Another Airboss fan. One trip too Europe with cobblestone streets makes it clear how good an option it is. Plus it holds an amazing amount and is never questioned as a carry on, even on RJs or intra-Europe flights.Originally Posted by Coal Train
Another Airboss fan. One trip too Europe with cobblestone streets makes it clear how good an option it is. Plus it holds an amazing amount and is never questioned as a carry on, even on RJs or intra-Europe flights.
I used to travel a lot domestically, sometimes up to 75 nights a year. Here are my tips:
- I will partake of the free breakfasts, but I go towards the oatmeal, yogurt, and fruit. If there is no free breakfast and I have time and a car, I'll find a grocery store and buy some basics, like yogurt, fruit juice, and a bagel. Don't forget the spoon.
- For dinners, I try to get salads with no dressing. Some of the chains have pretty good salads. If I'm staying at a Residence Inn for more than a couple of days, I'll try to buy some healthy packaged meals. I'm a government guy on per diem, and I can eat healthier and make some money this way.
- When choosing hotels, my criteria were 1) Marriotts (because I'm in their loyalty program) and 2) access to a good running route. The latter was always important to me because I very rarely run on treadmills. The best locations are usually in the suburbs close to a housing development, and the worst are on rural highways without sidewalks. In the old days I'd have to drive around and map a route once I arrived, but now it's much easier with gmap-pedometer or ridewithGPS website. BTW, finding hotels that meet these criteria has gotten much harder for me because of the stupid preferred lodging that government employees have to use.
- Take an envelope with you when you start your trip. Put your receipts, parking tickets, and other papers you accumulate in the envelope. Write notes on the envelope, such as POV mileage to and from the airport, or where you parked your car (you can also take a picture with your phone). Also write the name and date of the trip. When I had a admin assistant to take care of my vouchers, I'd just hand him or her the envelope, and this made their job much easier. When you're done with your voucher, put the envelope in a file and keep it for 6 or 12 months or whatever makes sense for you.
- Watch your language if you have to use DTS. This is a hard one. In general, traveling for the federal government sucks.
- When you get in your rental car, double-check that the actual mileage and fuel level agree with what's on the contract. Don't accept a rental car with a low-pressure light on. I did this once and wound up with a flat tire the morning I had to drive back from Helena MT.
- Take the time to iron a dress shirt if it emerges from your suitcase wrinkled.
- I always have a ziplock with Starbucks Via in my bag.
- Make sure your toothbrush is as dry as possible before you pack it. Once I arrived at my destination and discovered that my toothbrush was covered in mold. That's the only time that's happened in 30 plus years of traveling, but it happened.
- Avoid Newark airport.
As someone who has been traveling every week for quite some time, the one thing that makes or breaks a trip is food and drink. One bad meal will toss up your insides, and make the trip quite miserable, so I tend to focus on food.
Since 2003 I have kept extensive notes on food and drink for all of the cities I have traveled to. Most of the places have stayed open, with some now out of business. They have all been good to me over the years, and I can find familiar menu items that I have been ordering forever. For instance, The Ballast Point Tasting Room in San Diego is open until 11 PM, so that’s always the goal in San Diego.
Fast food has become hit or miss over the years. Chipotle is the healthier option, but sometimes their quality is lacking. Whole Foods is a good option if you are near one.
Since 2003 McDonald’s has never given me food poisoning. If your choices are McDonalds or a sketchy salad, pick McD’s.🤣🤣🤣 Sometimes you gotta pick the lesser of two evils. How healthy is a salad if it has bacteria on it.
If you are in a big city and need a recommendation stay away from Yelp, and find yourself a Cop, Firefighter, or Construction worker to give you a recommendation. They have never led me astray!
Most brewpubs have great food and tend to be very consistent.
Most hotel gyms are worthless, and cardio is about the only benefit they provide. I try to find things to do outside of the hotel during my travels. Going to LA? I pack my day sack and go hike Griffith Park. Caribbean? I pack my snorkel gear and skip the hotel gym. Life is too short to stare at the four walls of a hotel gym.
That’s my shortlist of advice.
The USB ports and chargers in vehicles do NOT collect any data. USB allows data transfer to the vehicle head unit but only what your phone agrees to send. I lead an engineering team that designs the USB media hubs and chargers for about 24 global OEMs, and I am intimately familiar with data transfer. If you just use Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, or Baidu CarLife to interface to the vehicle, there are no additional data privacy concerns over normal phone usage when not connected to anything else. If you connect to just a charger, there is no data connection initiated. The USB data lines are set once to enumerate the device for the proper charging current.
I would suggest not Bluetooth pairing to a rental vehicle as that process can be more invasive and allow data transfer such as contact information and call history.
In case the aircraft one is on has serious problems causing substantial delay somewhere, I have heard that the following emergency kit contents are a must-have:
- One .45 caliber automatic
- Two boxes of ammunition
- Four days' concentrated emergency rations
- One drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills
- One miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible
- One hundred dollars in rubles
- One hundred dollars in gold
- Nine packs of chewing gum
- One issue of prophylactics
- Three lipsticks
- Three pair of nylon stockings
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
A fella could have a good weekend in Vegas with a kit like that.
