Bo Ismono’s Top 5 Travel Tips and Tricks
When you have your sights set on traveling, there’s a lot to think about. From keeping your valuables secure, to staying healthy and hydrated on the go, these top 5 travel tips and tricks can help make your next journey that much easier…
Starting with packing, I’m far from being a master in the one-bag travel philosophy but the trick that I found to minimize all of the stuff that I think I need to pack is to put everything that I want to pack on the ground in front of me. Pro tip, if you’re packing gear and organize it all out very neatly in front of you that gives you a very nice picture for Instagram, by the way. As soon as I lay everything in front of me, I can actually evaluate what I want to pack or maybe what I have forgotten and usually I’m able to minimize all of the stuff by about thirty percent. Furthermore, it is a good idea to pack in sets of outfits or if you’re not too much into colors, just have black, gray, or white t-shirts as they basically mix and match with almost anything.
Next stay hydrated, stay healthy, stay sane. When you’re traveling by plane or train, for instance, your body is submitted to a certain degree of stress; the dry climate inside the plane because of the air condition or loud noises, for instance. So I find it very important to take care of yourself while you’re traveling. A dry nose and therefore a dry respiratory system is more vulnerable to infection, for instance, especially if someone with a cold sits next to you or behind you. Therefore, I use a nasal spray with sea salt water once in a while during a longer flight.
In addition to that I am wearing contact lenses. For longer flights I will opt to wear my glasses. Nevertheless, I would use some eye drops to moisten my eyes during the flight. But more importantly, you need to stay hydrated. In the airport water is usually expensive so I usually take an empty water bottle with me and fill it up with tap water after the TSA check. But it is important to check if the tap water in the country that you’re traveling to is good to drink. If you’re not sure about it you can take one of those water bottles with a filter in it.
So this was about staying healthy and staying hydrated but how to stay sane? Inside planes or trains it is usually quite loud, either due to the engine noise or due to loud people. Therefore, I usually pack some noise cancelling headphones. I usually pack my Bose QC25 but as you can see these are quite big but they are very comfortable on a longer flight. If I need something with a smaller footprint I take these Advanced Sound 747 noise cancelling earbuds. As you can see they are smaller and compared to the Bose QC25 they take away almost no space inside your backpack. The noise canceling feature is not quite as good as the Bose obviously as they are smaller but they are still good enough to keep all of the engine noise or the air-conditioning noise away. Furthermore, I would recommend to pack some earplugs. I like to sleep with an open window and you never know how loud the street in front of the hotel room might be. Therefore, earplugs might save your life.
Next topic, safety. I always recommend to develop some sort of situational awareness. Of course this is not a foolproof measure against pickpockets, for instance, but I usually carry multiple means of payment in different places and even different wallets. In other words, I store some cash and a credit card in my wallet but some more cash and maybe another credit card in another place. So if you have a passport for instance and this Bellroy passport wallet then I just store some more cash and maybe another credit card inside this passport wallet and store that in another place.
If you happen to know that you are going to let’s say a dodgy place then it is a good idea to store some loose cash inside your front pocket, for instance, so if you might get mugged then you could just give out the loose cash inside your front pocket instead of your wallet or the other way around but then you might still have some cash to get back safely to your hotel. But where do you put your passport and your other cash? The solution is gaffers tape and a ziplock bag. I usually have some gaffers tape rolled on a pen and inside my bag wherever I go. So in the hotel room I take my passport and the extra cash and put it in the ziplock bag and then I use the gaffers tape to hide the bag in a secure and hidden place, maybe underneath a drawer or underneath the sink, for instance. Usually a thief will just break into the room, scan it and take the first thing or the easiest thing that he can grab and then just leave the room, so he won’t look underneath the drawer or underneath the sink. Okay, maybe if you’re a spy or James Bond.
Next, TSA. Speaking of safety, if you’re traveling by plane then you will need to get through the security check and if you’re traveling with a lot of gear like me, the chances are pretty high that they will check everything inside your bag. I have made a video about all the pouches and packing cubes that are used on a day-to-day basis and to sum it up, all that packing inside cubes seemed a little bit excessive but in this case it is actually quite beneficial. So if you’re traveling with a lot of gear then it might be a good idea to pack all the stuff that might be suspicious on an X-ray, for example metal hard drives with a lot of cables or battery banks with a lot of cables inside one cube. So before you send all of your stuff through the X-ray it might be a good idea just to take out that one pouch with all the suspicious stuff and send it through the X-ray separately. You need to admit a bunch of cables, battery banks and metal hard drives crammed together inside the backpack might look a little bit suspicious in an X-ray.
Next, food and drinks. When you’re traveling you sometimes just don’t know where to eat or maybe you are just plain hungry when you are flying inside the airplane or in the hotel room and all the stuff in the mini bar is just way too expensive. Therefore, I usually pack some snacks like cookies or nuts or some energy bars. Energy bars have a very small footprint inside your backpack but lots of calories and lots of energy like the name suggests to satisfy your hunger. And earlier I told you that I always carry a water bottle as a mini bar inside the hotel room is quite expensive and maybe sometimes you want to drink something else with a little bit more taste. Therefore, I usually pack another bottle with some syrup in it. At the moment I prefer elderflower syrup so in the office or in the hotel room or while I’m traveling I just fill up the water bottle with some water, add some syrup to it and then have a refreshing drink with me without spending too much money. So in conclusion these were my quick top five travel tips.