Tuesday 18 October 2011

Can You Believe It?: Tips For The Storytelling Traveler

Travel can be stressful for anybody. If you are not prepared to face the challenges that can arise while traveling, then it is highly doubtful that you would find traveling a good experience. However, there are some strategies that you can use to make your travel experience much more satisfactory.

Do research and check references if you are going with a by owner rental. You do not want to make all of your travel plans around gorgeous home that you are expecting to get and then find out when you get there, that it has already been rented to someone else or that it is a complete dump.

Keep a photo journal of a beloved stuffed animal. When traveling with kids, make great memories and an awesome souvenir by taking pictures of your child and the stuffed animal doing fun things throughout the trip. At home, you can collect all the pictures and make them into a photo adventure book to remember your trip.

Consider attaching small bells to your carry-on bag. If you are worried that someone might steal or tamper with your luggage during a flight, attach bells to it. Inexpensive, Christmas jingle bells will do nicely. The noise is likely to deter criminals. If not, the noise will draw your attention.

When traveling, always know the number of doors between your hotel room and the exit.  If there is a fire, you will have to quickly move to the stairwell.  If the fire produces a lot of smoke, you may not be able to see, so feeling the doors and counting until you reach the right one may be your only option.

One way to collect memories of your trip is to do crayon rubbings of architectural features, historical markers and even just interesting textures.  All you need is a crayon and thin, newsprint like, paper.  Tear the paper cover off the outside of the crayon.  Next, hold the paper flat on the surface you are recording.  To complete the rubbing, use the side of the crayon rubbing it back and forth until the image emerges.

If you take prescription medications, plan for your vacations. Carry enough of your medications with you to cover your entire trip plus an additional week. You will most likely not be able to fill prescriptions while traveling, plus you want to be covered if you are delayed at any point during your trip.

New York

When you travel, it's tempting to try to pack activities into every spare minute.  But you should also plan for some downtime.  For example, a three-day weekend in New York City can be crammed with things to do, but why not build in a couple of hours' ramble around Central Park?  It will give you time to regroup, relax, and just enjoy being in your new surroundings.

Social networking sites can serve as wonderful resources while you're traveling.  A quick Tweet or Facebook status update asking such questions as: Where's a great place for ice cream in New York? or Which coffee shop should I check out in Rome? can provide you with a wealth of instant information.

One decision you need to make when taking a trip is whether to buy travel insurance at all.  If you are flying to New York and the ticket only costs $150, it's not really worth paying another $50 to cover that trip in case of cancellation.  However, if you are taking the trip of your dreams to a faraway place, it might be well worth the incremental expense on a $4,000 vacation to know that your money won't be lost in the event of a cancellation.

Using the strategies detailed above will help you to become more aware of the traveling process and better prepared to tackle the challenges that await you. With these techniques, it is very possible that you can find your travels to be rather enjoyable. Take control over your traveling
experience.

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