Holiday Travels

The holidays are here, and it’s the season for busy airports.  I will be flying to San Diego to be with my parents for Christmas and I thought I’d change pace and share with you all some of the things I have discovered along the years that have made travel easier, more efficient, and much more enjoyable for me.

Most people know you can make your flight much more enjoyable the moment you book it by having the freedom to choose your seat in the airplane.  Whether it’s the aisle, window, or emergency exit row you enjoy the most, most of the time you can get your preference if you book early enough.  Also it’s usually a crap shoot when trying to figure out which seat will have a plug to power your laptop, or which seat is best to watch the movie.  www.SeatGuru.com takes the guess work out of these questions.  When you are faced with choosing your seat, I usually open a new window in my browser and head straight over to seatguru.com.  Choose your airline, and type of aircraft (usually found on the same page you just left).  These guys make it almost too simple to pick the perfect seat.  A perfectly laid out cabin with color coding to know which are the best seats (green), and the ones to avoid (red) and the take heed seats that may be too close to the bathroom, or are in a colder area due to an exit door, or for some reason are narrower than usual, down to the “these don’t recline seats” (yellow).  Seatguru has really taken everything into consideration.

One of the most annoying things on the rise are the fees for checked baggage the airlines are now charging.  Here’s a trick I’ve picked up from some of my pilot friends who fly standby a lot to go on vacation.  Since they aren’t sure which flight they will get on, they try to avoid checking luggage all together.  If that’s just not possible check to see how much the cost to ship your luggage to your destination is.  Whether it be a family members home or the hotel you will be staying.  I’m not saying this is a perfect solution, especially if you are going more than one place on your travels, but think about this.  Not only are you protesting the fees the airlines are charging, but you have less to worry about when you get to your destination airport.  Leave everyone behind to claim their luggage while you will be the first one to get in line for your rental car or in the cab line.

TSA…  Airport Security… or as I have heard some people call them… The Airport Pigs.  It’s a necessary evil, and yes sometimes you get the one guy that just wants to be a pain in your ass.  So let’s try to get through this quickly.  My first rule to go through security is to never wear lace up shoes.  I only wear slip ons or flip flops.  Easy on… easy off.  Second Rule:  Get a “no beep belt.”  I hated taking my belt off at security and thought to myself it couldn’t be that hard to make my own belt.  I found myself at a camping store buying webbing and a plastic clamp style buckle usually made for quickly securing straps.  Not once in all the business trips I have endured had I ever had security ask me to remove it.  As a more stylish alternative, I recently came across Beep Tech Inc.  Leather belts with the option of changing buckles.  They offer the no beep buckle as well as a nickel buckle.  I personally only got the no beep version as I have another secret weapon of a belt buckle I use on non travel days. More on this second buckle later.  Rule three:  Everything goes into my carryon.  I mean everything.  Just after showing my i.d. at the check point, I take everything out of my pockets, including wallet, and put them in my bag.  Watches, sunglasses, keys.  The only thing I keep in hand is my boarding pass and i.d. just in case they want to see it again.  As soon as I step up to the xray belt, I put my shoes in a bin, pull my laptop out of my bag and put it in its own bin and follow it up with my bag in this order.  I walk through the scanner, and on the other side, shoes come out first, which I slip on, grab the lap top and place it in the bag and I’m off.

The next gadget I absolutely love is inside my blackberry.  Worldmatelive.  Whenever you book a flight, hotel room, rental car, or train online, and get a confirmation letter via email, you forward it to your worldmate live account, which can then read the info and create an itinerary.  You can access all the information via your phone right down to the gate number your flight is departing from.  You will never have to stop at the tv monitors to find out which gate to go to next if you have a connecting flight.  Just turn it on when you land, and you are off.  This isn’t my favorite feature though.  If you had to check luggage, this will tell you which carousel to expect your bags to come around on.  Many times I’ve traveled with friends who will stop to look at the tv’s to see where to go to claim luggage.  No need for that anymore.  Worldmate live has other features that are helpful.  Global area code directories, up to date exchange rates, world clocks, flight schedules, flight status, and world weather to name a few.  Recently they have added the ability to book a hotel room right from their application on your phone.  This is by far one of my favorite gadgets in my arsenal.

