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Travel tipS
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Trying to travel light? Travel expert Peter Greenberg helps out with How to Pack it All in Just One Backpack. For a review of a roller bag alternative, take a look at our Eagle Creek Travel Backpack Review. 
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Where to start when planning an around the world trip? Airfarewatchdog.com points you in the right direction with this Round the World Ticketing Options Q&A. 
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Long road trip? Try these 8 seated yoga poses from Matador Network to keep your body loose on your next road trip. 
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Lack of sleep can derail any trip. From The New York Times, take a look at these gadgets to help with sleep when traveling. 
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We can all use a little help to improve our photography! At least I can! From National Geographic comes some photo tips to help you tell your story better.
Two travel tips this week come from Rachelle Lucas over at thetravelbite.com who was giving tips on the #paradisechat on Twitter. The first question was...taking photos, what's your best advice? Answer: "Back them up on your computer every night." To take it further...if you lose your camera, this is a great way to ensure that you still have your photos. If you don't have a computer with you or another way to download your pictures, bring multiple memory cards and change them out daily. That way, not all of your trip photos are on one card. The second question was...Tell us your best travel tip for flying. Answer: "Drink lots of water. I mean LOTS. Best solution for jet lag and dry cabin air." To take it further...flying can accelerate dehydration due to the dry cabin air. Dehydration can also wipe out your energy; 70% of your muscle consists of water. When muscles are not well hydrated their ability to generate energy is diminished. Drink up! 
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You just returned from a wonderful trip. So why the frown? Here are 5 Ways to Beat the Post-Travel Blues from Lonely Planet that will be sure to help get your happy back. 
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If you don't like getting ripped off, read this article from Huff Post Canada, Travel's Biggest Ripoffs: Fees, Charges And Other Exorbitant Costs. 
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From Around the World "L" comes this great little article, A Travel Packing List Secret: Multi-Use Items that will help you get the most out of your limited suitcase space. 
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You don't need an overflowing bank account in order to travel the world. Read about these six options from HuffPost to learn how you can Couchsurf, Houseswap, Caretake, stay in Convents, rent from Families, and Freeload around the world. 
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From latimes.com readers tips...When traveling though several states or countries, I take a picture of a license plate to help identify where I am when looking through hundreds of pictures. 
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From latimes.com readers tips...When taking a car trip with your kids, have them wear slip-on shoes. Otherwise, you'll spend time at every stop while they fish around for their shoes, untie them and retie them. 
Amsterdam airport. Photo used under creative commons by Whistling in the Dark.
Do you sometimes feel as exhausted as these poor fellows look at the Amsterdam airport? Planning downtime is key to improving your overall travel experience. Take a look at this helpful article, 3 Essential Route Planning Tips to Prevent Travel Exhaustion and your next trip might just be filled with more energy and enjoyment and less dragging feet. 
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Did you know that you can decline hotel housekeeping and ask for a discount, points or other freebie instead? If housekeeping is not important to you, try it next time! This tip is from Chris McGinnis (@cjmcginnis) who hosts #travelskills on twitter. 
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This week's tip helps travelers determine the difference between a tourist trap and better travel experiences. From Huffington Post comes Tourist Trap or Renowned Attraction? Travel Enthusiast Pat Croce Deciphers the Two. 
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Summer travel planning is still on many of our minds. This week's tip from Huffington Post helps us understand the Most and Least Expensive Cities to Visit This Summer, According to TripAdvisor. 
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Peter Greenberg reminds us of the number-one rule for finding summer hotel deals: seek out the heat! Here are some of the Hottest Summer Deals. 
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You may think that it is difficult to eat healthy at the airport. If you look hard enough and make smart choices, eating at the airport doesn't have to be a greasy affair. This USA Today article, 10 Healthy Snacks You Can Buy At the Airport helps you avoid the junk-food and empty calories. 
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From Lonely Planet comes, The Latest Travel Scams and How to Avoid Them, an article focusing on how to be vigilant when traveling with protecting yourself from scams such as extra items on the bill. 
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This week's tip helps us with our summer travel planning and provides six strategies for keeping costs down. This quick read, Summer Vacation on a Shoestring, is from Huffington Post Travel. 
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Feeling uneasy about traveling with or without your pet? Being a pet owner shouldn't stop you from traveling! There are numerous resources available such as Pet Hotels of America to find a pet-friendly place to stay and DogVacay that is another alternative to a dog kennel. Read these tips and more in this article from travel expert Peter Greenberg: Travel Tip: Go-To Travel Resources for Pet Lovers 
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This week's tip reminds us to think neighborly to avoid large tourist crowds. You don't always have to visit a country just because that's where everyone else goes. For example, did you know that Montenegro sees about 8 million fewer visitors than Croatia? Yet, Montenegro shares the same coastline and a lot of similar history with Croatia. There are many other countries that neighbor more popular places to visit. Read 5 Countries That Are Great Alternatives to Their Crowded Neighbors for some ideas. 
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Short on time? Do you have a quick layover of a few hours and don't think it's enough time to see some sites? Think again! Take a look at this article that explains how one traveler saw the major sites of Rome in three hours. Obviously, not the ideal way to do it but why not get out of the airport and see some sites! Take advantage of the time you have, even if it's only a few hours. 
