Travel Tips You Need to Know

Regardless of how often you travel, these are travel tips you need to know

1. Power strip charger

You’ll quickly become the most popular person in the airport when you pull out a power strip with 5 or 6 plugins. Either that or you can charge your phone, laptop, tablet, and camera all at the same time!

2. USB Battery pack

Portable battery packs are incredibly valuable on long flights. Some airlines such as Delta have USB plugins on the back of their seats, but most airlines will not provide you a way to charge your phone. Check out monoprice.com and you’ll find a pack that can fully charge 2 devices for just under $20.

3. Charles Schwab Investor Checking Account

Whether you’re in a casino in Las Vegas or just walking the streets of a small town in Europe, ATM fees can be your demise. $5 is generally not a big deal for one transaction, but when you add these up over the period of a month you start to see how much money you’re wasting on ATM fees. With the Charles Schwab Investor Checking Account you’ll be able to make ATM withdrawals from anywhere on the planet for absolutely nothing. All fees that you incur will be reimbursed by Schwab at the end of the month. This is a MUST for anyone traveling extensively as you probably want to avoid holding more than $100 cash at any point in time.

4. TripIt

Here is a snapshot from our flight from JFK to MXP. TripIt creates great itineraries for you after syncing to your Gmail account.
HERE IS A SNAPSHOT FROM OUR FLIGHT FROM JFK TO MXP. TRIPIT CREATES GREAT ITINERARIES FOR YOU AFTER SYNCING TO YOUR GMAIL ACCOUNT.

TripIt is what we find to be the most comprehensive travel application on the market. TripIt offers both a free and a premium account, but we have found that the functionality of the free application is just fine. TripIt syncs to your Gmail account and will auto-populate your reservations into the application so that it can create itineraries for you. It will even get as granular so as to provide you directions from your destination airport to your hotel.

5. Skyscanner.com

Don’t waste an hour or two comparing flights on 10 different sites when Skyscanner will do it for you in a matter of seconds.

6. Apple Passbook

The Passbook application is great as you can add your boarding passes, Starbucks card, and even sporting/concert tickets to this for easy access. You’ll have to download the applications (i.e. Delta, British Airways, etc.) to use this feature. Then you’ll be able to simply import your boarding passes to the Passport. A great feature of this is that your boarding pass will stay on your lock screen so that you can open in easily as you’re going through security.

7. Know when to book

Booking and flying on Tuesdays is generally the most cost effective way to travel. You’ll find that airlines provide the cheapest seats to you if you book Tuesday mornings.

8. Know how to book

Search incognito or clear your history after each search. Some airlines will cache your data and inflate prices on subsequent searches. To avoid this, simply leverage incognito search.

9. Call your banks/credit card companies!

If money is freedom, then the lack there of would be quite like imprisonment. Having experienced being halfway around the world with both a bank and credit card locked for security reasons, we can tell you that it is not fun. Make sure to contact your banks and credit card companies to notify them of the timeframe of your travels as well as your planned destinations. This is especially important for solo travelers who do not have the option of leveraging a friend and paying them back.

10. Airbnb

Airbnb is not only one of the most affordable accommodation solutions but also a wonderful way to make friends abroad. One of the reasons we love to travel is to meet new people, learn more about foreign cultures, and gain a better understanding of the world. Airbnb provides options to rent a shared room, private room, and entire home. With the first two options you’re guaranteed to make a new friend.