Road Warriors - lessons learned?

[littlejerry]

Are we talking actual road warrior? I.e. driving state to state?

Most of my travel is to Asia. But here are my nuggets of wisdom that apply most places:
-Learn a good bodyweight workout routine. Most hotel gyms suck. You can do bodyweight stuff in your room worst case or find a park to get some cardio in as well.
- look for public parks on the map. It's a simple thing but driving 20 minutes to a park for a short run and bodyweight PT really keeps me fresh over the course of a week. Sometimes that means not drinking yourself stupid at the hotel bar with coworkers.
- Exercise more than you do at home. You don't need high intensity, just higher regularity. I make sure to get a minimum of 30 minutes of quality exercise every day but really shoot for an hour.
- Always order the salad
- Skip free hotel breakfast. I stay in rooms with a fridge and head to the grocery store for yogurt, berries, and nuts. $15-$20 covers a week of breakfast. In the right hotel you'll have a Keurig and can pick up your preferred pods as well.
- Lots of chargers, lots of cables. Somehow chargers and cables always end up failing or going missing so I carry spares for my spares.
- Soft earplugs. Game changer on flights, also useful in a hotel when there is a family reunion on the floor above you.
- Melatonin. My go-to for sleeping on flights but also helpful for getting consistent sleep in other time zones.

[Joe in PNG]

In regards to passports, your passport should stay on your person while you are traveling.
Never never never put it in a suitcase or carry-on. I usually put mine in the pocket of my t shirt (under whatever long sleeve shirt I'm already wearing).
(Told my mum this during the family Alaska trip. She had hers in a neck wallet, and put that in the seat pocket, and forgot it.
Happily, we figured this out before it was too late.)

Know the ground you'll be on. Google maps is great for this. Check out public transport, local restaurants, malls, stores, and ect.
Knowing the area around any airports you'll be passing through is also a good thing, such as what hotels to avoid. A smile and friendly attitude gets you a lot of help.

I like to print up a contact card to keep in my passport. This has the contact details for family, for my travel insurance, for any hotels I have reserved, and contacts at my final destination. This has helped with arrival cards and not having to dig around for this info.

Flying international, I find that there's a 25% chance of significant delay. If possible, have a buffer of a day or two between major legs of an international journey. I usually take two nights in Brisbane when going from PNG to the USA. This takes off a lot of travel stress, lets me rest up before/after the long trans-Pacific flight, lets me get a lot of exercise (I spend a lot of that time walking around the city), and helps me adjust to jet lag when I go to PNG.

[RevolverRob]

I second the hanging kit bag. I bought one earlier this year and have use it twice now, it’s night and day better than having a big bag on the counter of the bathroom. I must have had a dozen different kit bags over the years, a tri-fold that hangs is 100X better.

I’m a strictly rolling suitcase guy for conference travel, except international. International travel - a carefully packed 3-day pack, will hold a month’s worth of gear.

I do recommend a shoulder or sling bag. These days, I use a rolling suitcase, my Timbuk2 Medium Sized laptop messenger (which goes right through TSA), and I pack a small canvas shoulder bag, that I use as a day bag, when I don’t want to lug my laptop around.

The canvas bag is like this - https://www.amazon.com/Cross-Canvas-.../dp/B0739RJ3KX - with a strap long enough to go across the body. I bought it in Berkeley at a bookstore years ago, to help me haul a bunch of books back to my hotel. Since then I’ve used it thousands of times. It’s the right size to hold gym clothes or gym shoes, or an Ipad, or a couple of books or conference catalogs, plus some other daily sundries, like sunglasses, chapstick, a powerbar, water bottle, notebook, whatever. It’s just the right size, that you can’t necessarily overpack it, but you can pack enough in it. It’s probably the most versatile bag I own. I think it was 10 bucks...

[Chain]

When I travel by car I like to take a small George Foreman grill. It's fantastic for cooking meat in your hotel room, and as an added bonus, I've discovered that if you put the Foreman *upside down* the smooth top plate is level! i.e. you can cook eggs!

[jetfire]

Man you guys have some very practical, and also boring-ass travel tips.

Here are some more fun ones:

• If you fly more than 25,000 miles a year and you're not in a loyalty program, you should be
• If you stay in hotels more than 20 nights a year and you're not in a loyalty program, you should be
• There's a reason why Delta and American Airlines are more expensive than Spirit or Jetblue or whatever. It's because they're better.
• If a town doesn't have a Hampton Inn, it's not worth whatever you're going there for
• Never eat shady mexican food the night before a major match
• Shooting a National Championship while hungover sucks, but it does help you shoot better
• There's a reason National Rent-A-Car is more expensive: it's better
• The best card for a frequent traveller is probably the Platinum Amex since it gives complimentary Delta lounge access as well as hella points

[mmc45414]

If you plan ahead and/or have large/heavy items to travel with you … can be a lot cheaper than checking it, and it doesn't suck to have it waiting for you at the hotel when you get there.

