Entries in Tip-O-Rama (26)
Brad
AOL Travel’s Peter Greenberg says don’t take too literal an approach to airport information - or rules:
I’m one of those people who consciously disobeys airport signs and airline instructions — in most cases, because they’re either misleading, or wrong. And you should as well.
Consider the airport departure boards: they constantly lie. The words “On Time” are — as I think we would all agree — relative. Is the plane “scheduled” to leave on time? Of course it is. But that doesn’t mean it will.
Here’s what I do. When I get to the airport, I only look at the departure board to determine what gate my flight is scheduled to leave from. And then I immediately ignore all other information on the departure side. Instead, I go immediately to the arrivals board and check to see what is arriving at my supposed departure gate. If nothing is arriving there until next Tuesday, I now know I won’t be leaving from that gate. The key here is to get solid information and to retain as many options as you can in the flying experience. - AOL
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Are you really a light traveler, or - should I ask - are you a really light traveler? Tell us how light you can go for a trip of four nights or more. I’ll go first: just over 10 pounds (including day bag/personal item) for five nights, trans-Atlantic to Europe. And this summer I did sub 15 pounds for 11 days in England and Scotland - including day bag/personal item. I don’t know if I’ll ever beat Tim Ferriss’s 10-pound kit which includes a computer. I’ve resolved not to buy another laptop until I can afford a featherweight (three pounds our less).Not all light travelers are cheapskates, but anyone who would consider washing underwear in a hotel sink is suspect in all categories. Mea (ahem) culpa. Here’s a pence-pinching Brit’s recipe (many have to do with food) for stretching pound notes and dollar bills on the road - found in the Times of London. A few of my favorites:
Actually, in most of the places I stay there’s no shame in carrying in food. For the UK I can suggest a cheap lunch which is available in most areas: the delightful Cornish pasty. At t£1.50 - £3 each they make a tremendous lunch. Pub lunches can be a great value too. The Ploughman’s lunch is filling and wholesome - had one of those at the historic Eagle & Child in Oxford.
In west London the lovely Churchill Arms pub is not to be missed. It contains a fantastic Thai restaraunt with a variety of £6 curry plates - a bargain for London. It has an amazing collection of chamber pots hanging from the rafters, and the exterior of this corner building is usually covered with hanging flower baskets.
Back in January I took a quick museum-hopping trip to London and good old Tom Bihn was right there with me. At least it felt that way. We took three TB bags: the Aeronaut, new Western Flyer, and a Large Cafe Bag (borrowed from my son) for everyday use. It was my wife’s first one-bag experience. Usually we’re leading student trips and they all check bags, so she saw no point in going carryon-only. But a rare trip when she’s travelling only with me meant she could give one-bag a try. She’s sold. Skipping baggage claim and jumping straight onto a train from Heathrow was a delight. Crowded lifts, stairs, and escalators are much less hassle without a 30-pound rolling bag in tow. Ditto for wet streets and uneven sidewalks. Watching others struggle with their own personal baggage train on the Underground was further confirmation. Carrying everything on our backs or shoulders (at about 15 pounds per person thanks to her heavy textbooks) meant we could shop hotels. I wouldn’t recommend it in peak season, but we were able to get a much better rate by walking up to half-empty hotels than by reserving online. And the less you’re carrying - meaning you can turn and walk down the street - the easier it is to get a good rate.Leah McLaren of Canada’s Globe & Mail has some tips, er commandments, for the forlorn traveler - some serious, some comically anti-social. A couple of excerpts:
1) Wear a hoodie. Preferably a cashmere hoodie, but any old hoodie will do. The deeper the hood the better. Pull it up whenever you want to sleep or dissuade others from taking the free seat next to you. For best results, accessorize with a scowl.
2) Eschew all silly travel accessories and accoutrements. Beanbag neck pillows, travel blankets and book lights are all more trouble than they’re worth. Comfort is about avoiding hassle, not creating more of it, and that’s exactly what you’re doing while fiddling with your portable Obus Forme 10,000 metres above sea level. Leave such stuff at home, or, better yet, don’t buy it in the first place. The one exception to this is a sleep mask, but most decent airlines provide them anyway.
7) Do carry-on only wherever possible. Pack lightly and stuff everything into the smallest possible container. Hide overflow in a giant handbag and hold it over your shoulder and behind your back to avoid having your hand luggage go over the weight limit. Ignore people who give you dirty looks for filling up the overhead locker.
