This is a reason in favor of selecting an aisle seat rather than a window or middle seat; if you need to get up for any reason, you don’t have to inconvenience anyone else. Yeah, the bathroom still sucks, but this takes part of the inconvenience (having to beg a stranger to get up so you can get out of your seat) out of it.
Wife and I are flying to Japan soon. Plane is a 747, which has left, center, and right sections of seating; in this plane the left/right sections are 3 seats wide, the middle section is 4 seats wide. We chose two of the seats in the middle section, an aisle seat and the adjacent inner seat. We won’t have to bug strangers whenever we want to get up to pee or stretch our legs, and in this way we won’t have strangers trying to climb over us for the same reason.
Speaking of seat selection, my wife and I when traveling together will book the window and aisle seat, leaving the middle seat open. Since everyone hates the middle seat there is a better chance of it remaining empty, leaving us with three seats to ourselves. When someone does claim the middle seat they are more than happy to swap to an aisle or window, so there is little chance of us having to sit separately.
I am a pack and check girl. I carry on as little as possible, on my last trip I switched to a slightly larger purse that will hold my iPad, threw in a snack, a drink and that’s it. It was a business trip but my hardsided suitcase holds my work laptop quite safely. I pack it inside it’s carry case and then in the middle of the suitcase and I’ve never had an issue with it.
Robot Arm uses the same paperwork method I do as well. Each piece of paper I’m going to need with all relevant confirmations in the order I’m going to need it. As I use each one it’s either tossed or moved to the receipts folder for post trip expensing. If I’m renting a car and traveling to an unfamiliar hotel I also preload my iPad GPS app with the route.
I pack all cords required for assorted devices in a large ziplock bag with a list. This has saved me in a few multi-hotel trips from leaving a critical charging cable or connection behind.
I overpack. I know this is contrary to most of the advice that people get on traveling but throwing a couple of bonus tops into the suitcase means that I’m less stressed about what I’m going to wear each day. One less thing to worry about while on a trip is a good thing in my book.
Upon arrival at my destination the first thing I do is find a grocery or convenience store and buy a few drinks and some fruit for my room. I tend to work through dinner a lot or eat whatever someone has had delivered. Having something healthy to snack on in my room helps keep things from getting out of hand.
I tend to carry a lot of gadgets (too). Laptop most of the time, MP3 player, camera, phone, chargers Palm second brain. I used to cram all these into a shoulder bag, but one day I found this (http://www.rei.com/product/777799) at REI.
It has a pouch just full of conveniently-sized pockets for all my electronic doo-dads. And it fits under a seat nicely.
Wow, I feel smart - I don’t travel much but on my last vacation I did all of what Moonlitherial does
Here’s another tip for those of us who don’t travel enough to know what is a good seat and what isn’t - http://www.seatguru.com/ actually tells you!
One other thing I did on my last trip was to make a list of things to pack and highlight them as I packed them. If I threw something in last-minute, I wrote it down and highlighted it. Then I put the list in my wallet. I figured if something got stolen at the airport or hotel, or left at the hotel, I could cross-reference my list.
The New York Times ran this article suggesting that you roll your clothes rather than folding them when packing your suitcase. It’s supposed to take less room.
I try to book an aisle seat when possible, so that I can use the bathroom without bugging anyone else. I empty my pockets before going through the security checkpoint, putting my wallet, keys, spare change and belt in the top pocket of my carry-on bag. The idea is to minimize the possibility of setting off the metal detector. The rule about having to take off my shoes is kind of annoying and pointless, but I know enough not to complain at the airport.
Yeah, but when they go to the bathroom, they have to bug you. To minimize overall annoyance, the person with the smallest bladder should get the aisle seat, with bladder size increasing as you get further away from the aisle.
If you can book seats to ensure that arrangement, more power to ya.
I use a backpack as my carry-on when I’m not day tripping for business. In it, I add spare socks and underwear in case my checked luggage goes missing, plus whatever I will need to travel comfortably (sometimes I go straight from airport to a travel bus). Within the backpack I carry a zippered lunch pouch that can hold a book, gum, a power bar, my passport, wallet, pen and even a 16-oz. water bottle and assorted gadgets. This I take out of the backpack when I board so the backpack can sit undisturbed on an 8-hour flight because I have all I need with me in the lunch bag.
Carry an empty water bottle through security and fill it at a drinking fountain once you are on the other side. The savings add up.
I really like it when I find knit pants with cargo pockets at or below the knees. They aren’t pretty but they sure are handy for being able to reach small stuff when you are in your seat such as medication that must be taken at specific times or gum or those little packets of cookies that you crave an hour after they cleared your meal away.
Last time I flew, I did so with Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports” on my mp3 player. I don’t know what it is about that piece, but it relaxes me more than Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” which every airline seems to play while the plane is loading.
