10 Terrific Travel Tips

Tricks for Awesome Vacations

by Jennifer Marx, PassPorter Guidebooks Author
Last modified 11/15/2010

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In preparing a recent newsletter, we found we had many, many more tip submissions than usual, but there were some particularly good travel tips in there as well. In fact, we found ten excellent tips that can be applied to almost any type of travel! So allow us to share them with you here... compliments of your fellow PassPorter readers!

Travel Tip 1. In-Flight Movies "At more and more airports, you can now rent a portable DVD player for approx $10/day. This is EXTREMELY helpful in keeping young children occupied during the flight, while waiting to board, and just about anywhere! You can rent these portable DVD players and a DVD at inMotion Pictures (http://www.inmotionpictures.com) at several airports now, with many more airports signing on all the time. The company has kiosks at airports in Portland, Oregon; Minneapolis; Atlanta; Cincinnati; Seattle; Denver; San Jose; and San Diego. I hear that the service will find its way into airports in Orlando, Jacksonville, New York (LaGuardia); San Francisco; Las Vegas; Anchorage, Alaska; and Vancouver, Canada, by the end of June. I actually bought one for my 3 1/2 year old, I wish I knew this option was available before I bought one!" -- contributed by Kathy P.

Travel Tip 2. Punch It In "In order to keep all my information I gathered before my trip in one location (my PassPorter), I cut the various 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper to fit my PassPorter. This included hotel and rental confirmations, tips I cut & pasted from other (Disney) websites, and detailed information (dates & times) of shows or attractions I want to see. I then took a one-hole paper punch and punched the holes to fit my Deluxe PassPorter. Now I have everything I need to know right in my PassPorter." -- contributed by Debra Dubord (menomee)

Travel Tip 3. Charter Travelers "When traveling by plane with a large group, check into chartering your own bus to and from the airport. It's a lot cheaper! We had a group of 52, we chartered a bus through Mears, and it was less than $600.00 round trip. It was our own private bus and went directly to our resort, no unnecessary stops, no sorting through luggage. It averaged about $10.00 per person!" -- contributed by Laura Barton (laurabrtn)

Travel Tip 4. Goodie Bags for Good Kids "We drove from Pennsylvania to Florida year ago, and I was worried the long trip would be boring for our two young sons. To make the trip more interesting, I packed "goodie" bags for each day with special little toys and books. The kids were not permitted to open all of the bags at one time. It took us two days down and back, and I made four bags up, one for each new day driving down and then picked up some small Disney things for the two bags for the return drive. They throughly enjoyed their surprise bags each day." -- contributed by Sharon Welker (sharonwelker)

Travel Tip 5. Fanny Packs for All "Don't leave home without a fanny pack for every member of your group! There are great "small" items that can be conveniently carried by all. For instance, sunscreen sticks are readily available everywhere sunscreen is sold. These twist-up tubes can be easily carried in your pack, and are easy and "neat" to apply to face, arms and neck. Also, Walmart sells ponchos for .87 that are the size of a small pack of tissues. Be prepared, and have fun!" -- contributed by Ellen G.

Travel Tip 6. Packs for Real Men "Guys, are you worried about looking a little less than macho with a standard fanny pack around your waist? I was not looking forward to the practical, yet dainty-looking, waist pack my wife got me. Mind you I had my choice between black and khaki. But really, those small waist packs are not for me. Well here is the solution. I was in K-Mart the other day, cruising through sporting goods, specifically hunting supplies, when I saw the "man's man" solution to the fanny pack. It was a hunters waist pouch. In woodland CAMO no less. It has a nice wide belt with snapping buckle. It has one big zippered pouch, one smaller zipppered pouch and a slip opened pouch. Plus there are loops on the outside for pens. Here is the bonus. The larger zippered pouch is just big enough to put my PassPorter into and get it zipped closed. Guys, our days of "fanny packs" are over. Hit the World in macho style with this pack." -- contributed by Todd Bergman (latoberg)

Travel Tip 7. Getting the Sand Off "When you get all sandy and need to get cleaned up, just sprinkle baby powder on the sandy spots and the sand comes right off. And you smell nice and fresh, too! Baby powder works on wet or dry sand." -- contributed by Eleanor Greenly (mimi710)

Travel Tip 8. Journals for Bucks "We relive our vacations over and over again with our kid's journals. Here's how we do it: we give each of our four children a journal to write in. At the end of each day, they write a story about their day. We tell the kids that their journals will be graded ... $10 for an "A", $7.50 for a "B", etc. They haven't figured out that they always get an "A" because they're priceless to us. And it's fun months later to get the journals out and re-live the vacation." -- contributed by Rose Wyrick

Travel Tip 9. Dish Towel Days "We bring 2-3 dish towels with us on our vacations. When the heat is the greatest in the afternoon, we wet the towels down in the coolest water fountains then lay them on our kids arms and legs. Sometimes we even wrung out the wet towels over their heads to keep them cool!" -- contributed by Sarah A.

Travel Tip 10. Rx for Meds "Prescription medication is an important part of the lives of MANY people. To avoid a prescription crisis, take twice the medication you will need and place half of it in your checked luggage and carry half of it in your carry on luggage. You can also ask your physician to write a paper prescription for you for each of the medications. This gives you an opportunity to purchase your medications locally should you lose both of your supplies. Although this is not likely, if your medication is absolutely required it never hurts to take this last simple precaution. If you use prescription insurance coverage, you may have to pay cash if you purchase the medication with the paper receipt. This is because most insurance companies limit the number of days of medication they will pay for at one time." -- contributed by Ken Brown (kbken)

Each of these contributors will receive a complimentary copy of PassPorter! Would you like to see your tip in a future PassPorter newsletter or article? Submit your tips at http://www.passporter.com/customs/tipsandstories.asp

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