Category: travel

5 tips for travelling light

Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, France. Not pictured: the smell.
Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, France. Not pictured: the smell.

One of the most profound things I’ve done to improve my travelling experience is to learn to get by with only one bag. With Spring Break approaching, I wanted to share some tips for travelling well and easily. These tips work equally well for professionals travelling with suits as they do for families travelling with children.

Make a list (and use it)

This is the top tip in every travel blog you will ever read, and for good reason. In the heat of a frantic packing session, you are much more inclined to pack something “just in case” which leads to nonsense like packing a sweater and a jacket for a summer trip. In the calm, clear light of day make a list, then use it. Every time. I once left for a 3 day business trip– without packing underwear. It was the only time I didn’t print my list. Let the list do the thinking for you.

panda-suit
If you really, absolutely need a panda-bear wearing a bow tie costume, then fine, bring it. But what are the odds?

Kid tip: The first time I did this, I told each kid to write their own list and I would check it. This proved to be too much work, because I had to check the list and then check their bags.  The second time, I wrote the list for them on the computer and just printed a copy for each child. It was easier to note their individual exceptions. As a bonus, the amount of whining about “where’s my …” disappeared completely. They took ownership of the contents of their bag, and even the 5 year old was able to do a first pass by himself.

Limit yourself to one bag

Onebag.com is the authoritative reference for one bag travel and is worth a bookmark. If I can summarize some of the many advantages of travelling with only one bag they would be:

  1. You save money by not checking a bag
  2. There is zero chance of lost bags because your bag will always be with you
  3. If you’re subject to broken airplane syndrome, you can get off the plane with your bag and get on anything else without having to stop and collect your things
There is no Hell, we’ve invented it for ourselves.

The rule is:

one to wash, one to wear, and one spare.

What about shoes? My packing rule is usually one casual pair and one athletic pair in the bag, and my work/dress shoes on my feet while I travel (this gives me the opportunity to shine them up in the airport, which isn’t necessarily frugal, but is a great opportunity to relax a bit).

Kid tip: Depending on the age of your kids, you can probably get by with their school back packs for travel. The only time I would suggest something different is if their school bag is one of the cheapo character backpacks where the company spent more money to license the latest Pixar character than they did to construct the bag. I have had two of those bags break mid-trip on me, and it has always resulted in having to split up the clothes between my my bag and my wife’s bag.

Plan to do (just a little!) laundry on the road

Being prepared to do laundry allows you to massively cut back on the amount of clothing you have to bring, which allows you to meet the ultimate goal of only packing one bag. All you need is a travel laundry line (maybe two, depending on the size of your family) and a few satchels of soap.

I don’t know what’s more disturbing, that I googled “travel laundry line” and found a picture of someone’s knickers, or that I am not surprised by this

At this point you might be thinking I do laundry all the time at home, why would I want to do laundry on vacation? The answer is a little bit of work that’s not difficult for a LOT of extra gain. En suite laundry is trivially easy to do– it’s like the crock pot cooking of laundry. It’s hardly as exasperating as household laundry, in part because you’re doing so much less of it at a time. You fill a sink (or bidet) with water, add a packet of handwashing soap, soak your clothes for a few minutes (maybe while brushing your teeth), rinse them, wring out the water, and hang to dry. If you’re in posh digs you can use one of the extra towels to take out a little extra moisture. The whole process takes 15 minutes, tops. You make back that 15 minutes by not having to stand at the baggage carousel one time waiting for a checked bag.

Kid tip: You have a few factors working for you in this scenario. First, if you have small children (and especially boys), they are naturally inclined to wear underwear for days at a time, and you can chose to strategically forget this. If you’re going to be someplace with a “base of operations” — a hotel room, rental cottage, or similar — it’s worth it to pack a small bag that can be used as a hamper. For best results, do the laundry in the morning before you leave for the day. If I had to scale up this process to my family of six, I would fill a tub instead of a sink and let the laundry soak in the soapy water for a bit. So far all of my long duration family travel has been to cottages with washing machines, so it was even easier because 2 days worth of clothes for even the six of us is barely a load in a machine washer.

