Calamity Avoiding Travel Tips by Larry Pittman Goddard larry_goddard@yahoo.com Want to publish this! Will edit!

Travel the World: When to Splurge. When to Scrimp, And How to Return Safely to Home Sweet Home Here in Tyler!

·     Commend the hotel manager early in the stay…they may send you complimentary flowers, champagne or chocolates.  Hotel managers always hear the negatives, so if the room and service are commendable, do it immediately—you may even get a complimentary stay.

·     Take a travel size of Metamucil.  We need fiber and in traveling, you might not eat so much salads and such; and too much bread and cheese.  Just take a little bit of Metamucil with bottled water at night and all will be well.

·     Pack a tiny fan—helps you sleep.

·     When traveling, just go for a one meal sort of plan.  A decent breakfast, fruit and crackers at lunch and a reasonable meal—small portions are key—good to try the food but why stash it away as if hibernating for winter.  Moderation is the key—and don’t eat tomatoes in any country for any reason.  Just don’t!

·     Take a stash of tip money…$1 bills are cool; but $2 bills are cooler….and I look like the guy (Jefferson) on the $2 bill…I mean exactly like him….I have a realistic self evaluation of appearance, so it always makes anyone in any country laugh and I get away with giving them a cheap tip.  Don’t even try to tip in Japan; it is considered rude.  And, if you tip in Canada, expecdt a handshake in return….and keep that hand sanitizer near by.  Other good tips are the gold $1 dollar coins, or the big Eisenhower dollars.  That one with Hiwaatha didn’t catch on…but I have often gone with a wad of $1 bills and come home with the same.  Other countires used to love our dollars, then they love the Euros and now they are back to loving our dollars. 

·     Always pack a large, huge size of aerosol spray sanitizer….keep it at the top of your suitcase and before you do ANYTHING in the hotel room, spray the bedspread, phone, TV remote, all door knobs. Completely gas fog the bathroom and all lamps that have to be turned on and switches…do this first….and all is well.  Anyone who tells you different is an alien.  Don’t trust them.

·     Baby oil and baby powder….pack these even if you leave the baby at home.  Baby powder is great for those long plane rides on leatherish seats with no ventilation; baby oil is great for moisturizing after long flights; can serve as a hair conditioner—even a styling gel—and what a great bath at the end of the day with a few squirts of baby oil. 

·     If you are checking in—especially single females—no NOT let the desk clerk say your room aloud—do the universal symbol of ‘Shhh’ when they hand you the key and start giving directions.  They should know better but they don’t.  No one around should know your room number.  If you are traveling in a group, don’t give anyone your room number….I’ve told folks to just call the front desk and ask for my name—one time I just had to tell this pushy fellow traveler, “Hey, it’s none of your business.”  And it is not. For safety sakes—for privacy—and heck, just for the good of the order, do NOT give out your hotel room to anyone. Well, unless you have plans to ‘hook up’ and gosh, no judgment, but….really? 

·     Take clothes you were going to donate and leave in the hotel room as you come home.  Those shirts with a little bit a bleach stain; the undies with the elasticity out of the waistband or ‘hole-y’ ones; the too tight jeans that you wear unbuttoned with an oversized shirt covering that little bit of muffin top.  I have told folks this for twenty years—keep a box of ‘travel clothes’ and leave in your room with a note to housekeeping….”I am leaving these clothes on purpose.  Please use or give them away…and sign it…” otherwise, as in Japan, the hotel manager might have them cleaned, pressed, and ship overnight back to the United States to you.  But, here’s the logic.  When traveling, who are you dressing to impress?  People you will never see again?  And you will want to purchase souvenirs along the way….so lessening the clothes you packed, will make room for those you BUY on the trip.  My mom swears dirty clothes are heavier than clean clothes. I can’t stand the thought of carrying dirty clothes with me in my suitcase for, say a three week trip.  Jeans can be worn over and over…and then tossed.  Go to Goodwill and stock up on clothes….the trouble with that is that I fall in love with the clothes I buy at Goodwill and hate to leave them.  But, at the same time, after wearing the same clothes over and over on a trip, it is very easy to let them go! The housekeepers love to get American Jeans—in some countries, just having t shirts with American designs are in much demand. I went to Europe for the Christmas kindle markets, and bought a letter jacket at Goodwill for like $1.99. It was “Pedro’s’ on the embroiderery so everyone on the trip called me “Pedro”.  I bought a fine top shelf suit in _____________ and traded the Texas used letter jacket and the employee at the men’s store, gave me her employee discount.  I’m finding now at thrift shops, old letter jackets are the ‘rage’ in fashion….Pedro, if you only knew what you started.

·     The bad thing is that you will be photographed in old clothes and some traveler once told me about my theory in a better than thou attitude, “Well, when I travel, I like to look my best.” Ugh. That is your BEST?  I unfriended on Facebook immediately.