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I’m not making this up. You can buy zipper lubricant in a can. And it’s called Jig-A-Loo:
The manufacturer calls it a “lubri-pellant” and recommends it for zippers and practically everything else you can think of. They claim it’s non-staining. This would make it appropriate for luggage…or trousers. And, hey, it’s from Canada, eh?
From the website FAQ:
Can I use Jig-A-Loo on garments?Yes, Jig-A-Loo does not stain. Have a stuck zipper on your white jeans, your wife’s dress? Your kid’s jacket? Or another piece of clothing? Just spray it with Jig-A-Loo for quick and clean results.
In an abundance of counselors there is a wisdom - so we’ve added a link for reader tip submissions. We welcome any and all travel, luggage, packing, or clothing tips from savvy globetrotters, frequent fliers, gear geeks, or manufacturers. Heck, you can even use it for questions or special requests. We’ll look at everythng that comes in and publish all those we deem to be helpful. We’ll only use your initials or first name, and your e-mail address will not be saved, displayed, or distributed. So come on, get tipsy with us and share your hard-won wisdom.
So says uber-traveler Joe Brancatelli, prefacing a portfolio.com article on airlines and airports to absolutely avoid this summer…if possible.
If my cheapo suggestion for travel headphones that reduce noise was a little down-market for you, here’s a review of 10 more expensive — and probably better — options from gizmowatch.com.
The Washington Post harvests some neat travel tips from an airline website but those contributed by their readers were better still. A sampling:
- Especially for men - carry an (empty) clear ziplock bag in your pocket. When emptying pockets of coins, keys, wallet, cellphones, wrist-watch, rings, etc for the X-ray - dump all into the ziplock bag. Eliminates standing there at other end of the X-ray fishing coins and other small items out of the little provided buckets/bins - just grab your zip-lock bag out of the bucket and off you go. (ed. - I might add, remove your belt before the security checkpoint and stow it in an outer pocket of your carryon or inside your personal bag.)
- Don’t assume that other countries follow the U.S. standard for passenger screening, like carrying liquids 4 oz or smaller (ed. - 3 ounces actually) bottles packaged in ziploc. They chucked mine in the trash in Berlin’s airport, saying they have their own standards for protecting their planes. They also gave every passenger a good frisking, which TSA agents have told me in this country they are politically unable to do…
- Let the people that have the max size allowed carry on bag put their bag in the above bin before you try to squeeze by them in the aisle. If you want to get on the plane before me, get to the airport earlier…My flights are less then an hour, I don’t check bags because once I waited longer for my bag then my entire flight.
OBOW welcomes any and all reader tips. There is wisdom in a multitude of counselors.
Judy at Mouse Tours is high on regular ingestion of Pepto-Bismol as a preventitive for traveler’s diarrhea. The amount she suggests and the fact that it’s a liquid make it tough for the light traveler, but there’s always the chewable tablets. For travel to many parts of the world packing the pink stuff is a good idea. I hate Imodium because it makes you feel so bad on day two.
Check out the nice site by the nice people at Mouse Tours. Also, here’s Pepto’s official travel tips page, which looks pretty good for a corporate site.
Paring down the weight and bulk of the travel wardrobe is what going light is all about, and it’s achieved not just by carrying fewer pieces of clothing. The clothing chosen needs to weigh less than our everyday duds. Pants - men’s or women’s - are a great place to start. Case in point: A pair of cotton denim jeans in my size weighs 28 ounces, a pair of cotton khakis weighs 18 ounces, and a pair of polyester summer-weight slacks comes in at 12 ounces - that’s 42% as heavy as the jeans. And, the polys will dry overnight; the jeans might never dry in some climates. Obviously, to go light, the place to start is below the belt.Dave Scrimshaw’s hipster travel kit- of which duct tape is a major component (see below).
Duct tape can save your bag or your trip. This is no original idea, but still - don’t leave home without it. I do have a better variety of tape for you though. Scotch Heavy Duty All-Weather Duct Tape is amazing stuff. You can find it at hardware stores or home centers. It really is waterproof and will stick outdoors to nearly anything through any weather - for months. It can probably handle your ripped suitcase or broken pull-handle. I re-wrap about six feet of it around an empty plastic bottle, then cut the ends out of the bottle to make a flexible, flattenable core.
One cool thing - it’s a darker gray than regular duct tape, doesn’t look quite so much like, well, duct tape.
You may decline your right to recline after reading veteran flight attendant James Wysong’s column - lest you fall victim to a curious contraption called the “Knee Defender”.
