There are plenty of options available when you arrive in a foreign city and want to go exploring. You can wander behind a tour guide who recites facts about landmarks while holding an umbrella aloft, you can plot out your own course with Google Maps or a guidebook or you do a city escape that turns the sights into a giant escape room as you run around solving a mystery.

I do quite a bit of traveling for work but this week I took my first trip to India, to attend the opening of a new security operations centre by Symantec. I spent a few days at the southern city of Chennai. On the trip in and out, and while I was visiting Chennai, a number of things stood out. Here's what I learned.

I've travel quite a lot and have noticed that as airlines have started charging extra fees for checked luggage that some people now use carry-on bags that are quite large and heavy. In response, some airlines have started imposing stricter baggage limits for carry on and they are now getting tougher on enforcement.

Travel inherently includes some security risks, because part of security is knowing how things are supposed to work, so you can recognise what's sketchy. Go to a new city and you might fall for a taxi scam, get pick-pocketed — or get your money stolen by an ATM skimmer. We talked to Daniel Smith, security researcher at cloud security company Radware, about how to avoid sketchy ATMs when you travel.

It's time to bust out your calendar and start thumbing through those travel guides. You don’t want to let those precious leave days go to waste just because you got too busy before you organised some much deserved R and R.

Skytrax has released their annual airline rankings, where they tell the world who the best airline in the world is as well as handing out trophies for various local categories. Singapore Airlines took out the main prize, for "World's Best Airline", picking up that prize for the fourth time. But what about our local carriers? Here's a look at some of the results.

If you're travelling to the United States for a holiday or a limited number of other activities you need to apply for a visa waiver through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) system. I had to apply for a visa waiver last night and discovered, the hard way, that there are businesses out there that make the cost of a ESTA far higher without adding any value. In other words, beware the ESTA rip-off.

You can eat pizza for a living, if you’re good enough at it — and if you work hard and get to know everyone in the pizza business. Scott Wiener turned his love of pizza into Scott’s Pizza Tours, a growing business conducting food tours by foot and by bus in Manhattan.

In this video episode of How I Work, we shadowed him for a day and learned how he chooses locations, trains tour guides and makes industry connections, doing his work out of pizza shops and carting supplies around on his bike.

Booking travel and accomodation overseas can be a challenging experience. But one thing I find really annoying is that the prices we pay when booking domestic flights overseas are far higher when we book from here than what locals get. But you can get around that by using your VPN software.

Now's the time, if you're after some great holiday deals, to look ahead and pick up some accomodation bargains. Wotif.com is having their inaugural Big City Sale and there are savings of up to 40% available on a range of city accommodation across the globe. Here are some highlights!

Catching a plane has changed from being carefree and glamorous into a minefield of rules and regulations. From June 30, there will be another new rule for travellers departing from Australian international airports. You'll now be limited to carrying less than 350 grams of "inorganic powder'.

Travelling is a wild adventure, and part of what makes it an adventure is the possibility of complete disaster. Here are some tips for how to prepare for the worst so you can relax and enjoy the best of what your trip has to offer, while minimising your risk for the worst.

It isn't a good time for Airbnb hosts or renters in Japan right now: The private residence renting service was recently forced to cancel thousands of already booked and paid reservations in Japan, all thanks to a new set of Japanese laws that went into effect on June 15. Here's what's going on over there, and what you can do if you were planning on renting with Airbnb in Japan in the near future.

Traveller, let me give you my most useful tip for visiting Japan: The "konbini" is life. It's a one-stop shop for literally anything a wide-eyed tourist such as yourself may need while you explore the brightly lit corridors of Tokyo, or get swallowed by the serene silence of temples and shrines in Kyoto.

Thanks to today’s global society, almost all of us have family, friends and business contacts spread across the world. With so many international connections, at some stage everybody finds themselves faced with the need to transfer money overseas.

This task can be time consuming and complicated, however there is a way to make the process simple, fast and stress free.

If you have ever received a cheque from a well-meaning relative in a foreign currency, you’ll know not to count your pennies too closely before you cash it. Fortunately, there's an easier and cheaper way of doing this.

One of the big benefits to staying in an Airbnb instead of a hotel is the kitchen. If you like to cook, being able to do so away from home can be a great way to get to know a city's culture or just save some cash.

Flight delays occur fairly regularly, but they're a lot less likely to happen at certain times of the day. If you need a flight that's almost guaranteed to stay on schedule, you better put on a pot of coffee - you'll need to leave bright and early.

Most major cities around the world have an active forum on Reddit. And if you plan to visit any of these cities, you can learn a lot of tourism advice without even asking by digging through the archives.