Travel Tips - Jetset Wanderlife

January 3, 2018March 31, 2020
by Jetset Wanderlife

Contents

First, the operational tips.
Next, cheap flight finder and inexpensive travel tips.
Last, the gear that will make travel easier and better.
What’d we miss?

Jetset Wanderlife Travel Tips

Caitlin and I have only been traveling for 6 years. As of this writing, we’ve been to 27 countries and 5 continents, but we’re far from experts or know-it-alls. In fact, in putting together this list, I have hopes that others will collaborate and expand this list. I need to learn more travel secrets!

First, the operational tips:

When you’re traveling to a new time zone, try not to sleep until the new time zone’s bedtime. Seriously, even if it means freebasing Red Bull, do whatever it takes to sleep in your new time zone’s time, not your body clock’s old time zone. I have learned from sad experience, you can lose a day or more of your trip to jetlag and weird sleeping patterns. I’ve spent time wandering London and Hong Kong at 3am, only to be ready for bed that night by 5pm.

If at all possible, DO NOT CHECK A BAG! Aside from being expensive (and thus negating the cheap fares you can find), checking a bag sucks in many ways. Mostly, it’s awful waiting for it at the baggage claim instead of beating the crowd, getting your car/bus/train/Uber, and starting your trip early. Plus, just having a small backpack makes everything so much easier to keep track of, pack up, etc. (See the GEAR section below for the bag I use). Take a decent sized travel backpack, use space saver bags, and take clothes to ditch (see below).

Practice “weight smuggling” if necessary. Shoutout to Jeff “Drizzy” Denison for the term weight smuggling, which is my new favorite. If you’re traveling light and come up against a weight or size restriction (it WILL happen eventually), smuggle that weight on your person! Wear every item of clothing if you have to, put your laptop down your shirt, etc. I once flew from Auckland to LAX wearing a pair of shoes with the laces tied together draped around me like some awful necklace. Hey, if it means less money spent on bags and more for fun, I’m all in.

Pack old clothes to ditch along the way. If you travel light (use a decent sized backpack and don’t check a bag), pack a bunch of old clothes that you’re going to get rid of anyway. I save any shirts, pants, shoes, etc that have met the end of their lifespan and put them in my travel pile. Ideally, I’d like to donate anything in usable condition to a homeless shelter, but so far I haven’t found one in my travels. If you’re traveling with a backpack only, it’s an incredible feeling when your bag gets lighter and lighter along the way. Plus, hardly any laundry when you get home!

Direct flights are worth it if you can afford it. Our first international flight went SLC–>Phoenix–>Charlotte–>London. We didn’t know any better, and we thought we got a good deal, but such obscene travel times are a bummer. It basically took 2+ days of our vacation just getting there and back.

T-Mobile is awesome for international travelers. I know people have strong feelings about phone carriers, but I’ve never had issues with T-Mobile whilst living in Utah, California, or Hawaii. And their unlimited free international data and texting is seriously life-changing. Caitlin and I spent so much time, prior to free data and texting, taking trains to wrong places, walking miles in the wrong directions, etc. Now, we just grab a Google Map or Citymapper and we’re golden. We have not gotten lost a single time since. Recently in Paris, our flight came in late so we missed the last train. No worries, we opened Uber and were good to go. It’s amazing.

Buy tickets to anything touristy in advance if possible. Truly. Madly. Deeply. You have to believe me on this. When you’re at the Vatican, you want to SEE the Sistine Chapel, not wait in line for hours to see the Sistine Chapel. And so forth. The Paris Catacombs, for instance, were a multi-hour wait, and I heard many days, the people in the line don’t get in. And man, for the Anne Frank House, buy them 3 months in advance, as I sadly learned by failure. Believe me, I know this can suck. You oftentimes have to pay extra, and I’m super cheap. But that extra hour or 2 on your trip will make this SO worth it.

Don’t overschedule. Look, I get it. In Iceland, we wanted to see everything but only had 5 days. We sadly had to admit we couldn’t see everything, and we prioritized and went with it. Pretty much anywhere you go, there’s so much amazing stuff to do and see. But, in my humble opinion, if you schedule too much, or make things too close together, it feels like work rather than play. Don’t turn your vacation into a nonstop rush hour. Which brings me to…

Leave time for the in-betweens. Again, this is just a personal preference. As the Front Bottoms song goes, “I like the in-betweens, I like the time it takes to get somewhere.” Don’t make things so fast that you can’t stop and see the place. One of my favorite Iceland moments happened as we were heading to Vik and saw a waterfall to the side of the road. We pulled over and it ruled. Stop and see things. Eat things. Experience things. The in-betweens are my favorite parts of travel.