Most of the reason I almost always drive is because I have bulky stuff to take and my plans are often, shall we say, "dynamic"... Plus for almost all of my territory it is probably only 2-3 extra hours to drive, by the time you figure either an indirect flight or driving to a bigger airport, and with my car I am on my schedule. On an unrelated note, everyone (including me) is stunned by how much you can actually get in a Ford Focus. This was more of a delivery than sales trip, but this was my record cargo:

[SouthNarc]

Man you guys have some very practical, and also boring-ass travel tips.

Here are some more fun ones:

• If you fly more than 25,000 miles a year and you're not in a loyalty program, you should be
• If you stay in hotels more than 20 nights a year and you're not in a loyalty program, you should be
• There's a reason why Delta and American Airlines are more expensive that Spirit or Jetblue or whatever. It's because they're better.
• If a town doesn't have a Hampton Inn, it's not worth whatever you're going there for
• Never eat shady mexican food the night before a major match
• Shooting a National Championship while hungover sucks, but it does help you shoot better
• There's a reason National Rent-A-Car is more expensive: it's better
• The best card for a frequent traveller is probably the Platinum Amex since it gives complimentary Delta lounge access as well as hella points

All of this. I'm a Diamond with Delta, Diamond with HHonors, and Executive Elite with National. All of it is paid for on an Amex Platinum.

I'll log about 120,000 air miles this year and over 140 individual flights.

[JAD]

For context I have traveled as much as 80%, international. I have mellowed and am down to about 8 internationals and 25 domestics per year. I’m tracking >150k air miles and maybe 80 hotel nights. I’m a sales guy so I have to look reasonably put together, and most of my trips are single day in a given locale and contained by my choice within a week; last week was typical — Utrecht, Helsinki, Billingstad, Bergen, Stord, and ålesund. This week is mellow, just two days in Seattle.

I never check bags. If a trip is mostly one city like a trade show then I’ll probably do a (euro sized, Rimowa hard side with latches not a zipper) roller paired with a 20 year old Tumi briefcase; most of the time I get by on a Goruck GR1 26l, except in winter. Having a single bag makes the flight-every-night trips a lot easier and prevents me from having to roll a suitcase into a customer, or down two miles of European cobblestone streets.

Most of my trips are done with a sport coat, a pair of trousers, jeans, two dress shirts, and maybe a sweatshirt. The separates help because I do a lot of time in Norway and sport coat plus jeans is as dressed up as you can go there. If I’m at a show, seeing government, etc the separates are replaced with a suit, and I’ll add a couple of ties. If it’s the height of summer I might pack an extra dress shirt. In summer, I almost always wear short sleeved dress shirts, which in addition to being cooler pack much lighter. In the dead of winter I will replace the sport coat with a packable puffy jacket, if the environment is suitable — it works ok in Norway and the Netherlands, not so much in Finland and Germany. Usually I get by with a pair of gloves and a scarf.

Summer suits and sport coat are Brooks Brothers Brookscool. Winter suits are heavier wool flannel. Shirts are brooks brothers slim fit non iron, and have been for >20 years. Shoes are Ecco. Shoes should be loose at home — feet swell a lot with flying and walking. Undershirts are Duluth— three for a week in the winter, five in the summer unless I think I’ll be able to launder. Socks are cotton, three spare pairs for a week, they can be washed in the sink if necessary but can usually be reworn. I will usually wear a casual t shirt on the flight over and sleep in it every night. Toiletries are constrained to a 0.5l countcomm bag and liquid is separated in a ziplock because Europe doesn’t have precheck. Amazon sells folding hairbrushes, travel sized toothpaste and stuff in bulk. I use an aggressive antiperspirant. I carry a disposable razor.

Amazon also sells packing cubes. These are essential. Not only do they keep stuff organized, they allow you to pull your clothes out of the backpack and leave them in the rental car while you go in for the meeting. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B014VBGU..._IWiODbQ7DKB3X

I carry all my charging connectors except the laptop in one little countycomm bag. I do carry a spare battery, and enough phone cables to forget one in the rental car.

I like noise canceling over the ear headphones but they’re too big most of the time. A Bluetooth earpiece and some cheap earbuds for Skype are all that usually make it in the bag.

Eyeshades, earplugs, disposable toothbrushes as Joe mentioned (https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B071DPCB..._f1iODbVM1HJG2), lens wipes, a rosary, two pens, my diary, a thinkpad x1 carbon, a kindle paper white, Tylenol, boiron ColdCalm, antacids, travel tissues, chewing gum, a vapur (https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B007UU6J..._t5iODbQ00F7KX, these are badly made and disposable, I go through one a month), spare glasses unless I’m wearing them, sunglasses.

