Patti posted her top 10 travel rules in her Twitter stream. Here are mine...
10. when you find yourself with an unexpected windfall, spend it on travel rather than buying more things. travel will give you memories you'll cherish forever.
9. pack shoes inside plastic grocery bags if you don't have shoe bags...keeps the dirt off your chothes.
8. put anything that leaks inside Zip-loc bags.
7. pack the chargers first to make sure you don't forget them.
6. always take some sort of music player and earphones...even if you're unbelievably old-skool like me and your listening device is a 15-year-old $5 transistor from Radio Shack. there's nothing worse than finding oneself awake in the middle of the night in a strange locale, having no way to lull oneself back to sleep without turning on a light. (from a life-long insomniac)
5. pack warm pajamas. yes, even in the summertime.
4. never discount the meandering joys of a long car trip. (and if you travel by car, always make sure there's a bottle of hand sanitizer easily accessible for those out of the way soap-less rest stops.)
3. when possible, travel solo. the experience is often more pleasurable when you're only attuned to your own rhythms and whims.
2. always take something to read...(and a book light).
1. just like Patti's #7...pack clothes and then immediately remove HALF of them.
I'm down with every one of these suggestions - especially the first! This summer my DH commented to me in the middle of one of our trips that for the cost of what we were doing we could have had a big-screen TV: http://motherofalltrips.blogspot.com/2008/07/i-couldve-had-large-screen-tv.html
Posted by: Mara | December 04, 2008 at 11:02 AM