Buy a good bag (not from the mall)

Even when you’re going to a sunny destination with coral water and white sand, the process of getting there can still be a stressful experience. Your bag is the heart of your little travel universe. If that bag tears, or a zipper busts, or a strap rips, and you’re in the middle of the adventure of a lifetime, your first priority is going to be dealing with your injured bag. Don’t buy a Samsonite, or a Tumi, or a North Face… you tend to spend too much and get too little. It’s just not worth the risk. And you were worried about a little laundry?

Don’t buy anything with wheels. In the same way that the personal warehouse industry has sprung up to meet the  needs of people who have too much crap in their house, wheeled bags sprang into existence to make life easier for people who pack too much crap into their bag. Wheels and handles add weight to a bag, and weight is the enemy. Don’t pack a bag that you can’t run through an airport carrying.

Specifically, the CLT 5K sprint from B15 to E15. STAND ON THE RIGHT! WALK ON THE LEFT!

So what do I recommend? My personal favorite is the Tom Bihn Aeronaut. Red Oxx also makes excellent bags. Neither are sold in stores (unless you live in Seattle, Washington or Billings, Montana respectively). Both bags will be the last bag you ever buy. For kids, we have had good results with the LL Bean backpacks as being durable enough to survive multiple school years and go on vacation with us.

Learn to bundle pack

Bundle-packing is the art of arranging your clothes in your bag to minimize the amount of wrinkling involved. It normally does a great job of getting my clothes to the hotel fairly smoothly, and then a light steaming while I’m showering in the morning helps the rest of the wrinkles fall out. If your wardrobe doesn’t have the same requirements for de-wrinkling, you might be happy with a packing cube system, but I have tried both and tend to favor the bundle method. Yes, it works with suits and jackets.

On the way home, I usually go for the “stuff everything in I’m late for my plane” packing technique.

Pro tip: when using the interior ties/straps in your bag, don’t cinch them down all the way, this will create more wrinkles. Also, don’t put your toiletries in the middle of your bundle unless you want to unpack in front of airport security.

Kid tip: I actually favor packing cubes for kids, because they’re expected to be a little wrinkly under most occasions, and it helps keep their clothes apart from their toys. There’s an REI near us, and they carry the Eagle Creek brand, which are very good quality.

Ramble on

One thing that’s gotten a lot easier with age is the willingness to invest a little up-front effort to save myself some pain down the road, if only because I’ve done it the painful way enough times to eventually learn. I hope you can learn a little from my mistakes and make your own travel experience a little bit easier.

Growing Up Vito

It’s Good to Be the Prince

As the oldest son of an Italian mother, I grew up absolutely certain of three things:

  1. I was better than nearly everyone else in general, and Americans in specific
  2. Most things that are American are decidedly inferior, although America itself is The Greatest Country in the World (a paradox, to be sure)
  3. Italian food is the best food
Also 4) Track suits and white tank-top t-shirts are appropriate for daily use.
Also 4) Track suits and white tank-top t-shirts are appropriate for daily use.

Fortunately for me, my wife cured me of the first belief (mostly) and travel has cured me of second (nearly). I rarely break out in hives if I am not inoculated with tomato sauce weekly, so maybe my views on point number three are becoming a bit more …

Nuanced.

Or maybe not.

A Dissertation on Salted Cod

Salted cod (“Bacalhau“) is the essential Portuguese food, despite the fact that they import nearly all of it. There’s a popular Portuguese appetizer called Pasteis De Bacalhau, which is a salted cod fritter. They usually look like this:

Like a jalapeno popper, but with less pieces of flair involved

I’ve been lucky enough to visit Portugal for business twice now. My first trip I stayed for 10 days, my second trip for 9. I love the city of Lisbon– it’s cleaner than Paris, milder in climate than London, and safer than Rome. Eating seems to be the main national past-time, so I had plenty of chances to try a bunch of the national cuisine, which is largely fish-based.

Fish popular here? How insightful, Watson.

I am not a huge fan of seafood in general, preferring a more linguine-based diet. However, if there’s one thing I deeply believe, it’s that you should do your best to eat local cuisine when you’re abroad, because food is the soul of a people, right? Also because the voice from my childhood tells me that Only Americans Eat American Food In Europe, And It’s A Sin, Right There In The Bible.