Also, the last time I went home, I managed to get everything into a suitcase that could be stowed overhead. This is something I learned on the discussion board of “Europe Through The Back Door”, which is a treasure trove of information not only about travel in Europe, but packing as well.
Some guy also figured out a way to fold pants and shirts together in a way that takes up less room and allows no wrinkles. (I think that’s online somewhere)
The other stuff, book, one change of clothes, (not all) toiletries went into a small duffel stowed under the seat in front of me.
It can be done, and it’s great to just get your luggage and go.
With bed bugs becomins so common, remember to never use the hotel drawers or closets. Never put your suitcases on the luggage rack. Luggage racks are ideal for bed bugs to hide in.
After you get home, immediately wrap your luggage in a garbage bag. Wash all your clothes BEFORE you bring them into the house, including those you’re wearing. Wash in hot water and dry for at least an hour on hot. If you can’t wash you can dry clean them.
Then you can decontaminate your luggage with Bedlam or by using a few other chemicals. You can use a steamer on the luggage as long as it gets above 120ºF. Go slowly and steam each area for at least 15 seconds.
About the only useful thing I do is pretty much strip myself of anything except my driver’s license and boarding pass before I hit security, and put my wallet, keys, phone,belt, etc… in a gallon plastic bag that I put in my carry on.
That way, all I have to do is put my shoes on the belt, and through I sail, with no problems.
I like to pack the days tshirt/polo shirt, panties bra and socks in a gallon ziploc bag, and I put the used ones in the newly emptied zippy bag =) I have never liked unpacking and repacking when I travel, and the zippy bag process makes sorting the clothing easy [and I wear non-jeans, so my pants tend to also fit into a gallon zippy bag. Not to mention shoes dont get the clothing dirty when they are stored in a zippy bag] I admit I did have to actually get some plastic garment bags for my dressy dress, I couldn’t roll it and fit it into a zippy bag without seriously wrinkling it =( The ones that are open bottomed can be sealed with duct tape to make them more like a zippy bag to keep bugs or whatnot out =)
Last time we had to go down to New Jersey, we ended up staying in a pretty dodgy place, so we ended up using our reserve set of travel clothes by stripping in a truck stop paid shower room, showering and getting into clean clothes away from the motel, and everything went into the laundry at a laundromat including the canvas sea bag we normally pack in when traveling by car in the US. The trunk of the car and seats got sprayed with bug spray we picked up in the truck stop. <shudder> Thankfully we never picked up any infestation on our trips. We now keep a couple contractor bags in the trunk to secure the sea bag in when we need to make sure it is bug free.
Ah… but the best coach seats (IMO) on a 747 are the left/right sections in the last 10 (or so) rows of the plane. They have only two seats in each left/right section so in a way, it’s like first class–no middle seat!
Plus, the first few rows of two-seat sections right behind the last three-seat section have a bunch of extra space between the window seat’s armrest and the wall of the cabin (because the fuselage has just started to taper down) providing a bunch of extra space for a pillows, blankets, coats, or small carry-on items that would normally go under the seat in front of you. This enables you to enjoy maximum leg room!
I put all the basic flight and destination info in my smartphone calendar.
I keep the really expensive/delicate items (camera, camcorder, laptop) with me, but the bulk of the electronic spaghetti (battery chargers, spare USB cables) goes in checked baggage – from the amount of attention my carry-on bag gets when I used to put them in there, I swear they must spontaneously arrange themselves so that they spell out “Death To America! Allah Akbar!” in the x-ray display.
I also have that pile of spaghetti with all the power cords (iPhone, MacBook, electric toothbrush). Lately I’ve been putting all of them in a gallon-size Ziploc bag and throwing that in my checked bag.
I tend to do this too. Sometimes I bother to put one each in quart-sized ziploc freezer bags, write in the white label space what each cord is for, and then put all of those in a gallon-sized bag.
I try to make things as simple as possible. Don’t pack too much stuff, check the bag if it is big, get on early (thank you, elite membership), carry a pen if I’m flying internationally (for those visa/customs forms) and zone out for most of the flight.
I use my iPhone to take a picture of where I parked my car. After Christmas, I’m hoping to have a set of Bose noise reducing headphones.
Oh, and most importantly: marvel at the pains in the rears who insist on taking huge carry-on bags, weird pillows, giant water bottles, various crap bought from Sharper Image/SkyMall/Crutchfield including as passport/boarding card holders-necklace things, or generally being a big ol’ LOOK AT ME I"M FLIYING type of passenger.
Heh. On a recent 2-hour flight, the family of four sitting in front of me had enough provisions for a 2-week camping trip, and spent the entire time passing around bags of snacks, swapping pillows, getting out and putting away various electronic devices, toys, books, etc., to help them accomplish the amazing feat of basically sitting in a chair for a couple hours. They amused me.
(I do realize that this might not have been the only flight on their itinerary, but still. They amused me.)
