Perhaps I’m not a professional traveler, as I’ve never been paid to travel (wait, do work trips count?), but I have a few notches in my belt. While not complete, here’s a couple silly tips I’ve picked up over the years, in no particular order, and mostly around traveling light.
1.) To be fair, “travel light” is probably the first tip. If you can avoid checking your luggage, only you’re at fault if it ends up lost/battered. If you must check luggage, try the ol’ toss a gun in the bag for good measure trick. Hey, it always worked for Indiana Jones.
2.) Roll your clothing. It helps eliminate wrinkles, and seems to ease efficient packing. Think of those long four block single row pieces from Tetris – they always came in handy.
3.) Wear all your heaviest clothing/shoes/outerwear on your person, even in layers if you must (in the northwest, it’s quite en vogue anyhow).
4.) Do you really *need* to bring liquids at all? I mean, they have Suave shampoo in city XYZ, don’t they?
5.) Figure out exactly how many outfits you’ll need, and plan in advance. I like to wear all black-based outfits, or all brown-based outfits, per each trip. This eliminates doubling up on staples like a brown belt and a black belt, or brown shoes and black shoes. If you’re worried about looking like Wednesday Addams, pick brown.
6.) When checking in to the hotel, I always ask for a late check out. Because you never know, and if they’re going to give it to you, why the heck not? They’ve never said no. It’s like buy 20 hours, get 3 free!
7.) When you check in for your flight, try to use the kiosk to avoid lines (if you haven’t pre-printed via the Intertubes). Always check for a better seat, even if you already did so online. There’s a certain method to trying to hit the traveler’s jackpot (i.e., no one in the seat next to you) – if you see an option where there’s an open window with two open seats next to it, or an open window, open middle, and sold aisle seat, always pick the latter combination, even if it’s a few rows further back. Chances are no one is going to pick the middle seat in between, as there’s usually lots of these to choose from. But a couple trying to move up to the front of the plane will jump on the middle and aisle seat combo.
8.) Postcards are great souvenirs that you don’t have to pack, if you have time to write a thoughtful note on them. “Wish you were here!” does not count. If you don’t have time for postcard hunting, stamp finding, and mailbox depositing, there’s a cool app for the iPhone called Shoot It! that allows you to turn any photo into a postcard with customized text printed on the back which they then mail to whichever lucky recipient(s) you’ve picked form your Address Book. It’s quite nifty, and nice because unlike postcards, you can actually be in the photo you are sending to Mom. Shoot It! is a free app but each postcard costs about a buck, which really is more than I usually spend on a postcard plus stamp anyhow. If you’re handy with your Google-fu, you can probably find a lot of coupon codes for free credits too. *cough* :-)
Alright, time for bed. Oh wait, one more:
9.) Talk to everyone, and bring memorable business cards. You never know how soon you’ll be back to this city.
Signing off from Los Angeles,
Cass
P.S. Don’t judge me too much for the overly obvious or poorly flushed out stuff herein, this post was written entirely stream-of-consciousness style. :-)
UPDATE: Wearing a skirt will automatically get you padded down in LAX it seems, so avoid skirts! Unless of course, you like that sort of thing.
