While I plan marketing strategy for a travel company day-in and day-out, the irony of our annual summer vacation was that I completely failed to plan it. At the last minute, I asked Zain Iqbal, one of our editors, for a recommendation and he said take a road trip! He was even kind enough to put together a detailed itinerary for us. Therefore, if you ever find yourself on a last-minute trip from San Francisco to Colorado, review this checklist for some ideas on what to see and do.

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After traveling through Europe and becoming an expert at remaining friends with my travel companions, I decided I was up for a bit of a challenge. I traded in the well-worn Eurorail for the wild open road of New Zealand. My trusty friends were swapped for a boyfriend. And instead of checking into a different hostel every night, we spent the majority of the evenings sleeping in our van.

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Arrive at dawn to a small town in Southern India after a minimum of 36 hours of travel including a night spent on the airport floor. Find your way to the train station by a circumambulatory mission on foot that involves delightful views of the highways and near-death-experiences.

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You leave for your vacation with a bag full of clean clothes, a guide book and your favorite buddy in tow. But how can you be sure your friendship will survive long days, missed flights and strange situations? Spending 24 hours a day with someone can put a strain on even the strongest friendships, but if you follow these rules, there’s a good chance you’ll arrive home with nothing but pleasant memories and your friendship intact.

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I was recently catching up on some past episodes of “Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” – a favorite with the editorial staff here at Offbeat Guides – when, much to my surprise, the first season episode from Uzbekistan came on the air. Now, I have a heartfelt connection to that remote, doubly-landlocked Central Asian country, having lived there as a Peace Corps Volunteer for a time between 2004 and 2005. While I think Anthony did a fine job eating his way through the country (as he usually does,) there were some finer points that he overlooked if you plan on getting through an Uzbek wedding intact.

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Lighthouse lovers abound so what better way to celebrate their fascination then cast a beam of light on how to have the extraordinary travel experience of a stay—overnight or longer—in a lighthouse tower’s round rooms with wraparound views or a visit in a lighthouse keeper’s quaint, adjacent cottage. A coastal sojourn may not sound that new, but staying in a lighthouse is.

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It’s a fact: offbeat travelers are good with their hands! You pitch tents, tie Sailor’s knots, sport henna tattoos and heft suitcases. And if you’re planning a trip to the Middle East, where many common Western gestures have very different meanings, your manual dexterity is one asset you’ll want to keep handy. Here’s a list of some of the most important signage to understand on Arabian nights.

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Ever have the feeling that you just want to get up and go? On such a whim, I found myself in a foreign country where English wasn’t the first, or even second language, and I was all alone. I was on a packed public bus in Vietnam trying to find my hostel and doing my best to communicate with the bus driver who did not speak a lick of English. I got off the bus feeling helpless and tried to make sense of my surroundings. A cry of “Lady, u lost?” made me turn around and face a Vietnamese guy on a scooter. Within minutes, he figured out where I needed to go, drove me there on his scooter and gave me some banana bread that he had in his basket. It was this experience that made me realize that traveling as a solo female opens a world of opportunities and experiences that are not available to traveling couples or groups.

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“I should’ve never left the hotel room.” This was my thought as I stared past the thick stream of honking motorbikes, buses, bicyclists and taxis that created a river between my hotel and me. The passing automobiles ran so closely together that if I squinted my eyes, all the vehicles merged into one very long, noisy, and seemingly unending train.

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Ok, so maybe we can’t promise how to do everything, but this week we’ll try our best to illuminate you on some of our fave ways survive weddings, party on remote Mediterranean islands, go green when choosing a hotel, or even just cross the street in Southeast Asia. In the meantime, get inspired with some of these unique instructional signs.

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