Travel accessories

Let's face it: we live in the world right now where there are certain things that we cannot leave behind. This is a list of items that you should always remember to take on your trips for entertainment.

• cell phone
• iPad or other tablet to watch videos on
• no fee juice pack or some other backup battery for your phone and iPad
• USB flash drive-these are always very handy
• a good pair of noise canceling headphones
• a nice pair of Bluetooth speakers for when you stay in a hotel
• your laptop computer
• a wireless/Bluetooth mouse
• a set of multi use power adapters to use on the plane as well as hotels. International connections if you need it
• let's not forget a nice little digital camera to get some shots of the place you're going to
• an ipod or music player
• a good TSA checkpoint approved travel bag to carry all this fun stuff

I travel with a laptop, iPad, and iPhone at all times. This enables me to keep up with my family and friends, and I have tried to consolidate as many of these items as possible so I am not carrying too many things on me.

Airport Layovers

These are just some ideas I think you should take advantage of while traveling in different cities. There is a lot to do and sometimes you get them done while you're out on a layover. I'd like to split this up into two parts: Layovers that are under five hours and layovers that are over five hours.

Layovers that are under five hours:

• check out the restaurant scene at the airport. A lot of the newly renovated airports are putting in some of the newest and best restaurants of that city so that people can get a little taste of the culture.
• A lot of airports that I've been to lately now have museums within them. You can easily find lists of these on the Internet.
• Who doesn't like shopping? Places like Philadelphia international as well as San Francisco international airports are boasting some of the biggest names in fashion and retail. If you have some time, they've definitely got the goods.
• Be productive. Your airline most likely has some sort of club which has access to Wi-Fi as well as various other small perks that you should take advantage of. Some of these come at a cost, but it helps out a lot of times if you're a business traveler and need to get that report done on time and out the door.

 Layovers that are over five hours:

• usually large layovers are for international travelers. Spend some time studying up on international laws and customs to make sure you don't make any purchases that you can't bring home.
• A lot of airports like London Heathrow provide city tours on buses that you can take from the airport to the city to grab a bite to eat and come back in time for your connecting flight.
• What's better than shopping? Tax-free/duty-free shopping of course! When flying internationally, you can access duty-free shops to find that ultra deal that you've always been looking for.
• you can also try taking a cab to the downtown of that city to get a little bit more flavor of what the nightlife and the locals are all into.

"Preferred Seats, Priority Boarding"

Now this may come off as a rant, but I the bone to pick with the airlines these days.


More and more airlines are claiming that foreword seats in coach, the ones right behind first-class, are  "preferred" seats. This includes middle seats. Are these seats necessarily better than any other seat on the aircraft? No I don't think so. And now airlines are taking a large percentage of these seats, classifying them as preferred seats, and making people pay for the seat assignments. This to me is what I call highway robbery. The only seats that are "preferred" seats on an aircraft are the ones in first-class in my opinion.

The worst part about this is that a lot of times after paying for a preferred seat, I will be sitting next to somebody who didn't have to pay for the seat, and got placed in that seat when they got to the gate at the airport. The craziest thing these days that I've seen is what United and Continental are doing now. They're going to begin setting it up so that you can no longer reserve economy seats in advance. You'll be able to reserve your seat, but you will not get a seat assignment until you get to the airport.

I have recently heard that the airlines are making $1.5 billion from travelers on extra fees and charges. This is the craziest thing in the world to somebody like me. I stayed loyal to my airline through the ups and downs, the highs and lows. I understood when the tickets were costing more because fuel prices were high. My question is when everything went back to normal, why didn't all of the extra fees go away? Why are people still paying for things like bags, food, change fees to change flights, and early boarding fees?

And this is the last of my rant. Early boarding fees make absolutely no sense to me. People are paying up to $25 to board the aircraft earlier than other people. I can only assume this is because they would like to ensure that they have a place for their luggage on the aircraft. The problem with this is that it probably costs almost the same amount check the bag before you get onto the plane. In these types of situations I would highly recommend just giving yourself some extra time and getting down to the airport earlier. The plane will leave when everyone is seated, people!!