Next thing I want to talk about is the traveler’s new national pastime.  Searching for a power outlet in the airport.  I’m sure if you haven’t done this yourself, you’ve seen people doing it.  Most people have found a science behind knowing exactly how to hunt them out.  But what happens if you find a place to plug in but they are all being used?  I pull out my Belkin surge protector.  3 jacks and two USB power ports.  I have never had a problem asking someone to unplug for a few seconds while I put this guy to use, so we can share the outlet.  This thing is great for many reasons.  First, I never have to bring the full power cable for my gadgets anymore.  I bring the USB cables for my iPod, blackberry, and camera.  Normally I don’t have to power all three at once, in fact it’s usually just my iPod.  Secondly, it’s a great way to meet people at the airport.  Regardless if I have the outlet to myself I always use the surge protector, so if anyone else comes by, I am more than happy to share the outlets.  And third, this thing comes in very handy in hotel rooms.  Hotels are finally getting the idea of putting several outlets in a convenient location.  But some still are in the stone ages.  Plug this in and you should be set.

Let’s talk about these power cables.  They used to be the one thing I hated most about going into my bag for.  Not anymore! In fact, I get a kick out of reaching for these.  I mentioned in the paragraph above that I don’t bring the power cables anymore and just use the USB port cables.  How many of you keep all the cables in the same place only to have to undo all the knots even though you neatly wrapped them up in your personal patent pending fashion?  I’ll let you in on a little secret, most of those cables, come in a retractable style and can be found online or at your local electronics store.  I found mine at Best Buy.  This not only reduces the big ball of wire in your bag but makes it neater and much smaller leaving room for more stuff in your gadget bag.  I have one for my iPod, my BlackBerry (YES it DOES charge and data transfer) camera (same as the blackberry) and I even found retractable headphones.

Whew… you finally made it to your destination and can relax… unless you are on a business trip… in that case get back to work.  Some of the traveling I have done has taken me to some places where I have NO idea about the neighborhoods or how safe they are for travelers.  This is where the previously mentioned additional belt buckle comes in very handy.  When I find myself in a new part of the world or country that I am unfamiliar with, I have this belt buckle just for a little extra peace of mind.  It’s actually pretty useful for things other than protecting yourself.  I won’t go into too much detail as I feel the link to the website will explain why this is a pretty cool thing to have with you.  Just please remember not to use this ON your travel days when you know you will be dealing with security!

Last but certainly not least is my mobile phone.  It is becoming more and more common for international travelers to take their mobile phone along with them.  I’ve read an article about one particular phone that trumps them all when it comes to international travel.  The Tmobile BlackBerry Curve.  And this is also my phone of choice…  Why?  It has wifi capabilities.  Ok ok… other phones have this I know.  But can you make unlimited calls over the wifi without them deducting from your minutes?  I’m not talking about a voip service on your phone.  I’m talking about getting a wifi signal and placing a phone call as if you were dialing with normal cell phone coverage.  Better yet… when you are traveling, you can turn off the radio signal receiver and have your phone ONLY work when it has a wifi signal.  This will avoid those huge per minute charges when dialing from another country.  Pretty sweet huh?  This feature is just an additional 20 bucks or so on your bill.  I think most of us have wifi at home.  So in the long run you’ll be saving money by going to a smaller minutes plan.  When I worked for Zero Gravity I had wifi at work as well.  I had the smallest minutes plan, and barely touched them.  Recently I convinced my parents who are going on vacation soon, to a place with free wifi to get the Curve.  And don’t worry about password protected wifi either.  The setup is easy and allows you to enter the password when you get it, to access the signal.  No more buying unlocked phones and swapping out sim chips.

There you have it.  These are my best travel tips.  There are a few things out there I still want to try, such as ScottEvest clothing, among a few other things.  But right now, this is all I need to make traveling a virtually stress free enjoyable experience.

Do you have a gadget or tip for travel that I didn’t talk about?  I want to hear about it.  I am always looking for ways to make traveling more efficient and fun.  Please comment below or email me at Nomad@TheModernDayNomad.com