewhere and telling yourself you'll come back later with better plans.
16. avoid the hard rock cafe in boston at all costs.
17. telling yourself that you're just going to take a couple of hours for a stroll through a few places in boston and get something to eat is a blatant lie. always set aside six hours between connections.
18. always use megabus and the chinatown buses.
19. always stay in hostels.
20. never fear unintentional trespassing.