The first day of a holiday is often lost to things that could have been done at the kitchen table. Passports, the hotel address, the train to the airport, and the question of who is meeting you at the other end. None of that is romantic. All of it decides whether the trip starts when you land or three hours later.
Documents
Check the passport expiry against the country’s rule, not against the flight date. Plenty of places want six months left. Check names on the booking against names in the passport, including middle names the airline decided to care about. Save the booking and the hotel confirmation where you can open them without a signal. A screenshot is dull and reliable. Photograph the passport photo page and keep it somewhere private, not in a group chat.
The journey to the airport
Book the train or the lift for the time you need to be at the terminal, then work backwards, including a queue. Write down the terminal. A flight from the wrong terminal is a classic way to start a week. If someone else is travelling with you, send them the same three lines: flight number, terminal, and the time you are meeting. Do not send a link they have to tap through on the morning.
Money and the phone
Tell your bank you are travelling if they still freeze cards that appear abroad. Take one card you will use and one you will not, kept separately. Download the maps you need before you leave the house. Airport Wi-Fi is crowded and a bad place to set up a new eSIM for the first time. If you are using one, install it the day before and check it connects.
The first night
Know how you get from the airport to the bed, in daylight if you can arrange it. A late arrival plus an unfamiliar bus plus a hotel that needs a code from an email is three problems. Solve one of them in advance. The holiday starts when the bag is on the floor and you know where breakfast is, not when the aircraft door closes.
Do the admin on a weekday evening. Then the first day can be about the place you actually came to see.