I was poking around in my Snapchat settings last month (go to Settings, Additional Services, Manage, then Lifestyle & Interests if you’re curious) and I noticed they’d placed me in 2 categories: Frequent Travelers and Travel Enthusiasts.
I love to travel. I think I’ve spent more time traveling in the last 2 years than I have in my entire life. One of the reasons why I love to travel so much is because of everything it teaches. There’s no better way to determine whether your gear and your technique actually work than to use them, make changes based on what you learn, and then use them again.
In that spirit, I’d like to pass on some of what I’ve learned so far. This is intended to be consumed in tandem with my Essential Travel Gear piece.
Travel is fluid, so everything in this piece will be as well, given that they all depend on a number of factors such as method of travel, length of stay, and the season you’re traveling in.
Before Leaving
Make a plan. If there are things that are especially important to you for your trip, or things you want to make sure not to forget, write them down. I often make lists to help better envision the logistics of a trip- where I want to go, how I want to get there, what I’ll need to have when.
At the end of May I spent a few days in Las Vegas, and the list I made beforehand was invaluable once I was traveling. It allowed me to spend less time figuring out what I wanted to do and more time actually doing it. These notes will also prove critical later on if you like to document your travel, as I do. More on that later.
Make a packing list. You never remember everything. I also like to note items that it may make more sense to obtain when I get to where I’m going instead of dragging it with me.
Withdraw cash. You may not need to do this, depending on how long you’re traveling and where you’re traveling to. That said, if there are no ATMs where you’re going, you’d like to avoid out-of-network ATM fees, or you want to ensure consistent access to funds in case the ATMs you visit are out of order, nothing beats having actual physical currency on your person.
This does expose you to greater risk in case of robbery, but there is no such thing in life as the absence of risk, only degrees of risk. We’ll explore a way you may be able to mitigate it in few minutes. If you are traveling outside the country, you’ll want to have a plan for converting to and from the currency of where you’ll be.
Inform your debit/credit card carriers that you’ll be traveling. My travels often take me so far outside the areas my debit and credit card carriers expect me to be in (mwahaha) that if I don’t let them know I’m traveling, they will sometimes deny transactions I attempt, which is what happened to me last Saturday at a gas station hundreds of miles from home when visiting Columbus-Belmont State Park, located on the Mississippi River in Columbus, Kentucky. I apparently confuse their algorithms, which brings me a non-zero amount of amusement. Fortunately for me, this has happened so many times that I anticipated it and withdrew cash before leaving town, but had the circumstances been different, it could’ve been a showstopper.
The details on how to inform your card issuer depend on the individual issuer, as does the need to, given that your banking institutions may be less sensitive than mine are. Generally, though, it entails informing them (usually either by phone or app) that you’ll be traveling, the dates you’ll be traveling, and sometimes the area you’ll be traveling to, so they know your transactions are legitimate and will allow them to go through.
Locate ATMs beforehand. If you aren’t comfortable carrying cash, or want to have a backup plan in case the ATMs you visit are out of order, search for ATMs located where you’re going before you leave. Your bank’s app or website is usually a great resource for ATMs in your network so you won’t have to eat unnecessary ATM fees.
If there are no ATMs in your network where you’re going to, or you forget to find them before you leave, you do have other options. One of my favorites is going to a grocery store or a pharmacy, buying an item, and getting cash back. The location will likely have restrictions on how much cash back you can get at once, but it avoids ATM fees, is arguably safer if you only want to carry small amounts of cash, and may be faster.
On the road, and after
Get up and move around. When you’re on a roadtrip, you’re usually sitting in the same positions for quite a long time. It doesn’t take long to get stiff, which can lower your enjoyment when you get to where you’re going.
To alleviate that, I like to park and walk around every few hours when I’m on the road if I can. Not only does it help reduce stiffness and boredom, but it helps with alertness, and it gives you other options too. Bathroom breaks are always good, but it gives you the chance to get a bite to eat; I love to pull over and have a picnic. You could also see sights you may never have the opportunity to see again, and you might even be able to take some good pictures.
Eat and drink light-ish, if you can. How able you are to actually do this will depend on lots of factors, but if you’re traveling over an extended period of time, or it is hot outside, having a lot of heavy food in your system can sap your energy, making it harder to do the things you want to.
Drink plenty of water. This one is somewhat specific to Las Vegas and places that are similarly hot, but is always a good idea even if not traveling. When traveling to Las Vegas, once you get to your room and get settled, go to one of the many Walgreens and CVS locations and grab a brick of water. Don’t buy more than you’ll need for your stay, but buy enough, and drink it. Las Vegas is too hot to even consider flirting with dehydration.
Look for places to sit and charge your devices. When I’m traveling, if I’m sitting and waiting for food or some other thing that’ll take awhile, I like to look around me for a wall outlet to plug my phone or another device into.
My flight out of Las Vegas left at 7am, and I knew there was no way I’d want to get up that early to check out. The day before, I slept late, checked out of my hotel early, FedExed my backpack home (more on that in a moment,) and explored until it was time to go to the airport. Toward the end of the night, my dogs were barking, so I posted up in a comfy chair I found in a hotel I was exploring, charged my devices, made travel notes, and drank water for a bit.
Send items home. One of the seemingly inexorable truths about travel is that you always return with more than you started out with. If traveling for a long period, I find I get tired of carrying and dealing with everything, and I may not even need some of the items for the entire duration of the trip.
During the latter part of the trip, I like to collect items I won’t need for the rest of the trip, and send them home. It does, of course, cost money to do so, you need to get to a Post Office, FedEx, or UPS location, and there is always the chance that the package could be lost or delayed, but when you’re in the last leg of your trip and may be dragging a little bit, it’s really nice to dramatically pare down your load and carry only what you absolutely need.
When I went to Las Vegas, I really wanted to do the ‘girl with a backpack’ thing, so I only took 2 bags: my Tumi Alpha Bravo Annapolis Zip Flap Bag and a small LL Bean backpack I bought so long ago that they apparently no longer sell it. A day before returning home, I crammed absolutely everything I could in that backpack and FedExed that puppy home. It was really nice to only have one bag to deal with.
One thing to consider is that if you leave with less luggage than you arrived with, it is possible that the TSA might give you the hairy eyeball, but it didn’t cause me problems in Las Vegas. For most people, I imagine this would simply free up space in your luggage.
Travel notes. It isn’t always possible to do it to the degree I’d like to, but when I can, I like to document my travel in writing to supplement the pictures I take, so I have more to look back on in the future. This is where those written plans you made before will really come in handy, and it’s best to do it either during the trip or immediately after if you can- you may still have some of the browser tabs still up if you needed to research places, web addresses of restaurants whose menus you looked at, Google Maps or transit app history, metadata on pictures you took, that sort of thing. I typically like to document how long I stayed, what I did on which days, the places I visited, where I ate, any issues I had or notable events, how I feel at the time I’m writing, and why.
One the highlights of my Las Vegas stay came on the last day I was there, a few hours before nightfall. I was making my way to dinner, but kept having bus issues (read as: I kept getting confused) so I eventually decided to forgo the buses and hoof it down a decent amount of the Strip. My path took me immediately in front of the Bellagio Fountains, right in the middle of a show. The music was pounding, water was everywhere, and by that time I was a bit tired but the music propelled me like a jet engine. It felt like the entire Strip was my runway, and they were playing my song.
I have returned to those few minutes in my mind many times since then. It is quite difficult to believe that I’d ever forget it, but all the same, I most certainly made sure to write it down.
The fajitas were worth it. I wrote that down too.