Created in partnership with IHG Hotels & Resorts.
The best trips don’t happen by accident. They’re the result of a handful of decisions most people never think to make — where to actually stay, what to skip, how to let a place breathe. The five-star reviewed restaurant that peaked eighteen months ago, the schedule so airtight there’s no room for anything to actually happen: these are easy traps to fall into. The travellers who consistently come home with better stories have simply learned to sidestep them. Here’s what they do instead.
Learn Three Phrases, Not the Whole Language
Three phrases are all it takes: hello, thank you, and some version of “what do you recommend?” Not fluency, of course — just enough to show that you bothered. Most tourists don’t. The ones who do get met differently — warmer, more generous, more willing to point you somewhere worth going. It’s a small gesture that signals something larger: that you came to actually be somewhere, not just pass through it. The return on that effort is every interaction for the rest of the trip.
Your Bank Card Should Work Harder Than You Do
For years, the assumption has been that travel rewards are something you opt into — a whole system to learn, a card to apply for, a set of rules to game before you see any return. The IHG x Revolut debit cards, powered by Visa, don’t work like that. They sit in your wallet, earn IHG One Rewards points on everyday spending — coffee, food shops, whatever — and build toward better stays without asking anything of you beyond using it. The Essential plan comes with no annual fee, automatic Silver Elite status, and earns 0.5 points per £1 on non-IHG spend and 1 point per £1 at IHG Hotels and Resorts. Elite provides Platinum Elite status and up to 3 points per £1 and up to 6 points per £1 at IHG Hotels & Resorts internationally. Sign up before 25 August 2026, and the earning potential gets even better.
By the time a trip comes around, there are already points waiting — ones that can go toward Reward Nights, room upgrades, and early check-in at over 7,000 IHG Hotels & Resorts across more than 100 countries. The card also carries Revolut’s existing perks: fee-free overseas spending and support for 150+ currencies. It’s the least complicated version of travelling better, and it starts with the card already in your wallet.
The Best Restaurant in Town Isn’t on TikTok
If it’s gone viral, it has a wait list. If it has a wait list, it probably exists for the photo, not the food. The restaurants worth finding are the ones with four tables, a handwritten menu, and a chef who looks mildly annoyed that you came in. Half the time it’s not even a restaurant — it’s a cart on a back street with three things on the menu and a guy who’s been perfecting all of them since before TripAdvisor existed. The meal costs next to nothing, and it’s the best thing you’ve eaten all trip. Ask the front desk person — not the concierge, the one who actually leaves at lunch. The taxi driver. The woman at the market who’s been buying from the same fish stall for fifteen years and would laugh at the concept of a reservation. She’ll name a place, point in a vague direction, and go back to her shopping. It has no reviews. It has no website. Go.
Leave Space for Bad Decisions. They’re Usually the Best Stories.
Fourteen things booked before the plane lands sounds efficient and delivers all the joy of a Monday morning inbox. The trips that become actual memories almost always involve at least one afternoon with no plan — a wrong turn that led somewhere better, a bar that turned into a six-hour conversation, a day trip suggested by a stranger that had no business being as good as it was. Build the breathing room in deliberately. Not every hour needs to be accounted for. Some of the best travel moments come from the space between the things you planned, and they can’t be booked in advance.
Don’t Try to See Everything. Nobody Cares.
The completionist approach to travel — the one where you tick off every museum, every viewpoint, every neighbourhood on the list — produces a full itinerary and not much else. Seeing forty things at surface level is a great way to come home with very little to show for it. Go back to the same cafe two mornings in a row. Spend a whole afternoon in one market. Walk the same street at different times of day and notice what changes. Depth beats volume every time, and nobody at home wants to sit through a hundred photos of things you didn’t actually have time to absorb. Pick less. Stay longer. The city will give you more back.
The traveller who missed two museums, got lost for an afternoon, and stumbled into the best meal of their trip at a place they’d never have found on purpose almost always comes home with a better story. How much room they left for things to happen makes all the difference.
For more information on the IHG x Revolut debit cards at https://www.ihg.com/content/gb/en/debit-card
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