Backing Up and Organizing Your Travels Part 2 4.28.12

So, last time we talked about how it’s not so great to just leave everything to chance and only have one copy of your itinerary with you and just assume everything will go to plan. We all learned from Dr. Evil that things never go as you expect. What if you lose the one important piece of paper in your giant stack that you feel the need to bring on vacation with you? What if that one paper has your hotel name, number and address on it and you can’t remember any of those things? What will you do then? Probably go dig through your email until you find it and scribble it all on the back of another one of your many confirmation pages. Wouldn’t it be easier to whittle it all down to day-by-day needs and do away with piles of papers that could still be in your printer? Of course it would! It would also be nice to know that all your photos are safe and sound.

Dropbox – I can’t even tell you how much I love Dropbox. You start with 2GB of space for free, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but you can save so much stuff in there. I use it for my blog photos, all my budget travel book info (media contacts, revisions, cover images, marketing ideas and everything else associated with it) and all my personal things I don’t want to lose, like my resume and important documents. And I still haven’t used up all my space. Essentially, all your files are on an online drive, but you can add the dropbox folder to all your computers, your iPad, your phone and whatever else you might have to store info and have access to it anywhere you are and on whatever device you’re using. If you are just out wandering around and need a file, you can log on online and still be able to get to it in a matter of seconds! You’ll love it, sign up.

Why it’s good for travel is that you can make copies of your passport, visa, credit cards and add a document in there with all the important info you need, like hotel addresses and phone numbers, contacts you might need to get in touch with and anything else you deem important. This way, if something unsavory happens to your belongings, you aren’t completely lost. You can find everything you need wherever you are. And it’s more secure than keeping it in an email folder.

Evernote – I am a devoted Evernote user. I love it. Not only can you use it across all systems like Dropbox, but you can also edit and post to your blog from within it, copy links, pictures or full webpages with a click of a button and even share things to your social networks. I use it on my phone most often, though I’ve taken to writing blog posts with it, too. I have a long-running grocery list (paperless!) in a note, as well as party menus in another and add things that I find that I want to do on my vacations to another. If you see something that looks cool, but can’t really explain it, clip the whole page for later instead of writing down some code and months from now you don’t have to figure out what a Scottish Historic Monument Pub is.

You can have an endless supply of notes and access them anywhere. You can also speak your text into your phone for translation to type, but so far that has only be a source of amusement for me, because if you don’t speak super slowly, you get some really random things that do not make a good blog post. It’s pretty hilarious though!

Anyway, Evernote is great for everything and is a spectacular app for your phone, because you can jot things down if you think of something while you’re sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, waiting for a movie to start, getting your oil changed. Pretty much whenever it’s convenient to send a text, you can be making a list or blogging. So much better than the notepad, too.

Hopefully, you will get a lot of use out of these sites, as well as the two in my previous post. It’s never a bad idea to back up all your important info and things you like to have access to all the time. Emergencies happen, but you can be more prepared to deal with them now. 

Do you use Evernote or Dropbox? Are they favorites? 

Backing Up and Organizing Your Travels Part 1 4.25.12

Ever had a horrible hotel experience? Check out mine at Interiors & Sources magazine. I realize now that this is the experience that has made me so obsessive about travel planning.

When you’re planning for vacation, do you end up with endless pieces of paper for hotels, car rentals and other stuff you’re doing? I know I do, but instead of printing out every last thing that I may or may not need, I now have learned that putting it all together online is a better method and helps me to know exactly where everything is and what I’m still needing. Once I go on my trip, I can print out the necessary things (3 pages vs 42 is easier to carry) and have a back-up for myself that isn’t attached to just my email. I also like to back-up and organize on-the-go, because if my camera gets stolen or I lose it, I will cry my eyes out over all the photos I’ve lost. This is why uploading at the end of each day to “the cloud” or online program is fancy, convenient and helps eliminate the needless worry of impending photo lossage. Yeah, I just made that word up!

Don’t let tragedy make you sadder than it has to. Use a back-up – or several – to keep everything within your reach, even when you lose papers, cameras, your laptop, phone or all your worldly (travel) possessions are stolen.

TripIt.com – Don’t you hate carrying around a novel worth of confirmations and check-in sheets with you while you’re in transit? Sometimes, it takes up so much room, you could have fit in an extra outfit. I have a secret, which is not SO secret anymore, but if you don’t know about TripIt, then you will jump up and down for joy. Okay, maybe just on the inside. Not only can you add an infinite number of things to your itinerary online, but you have space to write in confirmation numbers, phone numbers, addresses, times, who you talked to and how much it all cost you (helping you keep track of your budget…effortlessly!).

Are you dreading now having to input all that stuff more than carrying the stack of papers around? This is the coolest part: You can email your confirmations to TripIt, via their special email address and they will suck all the useful info out for you and instantly updates your itinerary. It says it can take a few hours, but when I’ve done it, it has been a matter of minutes. It’s magic, I tell you! Now, it doesn’t work with all confirmation emails, but many of them. I haven’t tried dining reservations, but I’ll be doing it for sure on my next trip.

Once you have your whole trip planned and input into TripIt goodness, you can share it with everyone you like (although, you can do that anytime) and even post the less detailed version on Facebook, so everyone you know can be jealous…and start plotting the raid of your house. Print out your complete trip plan before you go and whittle down your paperwork from War and Peace to a funner version of Pat the Bunny. And if you want to go totally paperless, get the app and view it all on your smartphone.