Traveling with infants

This is an interesting post for me being that I actually don't have a child of my own. However, I do come from a large family, and know a lot of the nuances that come with traveling with a child. I probably can't answer everything, but I know this will be a helpful post that a lot of you out there will be able to provide your own tips and tricks on how to travel with an infant. I've used personal experiences, talked to a lot of different people I know, as well as searched the web high and low for different tips and tricks for parents. Here are some of the different things that I've heard.

• There are never enough wet wipes and Purell.
• Just take a whole bunch of this -- you never know how much you will need.
• Everything takes much longer than you expect.
• Give yourself plenty of time to get through security, to check luggage, to fold up your stroller, waiting at the gate etc. A good rule of thumb is that a five hour flight means that you're in for at least a 10 hour trip.
•  Give your child a bottle right as you're taking off and right as you're landing.
• This will take away some of the pressure in the child's ears as you ascend and descend taking off and landing. It naturally pops their ears....
• It's okay to be a little nervous.
• Yes, everyone is going to stare at you and no one is going to like you. You need to get over that before you get onto the plane. Just think about how many acrobatics you are going to have to do later on down the aisle to appease that baby.
•  When in doubt, it's okay for a stranger to lend a hand.
• An extra pair of hands always helps, especially if you're flying by yourself. The key is to get from point a to point B in one piece. With the right kind of help, the trip will be over before you know it.

Frequent Flyer Programs. What about them?

Frequent flyer programs come in many shapes and sizes. Airlines compete for your loyalty with many different perks and advantages. The main is to sign up for a card when you travel to earn miles towards free flights and travel stays. Even if you don’t travel, there are credit card programs out there that allow you to earn miles so that maybe one day you could go on that trip you’ve always wanted to. Sometimes these are accumulated as “points” that can be redeemed as miles at a later time. 

Right now, I can really only give you a look into my main program, which is US Airways Dividend Miles. This has been my program of choice for years, but honestly only because one of US Airways’ hubs are in Philadelphia which gave me more options to fly anywhere than all of the other airlines. Looking back and knowing what I know now, I would most likely diversify my “portfolio” of frequent flyer programs so that I am not so forced to keep to just US Airways (which hey, they sure love the loyalty). 

I've used the points to my advantage during my current injury as I've been flying to medical center after medical center across the country. These extra miles I've accumulated have allowed me to pretty much do this for free. Would I love to spend these on a beautiful vacation somewhere in the Maldives? Probably. But with all of the medical costs that I've been incurring, this is a really great thing to have my back pocket. The other main reason I use the miles for our unlimited upgrades. This means I can basically book a coach flight anywhere but be able to upgrade using miles. This is especially helpful on those long flights that I take from San Francisco to Philadelphia.

Use your miles wisely, and make sure to plan ahead. I booked a vacation to Jamaica with my wife last year using miles, and booked it about 8 to 9 months in advance so that we can both go first-class round-trip. It makes the trip that much more enjoyable, plus you have some extra funds to do things that you wouldn't normally do on vacation. We had an absolute blast because this. The other thing you can do is “gift” miles. We have been able to book trips for family members and friends and loved ones because of all of the corporate travel that we have been doing.

The one thing I'll say is that you have to be pretty diligent about putting your frequent flyer number into all of your reservations. We acquire miles when we stay in hotels, rent cars, pump gas, and make purchases at the grocery store but it's up to you to make sure that you're getting credit for all of those miles. It’s all about how it fits into your life; you just have to use them to your advantage!

Being secure in your hotel

All of you have probably stayed in a hotel at one time or another. As you know depending on the hotel you're staying at they can be very, very creepy at times. This post just includes a couple of tips when it comes to securing your belongings while traveling.

Obviously, you aren't the only person that holds the key to your hotel room. This means that you can't leave piles of cash and other expensive items such as jewelry and electronics just simply lying around. Another thing to realize is that for a thief--- if they want something, they are going to get it.

The thing is, the hotel is only liable up to a certain amount. This includes whats in the safe. The one thing that I have learned however is that the hotel will generally carry a safe at the front desk and will have insurance on that. This means if you leave the hotel and are not taking items such as passports jewelry cash etc., then most of the time you can leave these behind the front desk.

If you have a laptop or a camera, these are items that you may want to latch on to a secure piece of furniture with a security cable of sorts to make sure that they do not grow any legs and walk away. Laptops are one of the easiest and highest items stolen from hotel rooms.

