We’ve all been there. You planned a trip for months, found dirt cheap seats on Skyscanner, downloaded the local ride lift app. Maybe you’ve even learned how to say hello in the local language. Your adrenaline is high. But now you can’t catch a wink of sleep the night before the flight to save your life.
This is the oxymoron of traveling. It can come with incredible highs and some equally incredible lows if you’re not prepared. I’ve spent a great deal of time working on ways to mitigate international travel issues and learn from my mistakes so I don’t kill the wanderlust vibe. And I’d like to share them with you so that travel day stressors don’t suck the wind out of your sails.
Below you’ll find tips designed to help you make the most out of the often dreaded travel day and keep your good mood flying high too.
Pack Like Every Square Inch Matters
One way to mitigate the last minute pre-trip rush is to do your packing a day or several days in advance. Create a checklist so that you don’t forget anything.
My suitcase setup is pretty slick. I use a 24” checked bag that is nicely sized for both air and train travel and a 22” carry on bag. Both pieces of luggage have eight 360 degree wheel spinners that roll like butter. The carry on has a a battery charger and a cup holder for hands free walking through the airport.
In the past, I’ve used a duffel carry on with 2 wheels on one side only. But the bag wouldn’t stand upright and was a nightmare to pull around the airport. I wouldn’t recommend using one.
I swear by suitcase packing cubes because they always keep everything really organized while I live out of a suitcase. My next set will be compression packing cubes to squeeze everything down even smaller. I always bring along a light mesh laundry bag to hang from a clothes rod in the closet to keep dirty clothes out of my suitcase so my space doesn’t start to feel messy.
For items that are taller, I pack them into my carry on without zipping up the compartment divider so that it provides an open space. It’s a nice way to pack a portable pan set that’s 8″ high.
Since it stays with me, I pack my carry on bag in preparation for the event my checked luggage gets lost. I pack a change of clothes for both hot or cool temperatures and my toiletry bag so I have soap, shampoo and a toothbrush and toothpaste to brush my teeth.
Then, I use a laptop case as my personal item. Sometimes at the last minute, an airline will take your carryon bag and place it under the hull as a checked bag. So I make sure that my most essential items are in my laptop case. My passport, my wallet, my phone and obviously my laptop. I also tuck a phone charger, my itinerary and a pen inside.
Since it’s always right nearby, I also pack it with as much food as I can. It’s a thicker expandable case, so it works out well. After my essentials are packed, I empty a full box of my new favorite protein bar, Larabar, inside. If you’re a health freak like me, the bars have really clean ingredients, only 3g of added sugar and 4 grams of protein in a 45g bar. And they’re gluten free.
My goto is Double Chocolate Peanut Butter. But with over 26 flavors, some of which are Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Mint Chip Brownie, Lemon Bar and Coconut Cream Pie – how could you go wrong? There’s a flavor for everyone.
I plan to surprise myself with a tasty new flavor on each trip to help keep a positive momentum going against any unforeseen travel stressors. I also pack a big bag of almonds and a few bananas into the case. I store a bag of Pink Lady apples inside my overhead carryon.
All of this food keeps me fed while waiting at the gate, on the plane and even for a good 24 hours after I land so I have time to find a local grocery store without the mad rush to find food to survive.
Packing my own food keeps me from wasting money on airport restaurants and airplane food. Plus, the ingredients are healthier and help me maintain stamina rather than make me sluggish.
Find Ways to Chill Just Before Your Trip
Be mindful during the days prior to your departure. Your excitement, and sometimes anxiety, can lead to a heightened state that can be difficult to come down from. Some ways to relax naturally – drink chamomile tea, supplement with magnesium, take warm baths, listen to soothing music.
Anything that will keep you from going full tilt.
At a minimum, your body will have gotten much of the rest it needed during the week to help you pull through traveling day even if you do miss a night of sleep.
Tackling Travel Day Like a Seasoned Gypsy
Once the travel day chaos begins, I try to stay focused on the adventure that is about to ensue rather than the stressful late Uber pickup, the long lines in airport security or any last minute take off jitters.
I’m not a germaphobe by any means, but it doesn’t hurt to bring along some wipes to clean your hands as you pass through the airport where thousands of other people are also passing through that day. Any way to prevent getting sick on your journey before you arrive at your destination is a plus.
One important lesson I learned is to avoid bringing any beverages to the airport. On one trip, I forgot that I had a bottle of water in my laptop case which was intended to keep me hydrated on the ride to the airport. Unfortunately, in the rush of being dropped off at the curb, I forgot that it was in there. When I went through security, I was placed to the side and held up for 30 minutes as they waited for a TSA agent to investigate it.
Actually, it’s probably best to just stop drinking too many beverages before a flight anyway. It’s only going to result in your stumbling over passengers on repeated trips to the restroom.
