Fixes for Common Travel Problems Part 1

When you go on vacation there are some things you just can't avoid. It seems the further you travel the more likely these things become evident, like jet lag, swollen feet and dry skin. After many years of travel, I have learned a lot of things and have yet to master some others. As you know, practice makes perfect, so I decided to pass on some tips to you to help you travel better, too. 

Photo credit

Combating Jet Lag

Jet lag is the worst. Nobody wants to get all excited for a trip and then lose a day or more because of the time difference and jet lag crash. It's happened to me. Maybe it' even happened to you. The point is that we need to nip it in the bud so we can enjoy our whole vacation.

• Adjust to the new time as early as possible. If it is before you leave that's even better. If you are flying, try to sleep if it's nighttime where you are going or stay awake if it's daytime. Don't do what I did and try to sleep as much as possible on the way overseas when it was the middle of the day there. After Day 2 in London, I crashed hard and lost another half day.
• On the other side, make sure you get enough sleep once at your destination. Staying up way too late or getting up way too early is not a good plan. If you have issues falling asleep, try a natural sleep aid like melatonin or even Dream Water. You may not sleep a full 8 hours, but the sleep you get will be quality and you'll wake up rested.
• Don't overplan. Make sure your first couple days are relaxed ones, though you don't want to tax yourself on the rest of your vacation either so you can enjoy your time away, but the first couple days of adjustment are crucial.
• Hydrate! Water is so important. On your plane ride, try to avoid alcohol, coffee and soda, as these can dehydrate you and cause you to crash, tire out easily and sap your energy. 
• Eat! get on a routine and stick with it. Choose veggies at each meal and try to avoid overdoing the fried foods and desserts. I know it's vacation, but sometimes too much of a good thing is just too much, you know? Below is a fun infographic from Heathrow's website giving a diet plan for the days leading up to your trip. I don't know if it works, but I'm definitely going to try it on my overseas flight and will report back after. If anyone else has tried it, I would love to hear your results:

I'm all for a new food routine and maybe I'll just continue to aim for a balance. Even though I'll be traveling for a longer time in the fall than I did last time I visited London and Paris, I still don't want to lose any time when i could be soaking up everything those places have to offer. Already we are doing a better job planning, just having the previous experience and all the travel experiences in between then and now, which means I'll have a great loose itinerary in place before we go. How do you combat against jet lag?

Super Useful Travel Posts

Want to win a Pack-Flat Toiletry Kit from Travelon? Enter here!

It’s been a while since I did a round-up of links. I guess I just haven’t found too many interesting things to share that were fun and not depressing, like the travel alert from the U.S. government to international travelers. This week was big for travel things I found amusing, interesting and useful. I hope you find something in here for you as well, or share a link you found lately, too. Happy Friday! Enjoy.

It turns out that unhappy United Airlines customers have been tweeting @unitedairlines for months. Too bad their Twitter handle is @United. The owner of the parody account decided to answer all those angry tweets with tweets of their own. Pretty hilarious if you ask me, though it’s possible that the travelers didn’t think so until they realized they were tweeting to the wrong address. The Daily Telegraph shows you some of their favorites.

Photo credit: David Bussel

Would you like to find a hidden message in your hotel room? With a little sleuthing, and if David Bussel had been there, you could. Since 2006, he has been leaving (mostly) hidden messages on his travels in random places in hotel rooms, like behind pictures, the underside of drawers and the back of mirrors. Check out all his fun graffiti on his Tumblr.

Are you a diver? If I was, I would love to find awesome hidden and abandoned stuff, like the Nymphas Show Bar, an underwater strip club off the coast of Eliat, Israel. No one knows why it’s been abandoned, but the interior is totally pristine, like it’s just waiting for its clientele and staff to show up. What a cool thing to find on a dive, no?

Photo credit: Lysippos

Ever wondered what it would be like to be able to walk through a wave? You can do it in the Swiss Alps. The Rhone Glacier has a walk-through tunnel that feels like a wave about to crash. Who wouldn’t travel there just to experience this amazing work of nature?

This photo of Friet Museum is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Sometimes museums are just super-boring. Well, not these five! Not only are these great options for the girl traveler going through a break-up, but they are fun for anyone looking for something different. I love a unique attraction and what’s more unique than a museum dedicated to French fries or gelato?

via http://topicstock.pantip.com/

There are so many awesome vacation destinations; however, there are some that are just downright unsafe. Do your research before you go and, if one of these destinations are on your list of places to visit, you might want to rethink plans of going there, because this is 15 travel destinations that could kill you. I’m not saying they will, just passing along the information in case you were really excited to go to Somalia or Burundi. Wait, is anyone?