The other thing to consider is this using some old-fashioned common sense. If the item is just too expensive and you can't bear to live without it, then you should most likely just leave it at home. Now just don't let everyone in the world know that you're going on vacation!

 Found a great link for everyone:

 http://travel.yahoo.com/ideas/food-etiquette-rules-that-might-surprise-you.html

It's on "food etiquette" in different cultures and parts of the world......

Traveling with an Injury

I have been traveling with an injury on airplanes for about eight weeks now. A day after New Year's, I woke up and had no feeling in my left arm. Really weird, I thought maybe that I slept wrong, or maybe I just pinched something, etc. I have been diagnosed with something called radial nerve palsy, and basically it renders my left arm useless. In fact, I am actually using dictation software right now to type this blog. Pretty cool stuff. Makes my writing a bit wonky, but that’s ok. Regardless, this blog post is about what to do when you have to travel with an injury.

The first place I would start is to figure out how much pain you can actually endure. You have to realize that when I say "traveling", I specifically speaking about traveling on airplanes. Then you have to think about not just flying, you also will have to think about all of the rigmarole of just getting onto an airplane. There is getting to the airport, checking your bags, print your boarding pass, heading through security line, getting to your gate, boarding your aircraft, and the list goes on and on and on. Now if you are used to traveling, or a road warrior, this all seems pretty easy to you. For somebody that is brand-new at the travel game, this new world can seem very, very intimidating. For the purpose of this blog post, let's say that you have some sort of injury, and are new to the travel game.

The first big piece of advice I'd give you is to make sure you give yourself enough time. Depending on your injury (I'm wearing a large arm splint), you may need assistance to get your bags checked, or get down to the gate etc. If you are on crutches or in a wheelchair, most likely you should give yourself at least 30 min. extra in order to get through security and get onto the plane. Keep in mind that if you are wearing any kind of brace and are on crutches, you will need to run these items through the x-ray scanner. Obviously, as much of an inconvenience as this is, this is all just to make sure we are more secure while we are traveling. You can actually call your airline prior to going to the airport to understand their rules for people that are either injured or have a handicap of some sort. More than likely they can assist you all the way through the process and onto the plane. As you know airports are always full of chaos… and it can seem like a jungle at times. Talking to airline personnel in advance will give you an advantage because a lot of times they will allow you to get through security in a special line as well as get on the plane earlier so that you can get situated and not be so uncomfortable.

The second piece of major advice I'd give you is to understand where you are sitting on the plane. Depending on your injury you will have many different decisions to make. For instance, if you broke your leg and need to keep your legs straight you may want to opt for an aisle seat or a bulkhead seat so that you have room to stretch your legs. If you can afford it, you may even want to opt for first-class :-). Beware that if you are traveling with an injury, and opt for an exit seat, you will more than likely be moved from that seat being that you will not be able to handle the exit seat duties. Being that my injury is on my left arm, I try to stay away from being in an aisle seat on the right side of the aircraft. This is because when I am seated, every single person and their bags, and their kids, and their surfboards, etc. etc. etc., will always hit my arm.

Does anyone else have any good advice for traveling with an injury? Let me know!

My favorite domestic US cities to travel to!

Traveling for work over the past 10 years has taken me to a lot of places in the United States. I think I can say that I've been to over 40 states and over hundreds of cities right now. I've been blessed to be able to indulge in many of the different cultures around the country and would love to share some of my favorite places with you. It is very hard to narrow this down, but for the purpose of this post, I'm going to keep it just to large metropolitan areas: San Francisco, Miami, Boston, and Seattle. I'll try to give you a small flavor of each of the cities that are all in the outskirts of the nation. I was born and raised in Philadelphia and still get back there pretty often. So it would be a lot easier to write about places like Philadelphia, New York, DC, etc. but I'll leave those for another day.

San Francisco: This is where I reside now. I love it here! If it wasn't so expensive to live here I would probably stay here for the rest of my life. There are so many different items to see: Fisherman's Wharf, Alcatraz, The Farmers Markets, the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco Bay, Chinatown, and so much more. The restaurants are easily by far some of the best in the country. There's just so much good local, organic, and amazing food here in the city. And only about 40 min. up the road, you can hit up Napa Valley and the rest of wine country for an experience that you will never forget. What a great city!