In Portugal alone, I’ve gamely tried:

  • fish with the head on (broiled and fried)
  • octopus tentacles with the suckers on (broiled and fried)
  • assorted mollusks (mostly just broiled)
  • shredded fish (boiled, then broiled, sometimes also fried for good measure)
  • deep-fried fish (fried again just to be sure)
  • fish stew (not fried, but not for the lack of trying)
  • goat (pretty tasty, actually)

Then after about five days of finding the soul of the people, I wander off to find the nearest Italian restaurant.

It seems my soul is made of lasagna.

You there! Dessert! You can stay. The rest of you shove off.
You there! Portuguese Dessert! You can stay. The rest of you shove off.

A Moment of Weakness

On this most recent trip, I visited the Hard Rock Lisbon (Ola Sofia and Ines Rita!). I did not mean to go there– we were actually trying to find a poorly-remembered Indian restaurant, but it wasn’t going so well on account of the fact that we had successfully found the soul of the alcoholic people before stumbling past what was probably the Indian restaurant, or a store, or an Indian, or maybe a very tan homeless guy. Whatever it was, it was probably near the Hard Rock, because you can’t walk past a Hard Rock without saying “Look! The Hard Rock Cafe!” in much the same way small children can’t NOT say anything about that embarrassing sore you have on your face that you tried unsuccessfully to camouflage.

By the time we got to the Hard Rock my stomach was growling with the intensity of a peevish weinerdog. I had only earlier in the week scoffed at another group of my colleagues who had set out– intentionally! — with the Poorly-Camouflaged Sore On Your Face as their destination. Yet here we were, with no Indian restaurant, or Indian people, or even that very tan homeless guy anywhere in sight. A hurried debate in front ensued.

“Where’s the Indian place?”

“Did we pass it?”

“We couldn’t have passed it, we’re nearly completely sober!”

“Do you want to keep walking?”

“If we walk any further, I wanna take a cab.”

We want hamburgers. Right now.

“Who the hell said that?”

Eat. Burger. Now.

Thus it was decided, and we went inside to be greeted by the perkiest, most flair-adorned Portuguese waitress we had ever set eyes on up to that point, who introduced us to another, perkier, more flair-adorned Portuguese waitress and generally set new record levels of perkiness in a Portuguese dining establishment.

We ordered burgers.

Which were delicious.

And $20 each.

Thanks, Obama.

That’s why you’re a butt

I believe that we really are, both molecular-ly and spiritually, what we eat. Our choices about our food says a lot about our values, our beliefs, where we’re from, how we’re feeling, and even our hopes and dreams. On one hand, I was disappointed in myself for taking the easy, safe choice and picking a known (if average) quantity. I don’t like the viral nature of American culture, and I feel a little guilty in helping support its spread across the world. I feel that sharing food is the second most intimate thing you can can do with another person, if only because after the first most intimate thing I usually want a sandwich.

ON THE OTHER HAND

That restaurant was packed with locals. They were at the bar. They were at the tables with their kids. They were in the gift shop buying t-shirts. No one is forcing anyone to eat $20 hamburgers, they’re lining up for the privilege! So maybe my choice was a little lazy, or immoral. Maybe I also was a little homesick and craving a little food for my soul. I think it’s entirely possible that one person can wander down a dark alley and try the most incredible Russian food at a brand new restaurant one night and go to Hard Rock the next, because people can hold contradictory ideas in their minds and believe them to both be true.

I was born outside of the US.

I have lived in 3 different countries.

At one point, I spoke 3 languages (2 of them are a now a little rusty).

I have stepped foot outside of the airport in at least 7 different countries, and the Glorious Nation of Alabama.

I have had tourists stop and ask me for directions in 4 different countries.

A Cuban asked me where the iHop was. In Miami. In Spanish.

In short, I think I have some pretty damn good international street cred.

There has been nowhere I have visited that has a greater diversity of quality food than the US of A. I am lucky and incredibly spoiled to have authentic, amazing food from nearly every country in the world no more than an hour away from my house. So deep down, I’m okay with sitting on the wrong side of the Atlantic, eating a hamburger or drinking a Starbucks, because I miss my home and I miss my family.

Also, I had Penne all’Arrabbiata Tuesday.

I asked them to go heavy on the the nuance.