Travel Tip Tuesdays: 10 Miscellaneous Tips

Pictured: the ever-useful watch and hat (plus picturesque mountains)

Here are ten travel tips that are not essential, but may be useful at some point.

1. Try getting up right at daybreak. This optimizes your daylight hours and prevents you waiting for the bus in a scary part of town at midnight (which I’ve never done, incidentally, because I get up early).

2. Discover the wonder of watches. This is mostly because you don’t have to wrangle a phone out of your pocket to check the time. I’m just too cheap to buy one.

3. If you’re traveling in an unfamiliar city in your home country, put on a slight accent when asking for directions or querying a bus driver about your destination. That way, if you ask a stupid question with an obvious answer (“Fred Meyer is a grocery store, you moron”), people will assume that you’re “not from around here" and go easier on you. (If they do ask where you’re from, tell the truth or you’ll be stuck pretending you’re Bosnian for the entire Metrolink ride.)

4. Put the camera away sometimes. You’ll miss out on a lot of great moments if you’re experiencing the world through a viewfinder. (My friend Renee wrote an excellent blog about this.) 

5. Chat with people who are walking dogs. They are almost always native, friendly, open to conversation with strangers, and proud of their hometown.

6. If you’re traveling long-term, tattoo “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” on your forehead. (Alternately, patch it on your backpack or just bring up the mantra whenever possible.) Not only will you meet some awesome Tolkien fans, but you can perhaps stem the tide of well-wishers. Many people you meet assume that if you’re traveling around, you must have absolutely no direction in your life. They will try to make you do anything from going to college to taking up telemarketing. Maybe the tattoo will help them understand your mindset.

It's a meal!

7. If you’re tight on money, snack for one meal each day. Trail mix bought at a bulk store gives you plenty of calories and nutrients to get by on two meals a day.

8. Whenever you go, bring a hat. It keeps off the sun, the rain, and the sunburns. Additionally, you never have to worry about a bad hair day again!

9. Learn where the library is. This is your best friend: free wi-fi, heat or air-conditioning, clean water fountains, easily-accessible bathrooms, often free parking, and thousands of books to help you pass the time. This is my favorite place to regroup and plan my next move.

10. Walk whenever possible. Because walking is awesome.

And here’s one last bonus tip from my amazing brother:

11. Keep an unused earplug in your pocket. That way, if someone ever asks you to get them a drink that has a straw in it, you can stick the earplug into the straw and then the person will not be able to drink out of the straw and they will be slurping on it and nothing will come out and it will be hilarious.

(My brother is a weirdo. Also, he is awesome.)

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