Miami: Will Smith once said "Party in the city where the heat is on". I couldn't agree more. Miami is the place that I go when I want to relax, sit back, and party as much as I can. It's probably the second largest melting pot in the nation, with so much culture that you can never only spend just a couple of days there. The nightlife in South Beach attracts a lot of people you would be surprised to see how much actually goes on within places like the Art Deco district and Coconut Grove to name a few.

Boston: Another great town that I've gotten to see is Boston. Boston definitely has some very interesting people and is a big-time sports town. If you ever come here you must visit any of the local pubs and restaurants as well as catch a ballgame at Fenway Park. For some reason the city seems to have an insane amount of traffic though so either look up the best routes on public transportation, or lace up your walking shoes. The Boston/New England area also is home to many of the best universities in the entire nation.

Seattle: I never thought that I would say this (especially being from Philadelphia), but Seattle is a really, really cool town. There's just so much to see here and the city seems to have so much life to it. Everyone has this misconception that all it does in Seattle is rain, but that isn't really true. They have a great fish market to go see, some really fantastic restaurants downtown, and is famously home to the software juggernaut Microsoft. They have some great skiing here, and just two hours to the north is Vancouver Canada, another beautiful city. Seattle was very popular in the 90s grunge music era and spawned many popular bands such as Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Soundgarden.

The Life of a Road Warrior

A couple of tips for the business traveler…

Are you a road warrior? Chances are if you are in Account Services within the agency world, you are going to have to be on the road at some point in time. One creamer and sugar at a time on your plane, strange hotel rooms that always have something quirky about them, high priced EVERYTHING, and never enough sleep. Trust me, I know how it is.

For some reason or another, I used to enjoy the “thrill” of being a road warrior: exploring new cities, indulging in delectable restaurants, meeting new people, and of course, all of the perks that come with travel – airline miles, free hotel rooms and upgrades, no lines for anything, etc. Think George Clooney in Up in the Air (which may be the story of my life).

After flying close to 150,000 miles last year though, the glamour of traveling has faded away; the reality of overbooked flights, sleeping in foreign beds, intrusive security pat downs, and travel size toiletries became my norm. If I can’t carry it in my luggage, I don’t want it. If it is more than 3.4 oz., I can’t carry it on. If it won’t fit into an overhead compartment, I am not buying it.

A road warrior doesn’t live the same life as normal folks. I constantly have people asking me where I am and when I am coming back. If I travel to a client for the week, that means I need to spend my weekends running normal errands like doing dry cleaning, getting haircuts, washing my car, shopping, etc. This leaves hardly any time for family and friends, let alone having a social life.

A real road warrior learns how to adjust though. The road warrior I am talking about knows how to get through security lines in 30 seconds by dropping their shoes on the ground with one hand and putting them on while shoving their laptop in their bag with their other hand; and then is putting their belt on while running to the gate and grabbing their boarding passes out of their pocket. We never check our bags either. I would rather lose my 5oz. shampoo that cost me $12 than going through the hassle of checking a bag. This road warrior also embraces the sporadic long lines at the airport because it means they can send a couple more emails on his Blackberry. We don’t care about fancy sheets and pillows in our hotels because we know to throw them off the bed the second we walk in the room. We don’t even take connecting flights unless we HAVE to.

I’ve learned a couple of other things along the way. Now set your ADHD aside for a second, and focus in:

• Always travel with comfortable clothes. You can’t predict that last minute request for some seemingly never ending power point presentation that strands you at your hotel room desk. Comfy clothes always make it better.
• Being that your body will begin to freakishly learn how to sleep more sitting up that lying down, make sure you get all the shut eye you can while traveling. You can’t be at your best with the client when you are walking around looking like a zombie.
• Patience is power. Road warriors don’t complain about traffic jams, flight delays, or having to put their bag in an overhead above seat 22F – even though they are sitting in seat 5A. Build extra time into your travel plans to counter these delays.
• Take advantage of the perks. Make sure you sign up for any and all rewards programs you possibly can. You can’t beat being upgraded to first class and moving up to a suite while traveling, and these perks definitely are usable when traveling for personal reasons as well. Build up those miles to plan that fun summer vacation down to Disney with the fam, or that romantic getaway with your significant other.

Feel free to chime in with your best travel tips!