Since becoming a more frequent traveler, I no longer go through the xray scanner. Instead, I opt for a pat down to avoid the harmful radiation. It may seem like overkill or a nuisance to some. But it just makes sense to me to keep myself as optimally healthy as possible.
Another thing I learned the hard way is to always check the flight board before I walk all the way down to my gate. On my last trip, I didn’t check until after I got to the gate and noticed that the gate for my flight had changed, forcing me to race to the other end of the airport in order to catch the flight.
A couple of incidents like the two I just mentioned could cause you to miss your flight. Minutes matter.
Flying High & Avoiding Lows
There’s a lot you can do for a better flight too.
A middle seat next to a 6 month old baby on a 6 hour flight quickly led to the decision to always bring earplugs.
On my way to the restroom on a flight, I noticed that the back 3 seats were vacant. So I asked a crew member if I could sit there instead and she obliged. It was a Godsend after a night with minimal sleep because I got to lay down for a bit on the long flight. My strategy in the future is to be the last to board flights so I can quickly spot those vacant seats and snatch them up before someone else does.
And then there’s some lessons learned from friends. One friend who has traveled to 33 countries shared that she had become infested with head lice 6 times in her adult life from flying on planes. Not something I had ever thought about and head lice is one of my biggest phobias. Her solution was to always travel wearing a head scarf.
Another friend had a scare when she received an alert that someone from a neighboring state had logged into her work platform when she was flying over Montana. With a job that involves high internet security, she had feared that the open internet network on the plane had allowed someone to breach and access her information. Because some people book flights solely with the intention to access passenger laptops via the open airline network to steal information.
Luckily, the ping from another state was likely her own login as there weren’t many cell towers in that area of Montana. However, this real threat has led me to stay off my laptop during flights completely.
This time inflight is your opportunity to relax before you land and it starts all over again. Especially if you have connecting flights or a layover. Take advantage of this time with deep long breaths, a book or a nap.
Arrival & Breezing Through Customs
I’m sure you know that trying to rush to get off the plane first doesn’t typically pay off. You’ll usually just stand in line. I generally wait until most of the passengers have left before I even get up.
Don’t accidentally go through customs with anything that’s restricted like fruits, vegetables or anything else that might need to be investigated. It could hold you up in the same way my water bottle did on departure. I wanted to bring home some sand from a beach stay in Koh Sumai, Thailand but it’s restricted due to biodiversity concerns in the arriving country. And my great idea to carry a variety of spices in a pill box for travel was also squashed since spices need to be in their original packaging or they might get flagged for investigation.
One mistake I made when I landed in my first foreign country was stating that I was there to work. Since I was going to be doing remote work there for 2 months rather than taking a vacation – I checked the “work” box instead of the “vacation” box. Big mistake. You can’t work in other countries without a work visa. At least you can’t work for businesses in that country as an employee. So I was held up trying to explain my wrong input without raising any more red flags in fear I was going to be deported after only just arriving.
Another tip for international return flights is to always carry a SIM card opener. That way you can replace your local SIM card back into your phone on the plane so you can quickly call an Uber or anyone else you need to call once you’ve landed.
Leaving the Airport & Onward to Your Destination
On that first international flight, we exited the plane on rolling passenger boarding stairs right onto the tarmac. It was an airport with few amenities. There was no currency exchange or phone shop to pick up a SIM card anywhere. I was a little flustered when my wi-fi wasn’t working to let me Whatsapp my pickup ride. Actually, I started to panic.
Thankfully, someone who worked at the airport called my ride directly from his personal phone. But that’s not always going to be the case. Many airports have currency exchanges or ATMs where you can pull out some local currency. Many also often have small phone stores inside where you can pick up a local SIM card. So you can conveniently pick up these necessities as soon as you land. But it’s always good to come prepared with local currency on hand and quick access to a nearby phone store if they don’t.
I had debated getting international calling on my phone during trips, but the prices seemed high and there were additional finer print costs. Looking back now, using only a local SIM card and Whatsapp to call back home didn’t really cut it. Because Whatsapp is internet dependent. In the future, I will get a cheap second phone so I can use my existing phone to make calls back home on my regular plan and use the additional phone to hold a local SIM card for any country that I’m visiting to make local calls. It just seems to make the most sense.
Finally, to avoid a world of headache, always make sure you’ve made reservations for lodging when you land in new country. I’ve heard some horror stories from friends who arrived at 2 am expecting to stay in a hostel only to find that the hostels were full. They were left to hang out at bars and bodegas until the sun rose.
Conclusion
I hope these tips help you get through your travel days with ease. While we have big aspirations of the destinations, cultures, food and people we’re about to see, constant travel can take a toll.
Good rest, packing for success, managing the airport chaos, chilling on your flight and breezing through customs will help make your journey less stressful.
Delicious travels to you!