Find locals and get recommendations. This comes with a caveat: So many people will try and hustle you into going to “the best” places, which probably give them a kickback and usually suck. Find someone who’s hopefully non-biased, sometimes as your hotel desk or usually an Airbnb host. As for out-of-the-way places, restaurants, museums, and other stuff that tourists tend to miss. Our most recent time in Rome, our host was absolutely phenomenal at this. We saw the key hole, which is one of the coolest things ever, and I had never even heard of. We ate at amazing restaurants. We saw Michelangelo’s Moses at a little place we’d never heard of with approximately 0 people around.

Just do it! This is my last bit of editorializing. Just freakin’ do it! Try new stuff. Buy and new food and drinks…it might be awful but at least you tried. You may discover something delicious. Walk into buildings if they look cool (and if you’re not trespassing). Talk to strangers. Sit in parks. Take in the culture and language and people and just rock life. Someone once said something along the lines of, “Those who have not traveled have not lived,” and I agree. Live!

Next, cheap flight finder and inexpensive travel tips:

Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I may receive compensation if you sign up or purchase from the links.

Flightsfromhome.slc and Secret Flying. Flightsfromhome.slc is obviously a little better if you live near Salt Lake City, like us. They’re an Instagram that posts heaps of great deals, and they also have other cities they post from. Secret Flying is a great Twitter follow, although they post LOTS and their deals are from all around the world, so most won’t be relevant. But they got us from LAX to Reykjavik for $299 so it’s worth it. I know there’s lots of other great deal finding sites and people but these are my current go-tos.

Google ITA Flight Matrix. I have no idea what the Google ITA Matrix is or means, but we’ve found lots of our cheap flights there. Just use it and thank me later.

Skyscanner. Skyscanner is fun because it compares lots of airlines for prices, but it also has an “anywhere” function, so if you’re up for an adventure, it’s rad.

Lyft and Uber. I’m sure everyone knows about these services by now, but my most loyal (and only) reader might not…hi mom. Lyft and Uber are basically taxis driven by people in the area, not taxi drivers. If you use the promo code MITCH796650 on Lyft, you’ll get $20 off your first ride. On Uber, code mitchm1041ue will get your first ride free depending on location. (I’ll get credit too). Once, in Prague, we had to be at the airport at 5am and there was no public transportation. Uber had people throughout the night, and got us there perfectly. Good times.

Again, you already know about this. It lets you rent rooms in houses (or the whole place) instead of a hotel. In Iceland, it saved us at least 30% over a hotel. In Jerusalem, it was an amazing location and our host gave us lots of cool tips for stuff in the area. If you use this link, you’ll get $40 in travel credit for signing up (I’ll get $20 when you take a trip).

Hotel Tonight. Hotel Tonight is a fun app for last-second hotels. You can sometimes score great deals, and promo code mmallory6 will give new users $25 off $125.

Amex Gold Business Credit Card. Ok, more than anything else, this is our golden (pun intended) ticket to travel. If you own a business, this is a must. You get to choose 3x points on a category. Since we run Apericots (baby clothes) by day, we choose shipping since we spent many tens of thousands yearly on shipping. Thus we get hundreds of thousands of points yearly, which we use for Sky Miles, which we use to travel cheap. Our last round trip tickets to Hawaii were $11 plus miles. If you use this link, you’ll get 50,000 extra points if you spend $5k in 3 months. It costs $175/yearly after the first year, but it’s incredibly worth it.

Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card. Caitlin and I each got 100,000 bonus points (I think the 100k promo is over) for getting this card, which paid for our flights to Thailand. Plus it reimburses you for $300 of travel expenses per year, plus gives you a free Global Entry membership (gets you through airport security heaps faster). The best part though is the Priority Pass lounge membership that comes with it. Airports are SO much less miserable with a nice lounge to eat and drink for free at. If you use this link, you’ll get 50,000 bonus points.

