1. How To Release A Stuck Zipper On The Road
I’m enjoying the travel tips … and have a recommended addition to # 26 re: the “stuck zipper”. While lip balm or candle wax aren’t always available to free up a stuck zipper, soap always is! And it’s free. And it washes away easily when necessary. I’ve used it for decades and it ALWAYS works. It is also useful when the slide-away handles of rolling luggage get stuck … just rub the rails of the slider with any bar soap and voila … as good as new!
Barton Hodes, Tucson, Arizona
2. Ladies, How To Pack Light
PACK LIGHT, WOMEN, REGARDLESS OF LENGTH OF STAY:
Avoid waiting at the airport or worse yet, experiencing lost luggage. For a spring, winter, or fall trip to England: Travel with just a carry-on and a smaller purse/bag. In two-gallon Ziplock bags, pack 3 short-sleeve knit shirts, 2 long-sleeve knit shirts, 1 sweater, and two pr. of black wrinkle-free dress pants. (two shirts or pants per bag. Makes for easy retrieval of your clothes, especially if you have to dump everything out at the airport, and keeps clothes from getting wrinkled.)
Also pack two Cudl-Duds t-shirts and two Cudl-Duds long johns. Works for pjs and layering if the weather is cold. On the plane, wear black wrinkle-free dress pants, long-sleeve knit shirt, polar fleece zip jacket and rain-repellent lined jacket with hood. Wrinkle-free black pants and black shoes always looks semi-dressy. Take Tide packets and a clothesline.
Whether you’re going to be gone for 7 days or 17 days, these clothes, along with a few undies and sox, will be plenty for the entire trip, since you can do mini-laundry every few days. Of course you’ll take the toiletries that fit into a quart ziplock, copies of your documents, and your camera.
3. How To Avoid Holding People Up On Metro Systems
DON’T HOLD UP THE QUEUE:
For quick passage through Tube Turnstiles, keep your Visitor Travelcard or Oyster card in your inside left breast pocket of your jacket (if right-handed) and right inside breast pocket (if left handed). If you don’t have an inside pocket, sew one in by hand. It’s very handy for quick retrieval and safe-keeping of your travelcard.
Judy
4. How To Avoid Jet Lag
ANOTHER JET-LAG AVOIDANCE TIP:
Don’t change your watch until you get to your destination. That way, you’ll avoid the extra meals they try to give you on the plane. When you look at your watch and it’s only 2 A.M., refuse the breakfast they want to give you, although you should drink a lot of water in flight. Make your first meal of the day the one that coincides with a meal at your point of departure. The worst thing is to arrive at your destination full and miserable because you’ve eaten meals that would have been, back home, the middle of the night! And plan to go to bed early that first night.
Judy
5. How To Safely Store Your Emergency Cash And Credit Cards
Hi, love all the tips but I add this to protecting travel documents (copies), the extra credit card and cash I have no intention of needing or using. I place it all in an envelope and duct tape it to the underside of the liner. This way it cannot be found or accidentally misplaced during security searches. Thanks, Katy
If You Have A Travel Tip, Please Leave It In the Comments Box Below Or Email Me At michael@mobalphone.com
I also agree not to send via e-mail on ordinary mail-
put it in international youth hostel’s e-mail “vault.”
It’s very secure and can hold all of your passport, hotel, international driver’s licence, credit card, insurance, airline ticket, etc. info and can only be accessed with your password. I’ve used it for the past ten years’ worth of trips, and just update it when we’re ready to travel. As for taping stuff under the liner – I shudder to think what would happen if the bag were “lifted!” Even carry-ons can
disappear in the crush of baggage areas.
I have to disagree with putting your credit card numbers and other valuable information into your webmail account. Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and others are not secure and if you were able to ask each if they would recommend it, I’m certain the answer would be NO. It would be especially treacherous if you were accessing it from a public computer.
Check out the silk waist pouch by Bellhop. I couldn’t stand pouches, until I came across this one. I wore this for the better part of a month and never once noticed it. The super soft & super flexible makes the difference. Also there’s an upgrade one with more compartments, but that one already is too bulky.
(I think Lewis & Clark’s silk one might be the same thing but also marketed under the Bellhop name?)
I got mine through REI.
I hatehatehate money belts; the neck ones too. Of course we’ve used them, but has anyone got other ideas? Thanks Gerry for the tip about scanning info and sending it to self on line. Is it safe?
I wear a watch that has two faces when I travel internationally. One face is set to my home time and the other to the time zone where I will be traveling. I always know what time it is at home so that I don’t make a phone call and wake someone up in the middle of their sleep night, and I always know what time it is in the country where I am traveling. These watches are not expensive and can be purchased online from Magellan’s or Travel Smith.
To retrieve copies of your credit cards,passport and/or medical information, scan them and send them to yourself as an email attachment on a webmail account. They can be accessed from anywhere. Gmail, yahoo mail or msn are good examples. You can always get to them from a hotel or intenet cafe, worldwide, 24 hr/day.
/Gerry
In the tip #5 regarding copies of documents and credit cards–duct tape under WHAT liner?
I have a comment to Katy’s tip for hiding the spare card and money. You might have gotten away with this so far, however, Duct tape isn’t the best tape to use as it will show on the x-ray machine as metallic. That would be a bell for a search because of it’s hiding place. I don’t travel with a lot of extra cash so I keep it on me at all times. As for my extra cc’s, they never leave my site either. If you want a different place for them, use a money belt.
I definitely agree. When the international flight begins, we change our watches to the correct time in the city in which we will land. We drink lots of water, and try to get as much sleep as possible. When breakfast is served, we eat it. Then, when we land, we’re always ready to hit the ground running.
Regarding the tip for avoiding jet lag… When I regularly flew between the US and the Philippines — two to three times per year — I actually found it more helpful to change my watch as soon as I got onto the plane, to the local time of the place where I was headed. The flight typically arrived at about sunrise, and the airline served breakfast about an hour before landing, all of which helped to reset my body clock to the new local time. I suppose each person has a practice that works for him/her. Also, I was spending more than a few days at each arrival point; Judy may only have been traveling for a couple of days, in which case I could see not wanting to reset your body clock to another time zone.