Tips for travel

As someone who primarly travels for a living there are several things I've quickly learned that are worth sharing. This is useful information even for those who don't travel as often. There are a lot of little things that can help to make your life on the road much easier.

I'm interested in comments from anybody who has additional advice.

1. Do not check your bags.
If possible use only carry-ons. I travel with a carry-on and a back pack. The back pack holds my computer, a notebook, pens, chargers, ear buds, plus a lot of little essentials such as mints, asprin, other OTC items like benadryl and sudafed, a book to read, etc.

I recently bought a nice carry-on bag. You need something durable with a good handle and good wheels. My older bag was fine but it was starting to show signs of wear. I wanted to upgrade to a bag with 4 wheels instead of two. The new bag is much lighter and sturdier which are additional improvements. If the bag is not distinctive, add something to help it be easily identified from a distance.

2. A smart phone really is a smart choice.
I have an iPhone and use the CamScanner app for tracking receipts. It is an awesome app and makes this process a lot easier. I create a document with all of the receipts and can email them to my business account as one PDF file.

Google Map, or some sort of GPS program, is another very useful application. I like the directions that get generated by Google Map so I primarly use that app. When I arrive at a location, I sometimes create a bookmark for the hotel and office so that I can easily generate directions if needed. Also, the search feature is useful for locating nearby landmarks or businesses.


3. Choose your rewards programs and stick with them
Many of the rewards programs have apps that will help you manage your travels. You can book online from the app, check status of flights and check the status of your reward points. The reward points come in handy a couple of different ways.

A. You can redeem the reward points for free travel. This makes vacations much less expensive

B. As your point balance increases, you may get certain perks from the providers. For example, with airlines you may be able to board early and be eligiable for free upgrades. Early boarding is useful because you are more likely to find a good spot for your carry on luggage. You can also take advantage of using your car rental or hotel program to also provide airline miles.

Many of the programs have credit cards they sponsor which give you a lot of bonus points for signing up and initial purchases. Keep in mind, those bonus points don't count for your status upgrade, they are just redeemable for free trips. The airline card will give you airline miles for what you spend which will help to increase your membership level.


Spending most of you time on the road is a difficult thing to do, so take advantage of as many things as possible to make your life easier.