Hotels.com Gift Cards. This one isn’t life-changing, but occasionally these go on sale on Amazon where you can get a $50 gift card for $40. Hey, save when you can where you can, right?

Last, the gear that will make travel easier and better:

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Some of this information will be a bit redundant if you’ve read our Amsterdam or Egypt posts. Nonetheless, these are things we took that made the trip better, easier, or things that are just cool and worth having.

Amazon Prime: C’mon, it’s 2017. Get free 2-day shipping (which was necessary since we always found something we needed at the last minute) and lots of good music and TV/movies which make road trips more enjoyable. Try it free and you won’t be disappointed. Plus, pretty much everything below will ship to you free in 2 days in the USA.

AUKEY Powerbank External Portable Charger: This thing has saved us many times. It’s nice to have around the house, but it’s nicer to have during a long flight or a 12 hour day in Paris. It has 2 USB inputs and charges our iPhones really fast. It’s a bit bulky, but we get 2-3 charges from it each time. SO worth having.

Anker External Portable Charger: Yes, we take 2 portable chargers on our trip. This one isn’t as long-lasting, but it’s much smaller and lighter. It’s a bit annoying charging 2 every night, but really worth it to have charged phones the entire day.

My Bag: As I said above, we travel LIGHT. This bag is not incredibly nice, but it has a lifetime warranty and it can cinch down to unbelievably small sizes. It’s made it through Thailand, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Iceland, Amsterdam, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Paris with no problems yet.

Towels: These towels were a must in Iceland because of all the hot springs. We didn’t use them in Amsterdam, but we did in Israel at the Dead Sea, so I’m including them here. These ones are awesome because they fold up small and dry incredibly quick. One of my favorite things we took! We got an off brand, my friend got an original Packtowl which he raves about. Your call.

Space Saver Bags: These have proved invaluable on our travels. It’s amazing how small clothing can shrink down to in one of these! Highly recommended.

International Outlet Plugs: Of course, when traveling overseas you need a plug adapter. We’ve had these exact ones for at least 5 years. We’ve taken them to 4 continents and they’re still going strong. And, they’re super cheap and have everything you need all in one, so you don’t have to bring a bunch of different parts. Highly recommended. These plugs worked in every country of this trip as well as every place we have been since I bought it in 2012. Still going strong, highly recommended.

Double Wall Plug USB Charger: Probably not essential but with so many things needing charged (both phones, camera, laptop, etc.), it’s nice to charge 2 at once. And they charge super fast. We use at home and abroad.

Aux Cable: You probably already have a million of these. Our car (in Paris and Jordan) had a USB that connected directly to the music, so we could charge our phones and blast tunes at the same time. The longer cable is nice so if someone is in the backseat they can still charge and control the music or navigate or browse Instagram or whatever)

MacBook Air: Since we had to travel so light, it was nice to have a tiny but powerful computer. I ran the business from the road with no problems.

Amazon Music Unlimited is just bloody awesome. It’s basically all the music ever and I love it. We didn’t use it as much in Amsterdam, but more so in Paris and Jordan where we had long drives, and it is awesome and amazing. I think it’s free for 30 days then $7.99 monthly for Prime Members after that.

Amazon Fire Tablet: If you do any traveling/bed reading/car sitting/or basically anything in which having a tablet may be a good idea, these are perfect. They’re cheap and they’re awesome for Netflix, Hulu, and ESPN Watching.

Gym shoes: This entire trip, starting with Amsterdam, was a TON of walking, and these are my running/weights/gym/everything shoes back home. I love them and they are the best ever. Get five pairs immediately. They were great for Pyramid walking, Petra tramping, and Paris trudging, even in the heavy rain they dried quickly.

Reef Sandals: C’mon man, these are Reefs, they’re awesome, they’re comfortable, and they have a bottle opener on the sole for some reason. I’ve never actually used it, but still, it’s nice to have…I guess?

Speedo Water Shoes: In Kauai, I cut my foot on a reef. In Israel, I burned my feet badly at the Dead Sea. I finaly wisened up and got some water shoes and love them. They’re super light so they pack easily, and they’re great for pretty much any beach activity.

Although I don’t have a link, the Citymapper app is phenomenal for clear and precise directions to public transport. We used it a TON in London and again in Amsterdam and it’s always really accurate and seems a bit easier to use than Google Maps.