I was asked, by a “Traveling Moms” page, to share my top 10 travel hacks, so here you go.
1. When searching for airfare, always use a VPN. A VPN (Virtual Proxy Network ) is designed to hide your actual location. So, if I am searching for flights from China to Thailand, I will use a VPN to make it look like I am in the USA. Searching for flights from the country you are actually in can tend to display higher prices than if you were booking outside of the country. You can download a VPN for free from most APP Stores.
2. ALWAYS sign up for reward points. You’d be surprised how quickly they add up. If you use a site like Expedia or Travelocity, you can rack up point for the entire family whereas some airlines only allow the points to accumulate per person flying. I like to either book our hotels as a package with the flight OR I use Hotels.com. With Hotels.com, we accumulate points based on the number of nights spent in a year. For every 10 nights we stay, we get 1 free night. If we book 2 rooms for the same nights, we get points for both rooms. I tend to sign up for all of the points possible and then use them later.
3. DO NOT get international calling. It’s super expensive and unnecessary. Simply make sure that your phone is unlocked prior to traveling. Once you arrive, get a prepaid SIM card from your host country. (Places like Thailand had them out for free at the airport)
4. ALWAYS have at least $5.00 on your Skype credit account. If for some reason you need to make a quick call home to the bank or whatever, all you’ll need is WIFI. That’s easy enough to find. We have lived abroad for years and I’ve only refilled the Skype credit 3 times. $5.00 lasts a longgggggg time.
5. Email your hotel (after you’ve booked) and ask them to help you arrange for transport from the airport to the hotel. This works especially well if you are arriving at night. There are usually loads of taxis at the airports, but if it’s your first time to a country, it may be a little scary riding in a taxi. We’ve had great luck with emailing the hotels ahead of time and arranging for transportation. It’s also a great way to save money and rest easy that you have secured a way to the hotel before you arrive. If you are like us, a family of 4, you have 4 suitcases and 4 backpacks, that is a full taxi of just luggage. Many times, hotels will send a passenger van or a shuttle that can accommodate larger groups.
6. Make sure you have a few empty gift cards or old insurance cards in your wallet. Now days, more and more hotels are moving to energy saving tactics. We’ve been in loads of hotels all over that require you to put your keycard in a slot next to the door to get the electricity to come on. This is great when you are in the room, but what if you need to charge your phone and you want to do that while you run down for breakfast? The minute you take the card out, the electricity cuts off in the room. That’s where the old gift cards come in. Simply slip the card into the keycard slot and bam! Electricity. Sometimes, if the keycard is a bit thicker than the gift card, you will need to double up. (I actually keep an old healthcare card in each person’s passport keeper so if they travel without me, they have one for themselves.)
7. Invest in a passport keeper. This is some sort of zippered case used to hold your passport, travel documents, extra cash, pens, and anything else that you might keep with you. I always add a liquid whiteout pen and a blister pack of headache medicine. I also keep contact info in the passport keeper should it get lost.
8. Print out your luggage tags with your hotels address on them. When we are traveling internationally, I always print out two sets of new luggage tags. One set with our hotels name and address and our name on them and the second set with our home information on them. That way, should the luggage get lost, they deliver it to the hotel. For the return flight, I simply switch out the label to our home address. By printing in on the computer, you a less likely to have someone misread the tag. There’s no room for interpretation if it’s not handwritten. To avoid being responsible for every piece of paper, I put a set of return labels in each passport keeper.
9. We always travel with empty travel mugs or water bottles. Buying bottled water in the airport can be highway robbery. If you have an empty container in your backpack, there won’t be any trouble going through security and once you get on the other side, you simply stop by Starbucks, have them fill your coffee cup with your favorite beverage and have them fill your water bottles while you’re at it. (The only place this did not work was in Kuala Lumpur. They made us dump the liquid before we got on the plane. They filled them back up for free on the plane, but we still wasted our money prior to boarding.)
10. Always use space bags when traveling. I don’t use them to save space. Nope, I use them to save smells. I have two teenagers. That can get pretty smelly. In each person’s suitcase, I pack their clothes in a space bag. This assures that should we arrive in a torrential downpour, that the contents will stay dry, but it also helps when having to pack up the dirty clothes. Each bag has at least 3 dryer sheets inside. When you arrive at the hotel, unpack the space bag. Leave the dryer sheets in the bag. When it’s time to stash the dirty clothes, they get folded up and put in the space bag with the dryer sheets and zipped closed. At the end of the trip, when it’s time to pack everything up, take all the clean clothes at put them in one suitcase and the space bags with the dirty clothes in the other. When you get home, all the dirty clothes are in one spot so it’s easy to just put the bags in the laundry room and unpack in a flash. (Over the summer, my husband and I traveled for a few weeks. It took us no longer than 8 minutes to completely unpack and have everything put away and off to start the laundry.)
BONUS TIP: If you are traveling where there are a lot of mosquitos, pack a small ziplock bag with dryer sheets inside and put it in your purse or backpack. When you’re out and about, give each person a dryer sheet to tuck into their pocket. For some reason, mosquitos are not a fan of the scent and tend you leave you alone.
For more tips, tricks and travel destinations, visit our Pinterest page.
https://www.pinterest.com/farr1251/