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Double take! When traveling, have spares for everything! Money, ID, credit cards, glasses and medication can create major problems when lost. Take back-ups and spares to save time, trouble and headache if they are lost on the road. Thank you to Carolina at culturaltravelguide.com for this great tip! 
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When in China...Unless you speak Chinese, when going out, always bring business cards of the hotel you are staying in. We accidentally left without a card one evening in Beijing. After leaving a Chinese Acrobat show we attempted to get a taxi. Very few taxis would stop for us. When they did stop we tried to tell them the name of the hotel. Luckily a young Chinese woman saw our difficulty and translated to a taxi driver. We were so grateful she came along! Having a business card would have gotten us back to the hotel much easier. 
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We are back this week with some more airline travel tips. Not all airplane seats are created equal! Before you choose your seat, utilize SeatExpert.com and/or SeatGuru.com to find the best seats on the plane based upon your exact airline's airplane configuration. 
Fitness/exercise room, Hotel de la Paix. Photo used under creative commons by Hotel de la Paix Geneve.
This week's tip from USA Today reminds us that it is important to maintain your health while traveling. Traveling takes a toll both physically and mentally - arm yourself with tips to keep traveling strong! 
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We all want to be smart with our hard earned money, right? This week's travel tip is actually two separate but related tips; tip one comes from The Economist to quickly give advice on the Airline fees you should and shouldn't pay extra for and tip two comes from the Huffington Post and explains Smart Ways to Use Frequent Flyer Miles. 
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Long flight? Take a look at this great article from Huff Post Travel via Fodor's, "How to Survive The World's Longest Flights". By the way, just because your flight is less than 15 hours does not mean it's not uncomfortable - use the tips on shorter flights as well and maybe you'll find a bit more pleasure in traveling to your destination. 
Make it a goal to give back when you travel. Pack for a Purpose has a brilliant and easy way to give back when you travel by utilizing unused luggage weight. Search for your destination, pack supplies by using the extra luggage weight, and drop them off when you arrive! Easy. Simple. Give back! More information can be found at their website or read this article, "Adventure Safari Brings Easy Way to Give Back" by Chris Owen that explains how it works. 
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Most of us have lost luggage when traveling or at least know someone who has lost luggage. In fact, millions (26 million in 2012!) of luggage is lost every year. My friend recently lost luggage for 14 days (they ended up getting the luggage the last day of their trip) and apparently the luggage was stuck in the London Olympic travel mess. My personal story involves lost luggage on my honeymoon so I can certainly relate to being frustrated when luggage is lost. This week's tip comes from travel expert Peter Greenberg who points out in his article, Travel Tip: Luggage Protection, that there are tools (such as Trackdot Luggage, Lug Loc, Victorinox, and Okoban) that can help recover lost luggage. 
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Think outside the hotel! Today's travel tip reminds us that when traveling, often wonderful smaller hotels, houses, B & B's and apartments can be found if you take the time to look. For example, we were inspired by this Paris apartment with incredible views. One site that features 150,000 of these types of properties is Wimdu.com. 
Beijing Capital International airport. Photo used under creative commons by .curt.
Read this tip before your next connecting flight to ensure your return trip is uninterrupted and to learn about what can happen if you miss your connecting flight. Another great article from the Ask Airfarewatchdog archives via Huffington Post. 
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From TripLogic.com comes "How to Make a Better Travel Bucket List", a quick but smart post on how to prioritize and drill down your list. If you need another approach, check out our "Bucket-List Boogie" post. 
This week's travel tip points you to a newly released book, How to Travel the World on $50 a Day by Matt Kepnes. Read our quick book review. 
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This week's tip is actually five tips on travel mistakes that you can avoid. Stephanie Yoder of Twenty-Something Travel will help you avoid over scheduling, under scheduling, packing too much, taking a sub-par camera, and not going. Read Travel Mistakes You Can Avoid and learn from a world traveler before your next great trip! 
Do you need a jump start in your quest to visit All 50 States? How about a visit to Tennessee or Missouri and a visit the their surrounding states? Eight states border each - Tennessee by Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Kentucky - Missouri by Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. Maps created using the Travel Goal Getter iPad App. 
A time saving resource to help with finding airfare sales and discounts is www.airfarewatchdog.com. There are many different fare alert sites out there but airfarewatchdog is superior in that it is not just computer generated information compiled through third party sites. For example, they are the only site that includes Southwest flights and they also check seat availablility (often low fares have little or no seat availablility so they try to book flights just as any consumer would book a flight). Additionally, since they have actual humans checking flight information by "hand", they also scour airline websites to find airline website-only fares. They have several alerts available such as City-to-City, Anywhere That's Cheap, and Single Destination. It's easy to sign up at www.airfarewatchdog.com with just an email address and there is no cost for the service. 
If you have ever used a pair of noise cancelling headphones on a plane you will likely always use a pair of noise cancelling headphones on a plane. I recently received a pair of Parrot Zik Noise Cancelling Bluetooth Headphones and had the chance to use them on a holiday trip. Read the review to make your own decision... Parrot Zik Noise Cancelling Headphones - Quick Review |
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