·     But, something is catching on.  With being green the upscale process, a conference I attended recently asked that you bring your business attire for the conference, suits, ladies handbags, briefcases, and wear them until the conclusion of the conference.  On the last day, we wore jeans and souvenir t shirts, and donated all of our slightly used business attire for _______________.  We were asked to write notes of encouragement and place them in our suits and briefcases.  Here is the weird part. I didn’t know in advance of this plan (I didn’t pay attention to my pre conference materials); but I had brought suits, ties, dress suits, London Fog overcoat…all that I had planned to donate to the housekeeper…..but now I had somehow seem my ideas on a large scale…and this is the oddest part….for some weird reason I had packed a huge handful of stationery cards….I had no one in mind at the time of who I would be sending them to but was able to write anonymous notes of encouragement with my top name clothes for those making a change in their lives and preparing for interviews. 

·     Leave in your suitcase:  a multi plug extension for charging your phone, computer, Kindle, Ipad…there is a hotel conspiracy to never have enough outlets and to hide them in contortionist only places for reaching. A small flashlight—keep by your bedside.  A door stop—yeah, those plastic kinds that are hard to find…put it at your hotel door—just in case.

·     Axe…OK, it has no effect on anti-perspiring, but it does help refresh clothes, eliminates the need for perfume, and acts like a room deodorizer.

·     Don’t pack expensive perfumes or colognes….this are hard to do.  If you have lots of samples from the perfume counter, pack those.  But, here’s the bad thing….you can pack a $100 bottle of perfume and somehow in high altitudes, the bottle empties….your toiletry bag smells great; you stink.  And, truly if you are planning on traveling with a group tour, the less the fragrance the more friends you will find on the journey.

·     Hand sanitizer….yep, I love hand sanitizer—not the greasy hand sanitizing lotion.  They have some fragrance; pack your own hand wipes (anti-bacterial well of course); and keep a role of personal paper with you always on a trip.  No more details needed.

·     Collections: I’ve collected key chains from all over the world.  Refrigerator magnets. Bells. Spoons.  Shot glasses. Decks of cards. But the only collection I have found to be useful?  Soccer (futbol) shirts from all the countries I’ve visited.  I buy their national team as soon as I enter a country.  Wear it and you will be treated like royalty…I’ve been brought to the front of the line, was escorted to the plane in leaving a country the day before war broke out; personal attention, songs, and so many freebies by wearing soccer shirts…they think it is funny that a man from Texas is wearing a Morocco national futbol team or that I look like some movie star in Egypt….but hey, use what you can…and I have a closet full of cooler than cool soccer shirts which are perfect for Texas winter wear.  The best souvenir collection ever—doesn’t clutter the fridge or collect dust on a shelf….and snow globes notoriously break on return trips and you have glitter water all over your suitcase when you get home.

·     Always have flip flops, scissors (NOT in carry on!), tweezers, band aids

·     Always steal the toilet tissue…it will help in packing breakables and, well, you can never have enough.

·     Tip your housekeeper on the FIRST day—you will always get great service.

·     If order room service, always ask for extra ketchup, a bucket of ice and pitcher of water….

·     Back packs…yep, they are great….even those little stringed Nike packs—great for day excursions.

·     Gadgets and Gizmos.  Well, you have them, so it would be silly not to use them on trips.  But, if you (like me) have a tendency to lose things, don’t bother. I used to take the cheapest throwaway cameras after losing so many great cameras. I have a fold up walking cane since I have left all my expensive ones all over the world. I did leave my eyeglasses in Croatia and they were mailed to me; and I left my Iphone in cab in New York City and the New Yorker brought them to my hotel, the New Yorker and would NOT accept a $100 ‘reward’.  I Heart New Yorkers.

·     Get instant coffee for your room….run the water very hot in the sink and make your own coffee.  Or pack a mini coffee maker.  You can always check online to see if the hotel has in room coffee.  If instant coffee is bitter and rustic, you can pack coffee flavoring that doesn’t need refrigeration.  Plain saltines and Vanilla wafers—great to pack for in room snacking and digestive solutions.

·      Novels and books to read on trips.  Who are you kidding? If anything, bring pulp reading.  Also, overseas, tour guides LOVE American gossip magazines….bring a few and make buddies with the tour guides.

·     Travel journals…the tour guides lecture and lecture and by the time you get back to the bus, you will forget it all.  I keep a travel journal of funny things that are said; that’s all that anyone really cares about…goofy stuff.  I went once on a 14 countries in 21 days trip and we called it our “ABC” tour—Another Bloody Cathedral.  I have been in over 100 countries and I think John the Baptist’s bones were claimed by every cathedral in every country.

·     Picasa—put your photos on Picasa.  NOT Kodak---they make everyone who wants to view your photos their software and send sales pitches all the time….

·     BlogSpot…if you really want to create a travel blog but no one will ever read every word of it or look at pictures.

·     Pictures without people are worthless.  Get someone in the photo and stop backing up so far…get up close to take photos of people not that old timey full version….with sidewalk foreground and sky background and barely visible full view of people. Get up close enough to see their nose hairs.

·     Calomine lotion.

·     Look down.

·      Schedule a two-day nap upon returning home.  Vacations are not for resting.  Skipping work for two days following vacation...well, that's for sleeping.