Shutterfly – If you take a ton of pictures like I do, it would be a serious tragedy if you lost all of them while on vacation. You would not see a meltdown so big unless I was shot in the leg or found out I had some sort of incurable disease. This is why I do multiple photo uploads on my travels. It may not be every day, but it depends on how many I took that day. The more often you upload, the less time it will take. I travel with a netbook, so when I get back to my hotel/apartment/timeshare/ship cabin in the evening, I pull the SD card out of my camera and dump all my photos. Once I have internet, I select and copy all of them to my Shutterfly folder. This way, if something happens to my netbook or my camera or my SD card all is not lost. Shutterfly has taken over what was once Photoworks, but the merge has made them much easier to use and uploading and editing is so much simpler. (If you currently use Kodak Gallery, Snapfish or York Photos, they will work just as well to keep your photos safe.)

We’ll talk about the rest of my favorite back-up organizational sites for planning and traveling in the next post. It will give you enough time to check out the first two and give them a shot. If you’re planning a vacation right now, even better!

If you currently use TripIt or Shutterfly, what do you think of them?

Safe Travels 4.21.12

Vacationing is fun, but you can’t expect crime to cease to exist just because you’re having a good time. It’s still out there and many destinations are full of thieves that are playing Spot the Tourists and then quickly planning how to rob you blind. I hate to think of this side of travel, but it’s real and something to always be aware of. You don’t want your getaway spoiled by having your passport, credit cards or cash stolen or have even worse things happen to you. That’s a sure way to end up spending the rest of your time there trying to figure out how to get back home. So. Not. Fun. Here are some tips on how not to be a crime victim. While they seem fairly logical, I see people doing these things every time I travel, and sometimes even when I’m walking around Portland.

Research crime at your destination. You can never know too much about where you’re going. I know the best part about vacationing is discovery, but you don’t want to “discover” that muggers are ten times more likely to attack people walking around after dark when it is happening to you. One of the things I wish I had learned in Ecuador was that criminals look for cars parked on the street at night to break into and steal everything inside. Luckily, they only got away with a hat (I still don’t understand that) and my husband’s cell phone, which was easily turned off, but had no one been walking by at that moment, they would have had time to steal the computer board in the car’s dash and we would have been out way more money than what it cost to replace the broken window. Make sure you have the option of parking in a lot or garage that has 24-hour security. We learned the hard way, but it could have been much worse than a whole day of vacation wasted talking to the police and getting our window repaired.

Put away your map. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk with your nose in a map crease is just screaming to the world that you are a clueless tourist. Thieves are watching you and maybe trying to think of a way to give you a hand...by stealing all your valuables. Unless you want to be using that map as a blanket when you're forced to sleep on the park bench when all your money is gone, try to minimize using a map as a means to get around while you're on the street. Plan out your route and write down some directions either on a small piece of paper or on your phone. Nobody notices people who glance down at their phones every once in a while. 

Pay attention to your surroundings (quit texting and walking). Yes, I know I just told you to use your phone as a notebook, but don't be a wandering texter. Pay attention to where you are and who's around you. Being and looking aware is a deterrent to criminals. They want to attack and/or rob someone who is totally oblivious to what's going on, and that means those that are talking on the phone while walking down dark or empty streets (and subways) and those texting continuously instead of looking where they (and others) are going.

Travel with a friend. I don't often travel alone, because I have a husband who loves to explore new places, but those that aren't so lucky may benefit from traveling with a companion. Lone travelers are more susceptible to being mugged, but if you make sure you’re aware of what’s around you and where you’re going, you’ll be a lot better off. If you can find a friend that you are comfortable traveling with and you both want to go, then not only will you have someone to share expenses with, but you’ll also be less likely a target. It never hurts if that travel companion is big and looks like they could beat up anyone who bothers you either. Just sayin’.

Stay sober. Yes, I am a killjoy, but when you drink, your judgment becomes cloudy and you may make decisions that are not great, like trusting someone you just met. And yes, I know there are a lot of good people out there, but that doesn’t mean you want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, especially in a different country full of strangers. If you need a reminder why this is on the list, rent Hostel. Yes, it’s extreme, but that doesn’t mean it has never happened.

Don’t trust everyone you meet. This goes along with staying sober. At home you don’t expect that everyone is your friend and telling you the truth, so don’t assume that on vacation either. I’m wary of everyone and remember the term I learned in driver’s ed: leave yourself an out. Make sure you are aware of exits, other people in the area, how you got where you are and any weapons. Sure, that might be a little zombie apocalyptic in thinking, but I have yet to be attacked on a vacation and I plan to keep it that way. I can apply the same rules to escaping from a sudden fire inside a building! If you need some movies to reference as to why this is on the list, you can Netflix Brokedown Palace with Claire Danes who ends up in a Thai prison or Turistas with Josh Duhamel. Just stay with the bus…oh, and don’t get drunk so strangers steal your things.

Keep your money hidden. Don't be one of those dummies that stands on the street counting your change you just got back in the store or the cash you just got out of the ATM. If you don't get robbed at that point, you should be surprised. Watch as the clerk counts back your money and put the small bills where they are easily accessible (because likely you will need those more than any big bills while traveling around) and put the larger ones in an inside pocket where you will notice if thieves try to get to it. If you think about it, you see that guy sitting at the outside café take out a big wad of bills to pay for his check and you wonder what the heck he's thinking. Apparently, he has money to spare, but since you don't, keep your money out of sight whenever possible.

If you are a victim of robbery or other crime, then be prepared. Have numbers to important people stashed in your bag or, better yet, your memory and have back-up copies of all your documents and cards. I’ll give you tips on the best way to do this in the next blog post.

Have you learned a safety lesson the hard way?