Every seasoned traveller carries at least one story of a holiday undone by something that, in hindsight, was entirely avoidable. Across the world and across the years, the same patterns recur — overstuffed itineraries, misread documents, unexamined assumptions about beds and banks and borders. Travel experts in Australia are reminding us that the gap between a transformative journey and a costly ordeal is often bridged by nothing more than a little forethought, and that the best holidays leave room for the unexpected.