6. In St. Petersburg, I made a mistake that prevented me from visiting The State Hermitage, the second largest art museum in the world: not buying tickets ahead of time. The line to buy tickets was three hours long.7. In China, I made the mistake of visiting a tourist attraction that had gone viral on Facebook and Instagram: the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge, the longest and highest glass bridge in the world. It was a crowded, overpriced excuse to take selfies.8.
9. You can save a lot of money booking a multi-city airfare on sites like Skyscanner or Expedia. But, on a trip to Mexico, I booked flights that had only a two-hour layover between them. When my first plane was late and the customs line long, I missed my second flight. And because it wasn't with the same airline, I had to buy a new ticket for the second flight.10. When visiting Croatia, I made sure to consult a cruise-ship calendar so I could visit Dubrovnik when fewer cruises were in port.
11. Coming from New York, I often forget that most places don't have grocery stores open at all hours. I made that mistake while staying in a small town in Portugal and was left subsisting on potato chips for the night.12. When taking the Sapsan bullet train in Russia, I accidentally booked my train ticket on a third-party website called RussianTrains.com, which charged me double the fare for "helping" me book. Next time, I'll make sure its the official site.13.
14. I take a ton of photos while traveling. During my six-month trip, I was backing photos up to a external hard-drive I had bought for a bargain. It broke and I lost everything. I skimped and paid the price. I bought two solid-state "tough" hard drives for the future.15. When visiting Mount Hua, one of China's five sacred mountains, I assumed I would be able to use a credit card to purchase a ticket. Credit card use is not common in China and there were no ATMs at the mountain.