Jet lag cures

by Jamie Rhein on

I pretend to cure jet lag by staying up late the night before I go on a trip. I can’t help it. I’m still packing and cleaning the house. I call it my hamster-on-a-wheel routine. There are more effective ways to combat feeling like your head might roll off –or that feeling like you’re listing sideways as you walk through sludge.

Here are some tips that I don’t follow because–well, I just don’t. But if you do, you’ll feel better than I tend to feel after a long, international flight.

  1. Find out what time it is where you are going a week before your trip. Gradually, stay up a half-an-hour each day to get closer to the time that it is at the place where you are going. That sounds like it involves math and planning. Lot’s of luck.
  2. Sleep on the plane.And miss the movies? I do about half and half, depending on how tired I am after staying up packing and cleaning.
  3. Bring a pillow. Okay, but I thought there were pillows you can use on the plane.
  4. Don’t eat the pasta. It will make you bloat. I tend to eat what is put in front of me. I like the surprise when I take off the tinfoil.
  5. Take jet lag medication. Blech! I’m not too fond of medicine.
  6. Take a nap when you reach your destination, but not too long. If I went to sleep, there’s no way, I’d wake up easily. I’d rather pretend my body doesn’t feel strange.

For the full advice and the reasons why, click here. I am a lousy study, but perhaps, you’ll do better.

Clever Uses For Dental Floss: Beyond Teeth

by Jamie Rhein on

I had forgotten that a woman I know used dental floss this past May to expertly cut a white sheet cake into 60 slices. Not that you’ll be traveling with huge sheet cake, but it’s good to know that if you were, and if you had dental floss, you’d have a way to wow the crowd.

Turns out, there are other wow uses for dental floss. I just read about a few of them in the discussion thread “Useful Travel Stuff” on Travelwriters.com. A guy named Kevin Kalley offered these tips, triggering off my sheet cake memory.

  1. sew with it
  2. use it as clothesline
  3. temporary lock on a suitcase (tie in a strong knot to keep the zipper closed)
  4. cut fruit, cheese and bread
  5. use to quiet a dripping faucet. (As he explains it, you tie one end around the faucet and the other end of the dental floss down the drain. The drips travel along the thread instead of making that obnoxious drip dropping sound. Neat, huh?)

Here are two links to Web sites that mention alternative uses for dental floss– ThriftyFun.com and RDLiving

By the way, a friend of mine told me this joke that a dentist told him.

  • Question: How many teeth do you need to floss?
  • Answer: Only the ones you want to keep.

Packing Tips: Tried and True

by Jamie Rhein on

I’m an overpacker. I read the missives about how to pack less, but my adage is, better safe than sorry. Here are some things I’ve found that help when I’m packing to deal with my excess.

With the number of allowable pounds per bag dropping, for instance on Sky Bus it’s 50, if you are going to be buying souvenirs, presents and great deals you can’t pass up while on vacation, pack an extra duffle bag. This way, if you get to the airport and find out you are overweight, you can unload some of the items and repack them in your extra bag. Last year, I used this method in the Denver airport. I have no qualms about repacking at the side of the check-in line.

  • When packing toilet paper, take out the tube. That way it squishes down to a smaller size. Put toilet paper in a ziplock bag though so it doesn’t shred.
  • Stuff socks into shoes. Put shoes in plastic bags and place them, soles out, at each side of the suitcase.
  • Roll up T-shirts as tightly as you can. They take up less room that way. Rolling up underwear works too. Underwear can also fit inside shoes.
  • Buy travel size shampoos and lotions so you can throw out the bottles as they are used up. Put them into small ziplock bags so that if they leak you won’t have a mess.

Here are some other packing tips from Travel Sense. And one last tip, when zipping up a suitcase, I always find sitting on it helps.

Checked Bags: Open Season for Pilfering

by Jamie Rhein on

According to an article in my local paper today, listed as a news story from the Seattle Times, two baggage handlers were recently arrested in Seattle for pilfering laptops, credit cards and cigarette lighters from checked bags. I looked for the account of this on-line and saw that this happened back in February. I guess this is recent, just not last week which goes to show that the morning paper is not so current at times. Also, even though the article I read says that credit cards have been stolen, it might have only been one credit card since the handler was caught when he tried to use a credit card that didn’t belong to him. The woman who the credit card belonged to said that last time she remembered having it was at the airport. Maybe she didn’t check it in her bag at all.

I’m amazed anyone would check a laptop. I hope people with customers’ information stored in their computer take heed. And what is a credit card doing in a checked bag, if that is what happened? A credit card is so small-so thin-so light. Cigarette lighters I get; those aren’t allowed in the cabin. I’m stumped by the other two.

The article about checked bag thievery does give suggestions about how to prevent it. Not much. But, there is one tip. Use a TSA approved lock. The security can take these locks off to check the bag if need be and lock them again. Locking them again may or may not happen, but in general, according to the article, the locks will stop pilfering since the pilferer is looking for a fast steal. Your locked bag isn’t it.

The last trip I took, the only things taken out of my suitcase were my bottle of face lotion that was only ¼ full and a tube of Spiderman toothpaste I forgot I had. I slipped them into the side pocket of my suitcase after the airport security had it with them, but before the suitcase went through the X-ray machine. The security said it was okay to put the items there, but perhaps they changed their mind, and thought I looked like a whacko who gets a kick out of putting explosives in bubblegum flavored toothpaste and an almost empty bottle of Clinique.

Don’t Waste Your Money on Travel Insurance

by Jonathon Morgan on

Finally, after a long winter locked up inside the house, it’s time to get out, feel the sunshine, and head off on your Spring vacations. But while you’re picking flights, reserving hotels and scouring local shops for a hot new swimsuit, you can cross one thing off your list of travel preparations: buying insurance.

Sounds risky, right? What about all your stuff? What if you get injured and need medical assistance?

Chances are, you’re already covered. Homeowners and medical insurance cover most everything to do with traveling, and credit cards and automobile clubs often pick up the rest.

That being said, don’t take my word for it. Check your insurance policies before your trip, and if it turns out you do need to pick up some additional coverage, check out these helpful tips from Consumer Reports.

So here I was, feeling guilty for all the “uninsured” trips I’ve taken over the years, only to find out, I was probably fine.