Photo credit: Hotel Chatter and IHG 

Isn’t it cool to stay in a hotel that has something different than other hotels? Even Hotels is opening two new hotels in 2014 that offer exercise equipment in the rooms! If you’re like me, I always say I’ll make it to the gym, but even though it’s like 40 feet to the elevator and up two floors, I never make it there. I might if it were three feet from my bed though. How about you?

August 20^th is Flight Attendant Celebration Day! San Francisco Airport has a celebration planned. If you can’t make it there, then you can check out the online museum that chronicles the history of the flight attendant uniform by a flight attendant and airline-admirer.

And if those two things aren’t enough to make you feel like you have done something to celebrate the people who clean up after us, tell us the safety procedures and bring us drinks, then check out this rad flight attendant on Southwest that made everyone’s flight a little better by rapping his instructions. How come nothing exciting ever happened when I flew on Southwest?

And since you’re smiling, I’ll close with five new travel scams that you’ll want to be on the look-out for. Who would have known that you may lose your entire bank account one and two dollars at a time? Another way to save yourself from getting your credit card information stolen is by using an RFID-blocking wallet or just card sleeves that have the same technology. Travelon has a large selection of wallets and bags with RFID-blocking card slots.

I hope you have a great Friday and are planning a trip someplace amazing!

Use Daily Deals to Get Vacation Steals

Enter to win a fab toiletry bag for your travels. Click here for the chance at the Pack-Flat from Travelon.

Okay, you guys! It’s time to save some money. It’s right around that time when I am near my vacation and using daily deals to save tons on my trip. Since I’m traveling to some of the most expensive destinations this fall, it’s more important than ever for me to save wherever I can, so we can fit the trip into our budget. It’s probably the same for you. I feel like if I find a daily deal for things I was going to do anyway, then it’s double-awesome. Sometimes I find deals for things I didn’t know existed or for fun restaurants, which shapes a new unique vacation for me.

I have found and purchased deals from Groupon UK and KGBDeals UK so far for my trip to take a bus tour around London (and convinced my Eric’s cousin to buy one for her and her boyfriend when they come spend the weekend with us from Scotland), a scavenger hunt through the Underground, a dining card and afternoon teas. Why would I not use these savings to make my travels better where I can?

Eric loves afternoon tea...maybe not as much as the lady with the hat.

Let’s talk about my favorite daily deal site: Groupon. I’ve used it at home and away and saved tons of money. For those of you who don’t know what Groupon is, it’s a pretty simple concept: Each day there is a new deal put up from a local company - and often more than one. They can be a salon, tour company, restaurant, yoga studio, shop or any number of other things. They will offer one rockin’ deal for Groupon customers. The discount is always AT LEAST 50% off. They will have a minimum number that need to be purchased for the deal to be valid, which means if you “buy” and they don’t reach the number they need, then your card won’t be charged for your order. If they do reach their desired number of purchases, then everyone who buys that day will get the awesomely discounted whatever they are offering. Groupon means “group coupon”, so that explains why they need more than just one person to take the deal in order for it to help both you and company offering the deal. Companies get their name out to customers, customers try them out and everyone wins!

Check out that boat, that we can see from our boat!

One of the cool things about Groupon – among many – is that it’s not just for the U.S. Nope, it’s available for the U.S. Canada and 40 other countries around the world including Colombia, Uraguay and Singapore. Pretty much anywhere you go, you can purchase Groupons to save you big time on your trip. If I want to do a bike tour in Mexico or get a manicure in Greece, I can do it, providing those things come up as discounts before I go. This is why I’m watching it daily until my trip.

Groupon has teamed up with Expedia to bring you fantastic(er) deals on travel! With amazing discounts on luxury hotels and accommodations, you can’t afford NOT to travel well while still on a budget. The rates may not be slashed to 90% off, but they will be great and you’ll drool over their gorgeous photos and long to go everywhere all at once.

Betty White and I are the same height! (Not sure what's up with that ugly tree though.)

So, how do you sign up for Groupon? It’s easy and free! In fact, you can use your Facebook account to sign in if you want. Use either your home location or your next vacation destination as the one you wish to get deals for and then look for them in your email. I’m getting updates for London, Paris and Vancouver, but can click through to look at my local area as well, and I can change my preferred destination anytime I want. I also have the Groupon app on my phone, so I can get the deals on-the-go and also save paper by bringing up the deal on my phone to use at the merchant, restaurant or attraction.

Do you know what’s even cooler? You can get 3% cash back on all your Groupon purchases by using Ebates, too, to make your savings even larger. If you aren't familiar with Ebates, you can read my post on it here. Why NOT save as much as possible on everything you do if you can? Who else uses Groupon or is excited to sign up  for it? Or do you have another favorite daily deal site?