Working out is a nice idea and I pull it off sometimes but that adds a bunch of stink. Bring plastic bags to separate thing. I like Merrell vapor trails, as a packable running shoe, and two-in-one shorts, and a quick-drying singlet.

I don’t bring food. If I’m hungry I eat, if there’s nothing to eat I fast. I drink a lot of water and a lot of coffee.

Booking international flights is a whole thesis in and of itself. For my application the essence is flexibility.

[luckyman]

For context I have traveled as much as 80%, international. I have mellowed and am down to about 8 internationals and 25 domestics per year. I’m tracking >150k air miles and maybe 80 hotel nights. I’m a sales guy so I have to look reasonably put together, and most of my trips are single day in a given locale and contained by my choice within a week; last week was typical — Utrecht, Helsinki, Billingstad, Bergen, Stord, and ålesund. This week is mellow, just two days in Seattle.

I never check bags. If a trip is mostly one city like a trade show then I’ll probably do a (euro sized, Rimowa hard side with latches not a zipper) roller paired with a 20 year old Tumi briefcase; most of the time I get by on a Goruck GR1 26l, except in winter. Having a single bag makes the flight-every-night trips a lot easier and prevents me from having to roll a suitcase into a customer, or down two miles of European cobblestone streets.

Most of my trips are done with a sport coat, a pair of trousers, jeans, two dress shirts, and maybe a sweatshirt. The separates help because I do a lot of time in Norway and sport coat plus jeans is as dressed up as you can go there. If I’m at a show, seeing government, etc the separates are replaced with a suit, and I’ll add a couple of ties. If it’s the height of summer I might pack an extra dress shirt. In summer, I almost always wear short sleeved dress shirts, which in addition to being cooler pack much lighter. In the dead of winter I will replace the sport coat with a packable puffy jacket, if the environment is suitable — it works ok in Norway and the Netherlands, not so much in Finland and Germany. Usually I get by with a pair of gloves and a scarf.

Summer suits and sport coat are Brooks Brothers Brookscool. Winter suits are heavier wool flannel. Shirts are brooks brothers slim fit non iron, and have been for >20 years. Shoes are Ecco. Shoes should be loose at home — feet swell a lot with flying and walking. Undershirts are Duluth— three for a week in the winter, five in the summer unless I think I’ll be able to launder. Socks are cotton, three spare pairs for a week, they can be washed in the sink if necessary but can usually be reworn. I will usually wear a casual t shirt on the flight over and sleep in it every night. Toiletries are constrained to a 0.5l countcomm bag and liquid is separated in a ziplock because Europe doesn’t have precheck. Amazon sells folding hairbrushes, travel sized toothpaste and stuff in bulk. I use an aggressive antiperspirant. I carry a disposable razor.

Amazon also sells packing cubes. These are essential. Not only do they keep stuff organized, they allow you to pull your clothes out of the backpack and leave them in the rental car while you go in for the meeting. https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B014VBGU..._IWiODbQ7DKB3X

I carry all my charging connectors except the laptop in one little countycomm bag. I do carry a spare battery, and enough phone cables to forget one in the rental car.

I like noise canceling over the ear headphones but they’re too big most of the time. A Bluetooth earpiece and some cheap earbuds for Skype are all that usually make it in the bag.

Eyeshades, earplugs, disposable toothbrushes as Joe mentioned (https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B071DPCB..._f1iODbVM1HJG2), lens wipes, a rosary, two pens, my diary, a thinkpad x1 carbon, a kindle paper white, Tylenol, boiron ColdCalm, antacids, travel tissues, chewing gum, a vapur (https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B007UU6J..._t5iODbQ00F7KX, these are badly made and disposable, I go through one a month), spare glasses unless I’m wearing them, sunglasses.

Working out is a nice idea and I pull it off sometimes but that adds a bunch of stink. Bring plastic bags to separate thing. I like Merrell vapor trails, as a packable running shoe, and two-in-one shorts, and a quick-drying singlet.

I don’t bring food. If I’m hungry I eat, if there’s nothing to eat I fast. I drink a lot of water and a lot of coffee.

Booking international flights is a whole thesis in and of itself. For my application the essence is flexibility.

I tend to stay a week at one place, but still
+1 on 99% of this, including Ecco and Brooks brothers. I go w/ darn tuff wool dress socks instead of cotton; and I don’t like the look of short-sleeved dress shirts. I never thought of trying a packable jacket, might have to think about that. Rolling suitcases on cobblestone streets suck big time! But if I know for sure there are no cobblestones I’ll bring a Tumi rolling carryon.

As others have mentioned global entry / pre-tsa rocks!

[JAD]

3. Learn how to deal with folded clothes, learn how to fold your shirts and pants so minimal ironing is required. I have my drycleaner fold my shirtsw.

Generally agree but a looser fold prevents creases; I have the dry cleaner hang my shirts and then I fold them myself.