CHARLOTTE, NC: Travel in the 21st century is often “travail.” Wanderlust veterans often devise clever workarounds that suit their individual lifestyles. Here are some more great travel suggestions that may smooth your path to satisfying your globetrotting passion. Not all of them will suit your needs, but you might find some surprisingly practical and time or cost-saving.
Carry a Portable Stain Stick:
Since it is important to tackle stains quickly, travel with a Tide-To-Go stick. It’s about the size of a ballpoint pen, and it works wonders at getting the odd stain out while you’re on the road. It’s also a lot cheaper than using the hotel laundry.
Savvy Traveler Tip: A Fishing Vest is Useful Even if You’re Not Going Fishing:
They sell expensive. travel and photography vestsInstead of packing batteries, your passport, memory cards for your camera and countless other small items separately, pick up a fishing vest. The vest has lots and lots of small pockets that can hold any number of things you might need throughout the day. Not only that, it keeps your hands free.
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Better yet, at airport security, you don’t have to empty all your pockets. Just take off the vest, put it through the scanner and pick it up on the other side.
Need Directions? Ask a Postal Worker:
It makes sense. If you get hopelessly lost, look for the nearest post office. Postal workers are familiar with the cities, villages, and towns in which they live and can usually give you good directions.
Pack Some Rubber Bands:
Many times the hangars provided in hotels will not accommodate lingerie or other clothing that is flimsy and slippery. Simply wrap a rubber band around each side of a hangar about two inches from the end. Voila! No more clothes slipping off hangars and getting left on the closet floor.
Savvy Traveler Tip: Instant Soup and Oatmeal Make Quick Hotel Snacks:
Just run some water through the hotel coffeemaker with no grounds and you’ll have a pot of hot water that is hot enough to cook noodles or other dry instant foods. Not only that, the coffee mugs that are provided work great as bowls.
Soup and oatmeal packets are inexpensive and easy to transport. Add some individual serve nuts or power bars and you have a quick breakfast or dinner.
Prescription Tubes are Great for Carrying Quarters:
Use old prescription tubes to carry quarters. When you are traveling in an area where you need toll money, you’ll have plenty of change to throw in the booth or in parking meters. A full tube holds about $8.
Good Website for Travel Planning: If you are looking for events that are happening in a particular destination that you are traveling to, you might want to try:
What’s On When?
The site covers more than 680,000 events in 150 countries and lets you search by month, destination or theme so you can organize your trip according to your interests.
Savvy Traveler Tip: The Train Station can be Your Best Friend:
If traveling in Europe and you get lost or need any kind of assistance, the local railway station is the best place to go. Train stations are usually located in the city center and they can provide information in English, money exchange, food, restrooms, lockers, and many other services.
In larger cities, you may even be able to make hotel reservations or take a shower.
Read More: Travel Tip – European railway stations can be your new BFF
Negotiate by e-mail:
Don’t be afraid to e-mail customer service at a hotel (or several hotels) to ask for a lower rate for a night or two when purchasing several nights. A great hotel in New York recently offered a special rate for three nights, but a fourth night’s rate was much higher. A traveler sent an e-mail to inquire whether the hotel would extend the special rate to a fourth night and the hotel agreed. The traveler not only got a deal, but she had it in writing.
Magic Carpet:
Some cruise ships will put a carpet in front of the elevator door each day that has the day of the week on it. The carpet is changed every night at midnight. A good way to keep track of your pictures on a cruise is to make your first shot of each day a picture of the carpet.
That way, all the pictures that follow, until the next day’s carpet will be shots that were taken on that particular day. It’s a handy way to help keep track of your cruise itinerary and to organize your photos.
Button Bags are Perfect for Vitamins:
The small spare-button bags that come with new clothes are the ideal size for pills and vitamins. Use them as daily pill packs (one for each day), or to keep your pills and vitamins separate.
OK, Go Ahead and be a Little Cheap:
Guys, every night when you are on a cruise ship sample a new cologne at the fragrance shop. Your wife will enjoy the (cheap) mystique, and you might even discover a new favorite.
Build a Foundation in Your Suitcase:
Large soft-sided pieces of luggage with pull-up handles have an uneven inside, making it hard to pack at first. If you put your shoes, or other odd-shaped items in the bottom, then cut a piece of cardboard to fit the luggage and place it on top, you’ll have an even surface on which to lay pants, shirts, etc. Remember smaller items can be stored in and around those shoes but first:
Pack in Zip Lock bags
Pack your smaller items, socks, underwear, soft t-shirts in gallons Zip Lock bags. Then once used, place those dirties back in the plastic bag to keep your unused clothing fresh. Another great tip, take old underwear. And then throw them out. Have a new package at home when you get back for a return treat. Another bonus is that those plastic bags fit tighter together.
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About the Author:
Bob Taylor is a veteran writer who has traveled throughout the world. Taylor was an award winning television producer/reporter/anchor before focusing on writing about international events, people and cultures around the globe.
He is founder of The Magellan Travel Club (www.MagellanTravelClub.com)
His goal is to visit 100 countries or more during his lifetime.
Read more of Travels with Peabod and Bob Taylor at Communities Digital News
Read more of Bob’s journeys with ALS and his travels around the world
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