I used to travel a lot (up to three hundred days per year) and still travel some. I spent most of this week in Detroit. Some things I have learned.
1) Bring a UV flashlight to check the hotel bed and bed clothes. Helps to find bed bugs. I use the Malkoff MDC 16650 365nm Ultraviolet Flashlight. I pair it with a similar visible light penlight. Both are kept in my briefcase with my laptop. When I first get to the hotel room, I peel back the sheets at the head of the bead and break out the UV light. I also check bed frames and wall corners. I never open up my suitcase until I am certain the room is pest free.
2) Based on 1), never use the hotel bedspread. I think they are laundered once per month or something like that.
3) Wash your hands and use hand sanitizer at least once per hour. Take a multivitamin. This helps the body fight cold viruses.
4) If you fly often, take the time to get Global Entry as it also provides TSA Pre-Check. Saves time and hassle in US airports.
5) Use a separate briefcase for travel as it helps you carry only what you need for travel and something stuffed into the everyday case that violates TSA rules stays out of the travel case.
If I never have to set foot in a NYC or NJ airport again, I'll be pretty content. Been through those areas twice and that's two times more than I need to have been through there.
While I'm no road warrior, this is pretty much exactly what I do. I just substitute Enterprise for National (same parent company but whatever), Alamo can kiss my tail. Just about every car I've had from them bar one had to have been used in a 24 Hours of Lemons support race.
I know my list of tips is fairly redundant but I've got a couple:
- A travel power kit has been worth the investment for me (wall adapters, 4 Lightning cables, 4 USB micro cables, 5k mAh battery pack, lightning to 3.5mm dongle, and a set of earbuds). I also carry another 26.8k mAh battery pack as well. I never have to worry about my electronics running out of juice. I am going to get a couple USB data condoms though, that had slipped my mind.
- I go through security with an empty Contigo bottle for water. Saves buying a $3 bottle of water on the other side of the TSA checkpoint.
- Choose your bags carefully. I've got an older Camelback Linchpin I used for flights a few times and I'm done with that one . . . every time I went through security, it got flagged for secondary screening every time I used it.
- Precheck is work every dollar. Especially traveling through very touristy airports (like Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Vegas, etc.). It's maddening getting stuck behind someone who doesn't understand why 2 Budweiser tall boys, a Thermos of coffee, and 2 1L bottles of water aren't allowed through the checkpoint while you're trying to get to your flight.
- I only travel with a carry on and my personal item (backpack/briefcase) if possible.
- The aforementioned wool socks and undergarments were life changing for me. I can't believe it took me so long to switch over
- I've switched over to non-liquid stuff as much as possible for travel (solid soap, cologne, antiperspirant, etc.) so I don't have an overflowing 3-1-1 bag.
- I keep a quart bag with jerky, pistachios, and RX Bars to get me through a days worth of delays. I also keep a few packets of Strike Force Energy in my 3-1-1 bag just in case.
- A pleasant demeanor can get you really damn far with a gate agent in things get fucky.
For the last one, I was last traveling for work the day after the Delta system went hard broke and they were still recovering from it. I was flying out for a 7:30 AM meeting from FLL to a smaller/regional airport (via ATL, of course). Shit went screwy when something broke off the 757 on the inbound flight and there wasn't another plane at FLL they could change to and shenanigans ensued. The Delta app buzzed me before anything was announced at the gate, so I made my way there before the Delta agents were there. I knew I was going to miss my connection and there was one more flight in there that night, otherwise I was going to miss my 7:30 meeting by a lot and spend the night in ATL. Got up there and explained my situation calmly and politely, yes ma'am/no ma'am, told them if they could get me within a 2 hour drive of my location that I could handle the rest. The lady looked at me and say, "Oh no way, sweetie. We're getting you where you need to go tonight. Go have a seat and give me a couple minutes." Nicest people I ever dealt with at Delta on what was one shitty day for them. Let @jetfire said, there's a reason why Delta is more expensive . . . it's worth it.
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur."
Disclaimer: I have previously worked in the firearms industry as an engineer. Thoughts and opinions expressed here are mine alone and not those of my prior employers.
Solid advice, I have gotten in a ton of rental cars where the previous occupant had bluetooth paired their phone and then not wiped the pairing data, and I had access to their entire address book. If you do decide to bluetooth your phone to the vehicle, make sure right before you turn it in that you go into the vehicle settings and delete all the pairing data.
I’m no road warrior but a picture of a dog on a credit card can work wonders at a car rental desk. I was traveling to Seattle for a wedding. I was getting processed at the desk and gave the lady behind the counter my Discover card which had a picture of a Weimaraner on it. She sees it and we start chatting about dogs. I got upgraded from a compact to a small SUV for the same price.
Just a dog chauffeur that used to hold the dumb end of the leash.
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