Wishing all my followers a happy and peaceful winter season during this Christmas and New Year. 🎅🏻🎄❄️
I'm currently travelling through some countries in Northern Europe, where I'm enjoying very short days exploring in the snow, and very long nights in my hotel drinking hot chocolate and getting through my backlog of books, movies and video games.
I'll be giving the camera a rest for this trip, so I'll see you guys again at some point in 2026 when I'm in a country that's a bit more interesting for YouTube.
Travel tip: When you visit a country with a different currency, always decline the Dynamic Currency Conversion at ATMs and when paying for goods and services with your credit or debit card.
They act like they’re doing you a favour by charging you in your own currency instead of theirs, but that rate is about 15% higher than the real exchange rate. It’s a massive scam.
Better to always be charged in the local currency of the country you’re visiting, and let your own bank back home do the conversion. Most traditional banks have a rate that’s about 3% higher than the true inter-bank exchange rate, but with some of the new fintech banks it’s 0% - 1%.
Travel tip: If you’ve booked a hotel on a refundable basis, keep checking the price up until your check-in date (or refund cutoff date). If you see your dates are cheaper, simply cancel and re-book.
Hotels have dynamic pricing and the room rates can go up or down from day to day, based on what they think demand is going to be.
You can even do this when booking with your loyalty points, as these rates are also priced dynamically these days.
One of my favourite things about traveling in Japan is that the vast majority of convenience stores have toilets. Super useful when you're exploring far from your hotel and have been consuming tons of beverages.
I've been stuck in that situation before in other countries, and my plan if searching "toilet" on Google Maps doesn't have any results, is to find a nearby McDonalds, Starbucks or something similar and use their bog. Normally you'll having to buy something small to get the PIN code (or a barcode on your receipt) to access it though.
The konbinis in Japan don't seem to mind if you buy anything or not. Toilets are seen as a public necessity and Japan are very big on civic values. People and businesses look after each other.
I could make a long list of reasons why visiting Japan is so awesome, but number 1 is it’s one of the few countries in Asia where I can eat absolutely anything and not get food poisoning.
Call me negative, but when I search for hotels online, I always sort the reviews by the lowest and read those first. Booking sites will usually list a bunch of good reviews at the top, as they want you to book and pay for the room, making it easy to miss what people commonly disliked about their stay.
Even in a hotel rated > 4.5/5 there can be issues. I’ve found in my many years of travels that almost no hotel is perfect, there’s always some flaw, and by reading the worst reviews I can figure out what they are, and if I can put up with them.
Thin walls, slow internet, low water pressure, inadequate housekeeping, terrible breakfast. If you see multiple people complaining about the same thing, you can trust that you’ll have the same experience.
Some things I don’t care about. The breakfast was awful? I usually skip it anyway. Housekeeping didn’t clean the room? I usually have the DND sign on my door for the whole stay.
But if the WiFi is slow and unreliable, or the walls are paper thin, that’s a deal breaker for me. And better to find out before booking than when you’re banging your head against the wall because the internet keeps cutting off, or you can’t sleep because you can hear loud “banging” activities coming from the next room.
In Sakurajima, Japan they have areas where you can soak your legs in the volcanic hot spring water for free. 😊✌🏻🇯🇵 Check out my vlog from there if you haven't already: https://youtu.be/e263F1_CESE
Dale Philip
Dale Philip
Wishing all my followers a happy and peaceful winter season during this Christmas and New Year. 🎅🏻🎄❄️
I'm currently travelling through some countries in Northern Europe, where I'm enjoying very short days exploring in the snow, and very long nights in my hotel drinking hot chocolate and getting through my backlog of books, movies and video games.
I'll be giving the camera a rest for this trip, so I'll see you guys again at some point in 2026 when I'm in a country that's a bit more interesting for YouTube.
Enjoy the holidays everyone!
1 day ago (edited) | [YT] | 924
View 118 replies
Dale Philip
Travel tip: When you visit a country with a different currency, always decline the Dynamic Currency Conversion at ATMs and when paying for goods and services with your credit or debit card.
They act like they’re doing you a favour by charging you in your own currency instead of theirs, but that rate is about 15% higher than the real exchange rate. It’s a massive scam.
Better to always be charged in the local currency of the country you’re visiting, and let your own bank back home do the conversion. Most traditional banks have a rate that’s about 3% higher than the true inter-bank exchange rate, but with some of the new fintech banks it’s 0% - 1%.
2 days ago | [YT] | 704
View 41 replies
Dale Philip
Travel tip: If you’ve booked a hotel on a refundable basis, keep checking the price up until your check-in date (or refund cutoff date). If you see your dates are cheaper, simply cancel and re-book.
Hotels have dynamic pricing and the room rates can go up or down from day to day, based on what they think demand is going to be.
You can even do this when booking with your loyalty points, as these rates are also priced dynamically these days.
4 days ago | [YT] | 666
View 39 replies
Dale Philip
One of my favourite things about traveling in Japan is that the vast majority of convenience stores have toilets. Super useful when you're exploring far from your hotel and have been consuming tons of beverages.
I've been stuck in that situation before in other countries, and my plan if searching "toilet" on Google Maps doesn't have any results, is to find a nearby McDonalds, Starbucks or something similar and use their bog. Normally you'll having to buy something small to get the PIN code (or a barcode on your receipt) to access it though.
The konbinis in Japan don't seem to mind if you buy anything or not. Toilets are seen as a public necessity and Japan are very big on civic values. People and businesses look after each other.
1 week ago | [YT] | 986
View 64 replies
Dale Philip
The fancy heated Japanese toilet in my hotel plays bird sounds when I sit down, so now I feel like I’m pooping in a David Attenborough documentary.
1 week ago | [YT] | 649
View 72 replies
Dale Philip
I could make a long list of reasons why visiting Japan is so awesome, but number 1 is it’s one of the few countries in Asia where I can eat absolutely anything and not get food poisoning.
1 week ago | [YT] | 884
View 86 replies
Dale Philip
Call me negative, but when I search for hotels online, I always sort the reviews by the lowest and read those first. Booking sites will usually list a bunch of good reviews at the top, as they want you to book and pay for the room, making it easy to miss what people commonly disliked about their stay.
Even in a hotel rated > 4.5/5 there can be issues. I’ve found in my many years of travels that almost no hotel is perfect, there’s always some flaw, and by reading the worst reviews I can figure out what they are, and if I can put up with them.
Thin walls, slow internet, low water pressure, inadequate housekeeping, terrible breakfast. If you see multiple people complaining about the same thing, you can trust that you’ll have the same experience.
Some things I don’t care about. The breakfast was awful? I usually skip it anyway. Housekeeping didn’t clean the room? I usually have the DND sign on my door for the whole stay.
But if the WiFi is slow and unreliable, or the walls are paper thin, that’s a deal breaker for me. And better to find out before booking than when you’re banging your head against the wall because the internet keeps cutting off, or you can’t sleep because you can hear loud “banging” activities coming from the next room.
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 1,462
View 128 replies
Dale Philip
In Sakurajima, Japan they have areas where you can soak your legs in the volcanic hot spring water for free. 😊✌🏻🇯🇵
Check out my vlog from there if you haven't already: https://youtu.be/e263F1_CESE
2 months ago | [YT] | 985
View 40 replies
Dale Philip
What's a country that's on your bucket list purely for its food? 🤔🍕🍣
2 months ago | [YT] | 326
View 200 replies
Dale Philip
Today's vlog was thirsty work 😅
https://youtu.be/e263F1_CESE
2 months ago | [YT] | 919
View 28 replies
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