Around the World Travel Guide Bonus Part [Overlooked Travel Tips and Tricks]

Helpful Tips for Planning a Year Long Trip Around the World Bonus Part
[Overlooked Travel Tips and Tricks]

1. Deter Theft: Uglifying your Gear
I was directed to a page on lifehacker that detailed something I have been practicing for years. If you have something that looks valuable it could be a target for theft. When I was 10 years old, I covered my bike in ugly x-men bubble gum stickers. When I was 16 I covered my laptop in the stickers the come with trading cards. Sure this made it ugly - but it also deterred thef. If you want help making your camera look terrible, check Jimmie's Project Journal.

2. Don't be Caught with your Pants Up: Peeing in a Strange City
Finding a free public bathroom can be a very difficult thing in a strange city. When you first start to explore take note of every mall, or shopping complex you pass. Check to see if they have free toilets inside, and if so - remember their locations. McDonalds restaurants often have clean facilities and due to globalization they are now everywhere. Some cities like London have find a toilet phone numbers that will direct you to the nearest facility. Places like tokyo often have office towers that you can enter - and if you head to the right floor (sometimes marked on the elevator map) you can get off, do your business, and then leave again. Finally most chain hotels have public toilets in their lobbies. Sure you may be embarrassed trying these ideas out, but as the puddle forms on your pants, you'll wish you'd traded one embarrassment for the other.

3. Bathroom Stalls: A quiet place to think, and write
Do you need to find a place to check a map, write something down, or review your travel book without making a target of yourself? Or perhaps it's rainy outside and you'd like to just write your travelogues or read a book? If you don't feel like buying a drink, or meal to justify taking up a seat in the cafe, why not head to a free public toilet? Behind that locking door you can do whatever you wish for as long as you wish. The only downsides? Possible smell, and the knowledge that you're occupying a stall that someone outside may desperately need. Sure it sounds quirky, but it comes in handy from time to time.

4. Never Lose Your Luggage: Pack a Starter Pistol
There's a great story about how to never have your luggage lost, or stolen from over at Jon Udell. Basically, if you are packing a weapon (and blank firing starter pistols count as weapons) you must declare them before you pass your luggage on. The weapon is locked in a box and tracked - and by proxy, all your luggage is securely tracked. No longer are you a random traveller who - if luggage is lost, oh well - but someone for whom if your luggage is lost, the flight company needs to explain how a weapon was lost. Brilliant.

5. Get Your Luggage Before Everyone Else: Be Fragile
This works depending on how your airliner handles luggage. Often times if you ask to get your luggage marked as fragile - sure they'll still throw it, so don't pack anything breakable inside - your bags will be loaded last. And if they're loaded last, that means - of course - they'll be unloaded first!

6. Free Transfers from the Airport to the City: Bus Hopping
Look for hostels offering free transfers from the airport. Then disappear once you have arrived. [editors note: I have done this in Tokyo. I arrived in the city after an 8 hour delay. The regular buses and trains had all shut down. It's surprisingly easy, and no one know - a victimless crime?]
-tip from sneaker_fish @ thorntree travel fourms

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Jump to other Parts
0. Index / Summary
1. Planning Destinations
2. Budget / Culling
3. Hotels vs Hostels
4. Internet Research
5. Tour Groups / Solo Travel
6. Important Travel Gear
7. Packs / Packing
8. Medical Requirements
9. Saying Goodbye / Staying Connected
10. No Fear Travel
Bonus: Overlooked Travel Tips and Tricks