Scott's Travel Hacks

Scott's only suitcase. COVID careful travelers in Doha, Qatar. Flip Flop.

I (Scott) have traveled many air miles since I started coming to Uganda about 7 years ago. The cadence of travel has ramped up even more in the last 2 years since we moved here.

There are lots of travel bloggers out there with large audiences who will share their “travel hacks,” often for a fee. These are free (and worth exactly what you paid for them). But we host trips to Africa multiple times each year so these are lessons from those travelers as well.

Maybe our discoveries will be helpful for you. Maybe you have some that would be helpful to us. So, on to questions from the audience …

“Hey Scott, when should I check a bag?”

Never.

Seriously. Never ever. I have the advantage of not needing a lot of hair products, which saves me some space but I have not checked a bag (except my golf clubs) in almost a decade. I have traveled for 7 weeks with nothing but a hard sided carry – on, a garment bag and my briefcase.

“Wait ... what? One small suitcase?”

Yep. I bring one pair of gym clothes and wear them into the shower after my workout, soaping them up, wringing them out then I hang them to dry. I bring no more than 4 pair of underwear and wash a couple of pair every 2 days. Same with t-shirts.

I have found that no matter the trip or location, I wear the same 2-3 outfits regularly and don’t wear many of the clothes I brought.

“Tell me about the garment bag.”

When I have to wear lawyer-y clothes, the garment bag is my secret weapon. I hang a couple of pair of dress pants, a couple of dress shirts and a couple of suit jackets on a heavy hanger and zip it into one of those “you just bought a suit, here is a nice covering" bags from Nordstrom. Sometimes I even tuck my ties in between the dress pants.

Even if you are traveling in the worst seat in coach on Spirit economy class, every plane has a coat closet where a flight attendant will stash your garment bag, making it kind of an invisible carry-on that nobody weighs or pays attention to. Just don’t forget it when you leave the plane. (I did that once. Talking yourself back onto a plane once you have walked off the jetway is challenging, as it turns out).

“I’m still totally hung up on the one small suitcase. Seriously?”

Invest in some nice merino wool T-shirts. You can wear those for a few days in a row without body smells. Also the necklines don’t stretch or sag (just make sure to remind Sally not to put them in the dryer or they become “aspirational” shirts that you can wear when you lose that pesky 10 kg that has been hanging around since college).

Depending on where you are going, local or hotel laundry is almost always cheaper and easier than losing a bag and waiting at the luggage counter to describe your bag and figure out how they are going to track you down in 2 days to get it to you.

“OK ‘mister carry-on,’ what if the gate agents make me check my bag?”

I can’t tell you the number of times I have smilingly told a gate agent how much I truly wanted to check my carry-on but my critical medications are in that bag and should I be separated from it, my body might reject my donated spleen mid-flight or my just-in-remission case of Legionnaire’s disease (the kind with explosive diarrhea) could recur somewhere over Iceland.

They find space.

“How do you fit all your stuff in a carry-on?”

First, buy a good one. I use an Away, they waste no space. Second, packing cubes. You can roll, stack and compress an amazing amount of stuff in those little zip-up cubes.

“OK, I am almost there. Where can I find some extra space?”

See “garment bag” above. I also usually put a few things in my briefcase, like if I am going to change into shorts and a t-shirt to sleep on a long flight – those fit in my briefcase. And my shaving kit (don’t tell the gate-check lady).

Are you wearing you heaviest, bulkiest shoes and outfit on the plane to save space in your suitcase? If not, why not? If you get too warm, toss your jacket/shoes in the bin above. Space in my suitcase is reserved for small, efficient things. In other words, “wear the mountaineering boots, pack the ballet slippers.”

“You must be the most annoying person to travel with, all your routines, etc.”

Yes, I am, but those routines save me. For example, I know exactly where my passport, charging cables, wired and wireless headphones, etc. are in my briefcase because they are always in the same place. Every time. Not only does this decrease stress, it saves me from being one of “those people” in the visa line.

Sally and I also always have copies/photos of our travel documents saved on our phones. That doesn’t rely on local cell networks or wifi and if you can’t put your fingers on a documents, a photo may suffice.

“Do flight attendants and other travelers hate you?”

I always say hello to my flight attendant before takeoff and I learn their name and try to discover something about them – home town, favorite stopover, etc. One time I got an extra 5,000 miles because I stood up to a passenger who was being a jerk to a steward and told him to “sit his ass down.” Another time I had a flight attendant hand me a bag with – no joke – 30 airplane bottles of alcohol and a pair of plastic “wings” as I was walking off the plane because I was nice to her. I have gotten first class meals, warm cookies and special cocktails, even at the back of the plane, because I recognize their underpaid, overworked selves.

We still keep in touch with an Egyptian Emirates flight steward from a trip in 2016. If we go to Cairo again, we will surely look him up.

Other travelers mostly like me. I get up, go to the restroom and get all my stuff repacked at the 45 minutes to landing point, which is usually right before the announcement that causes the aisles and restrooms to fill up. So, I stay out of their way. I don’t generally care when I board the plane, as long as it is not last. Passengers that do try to shove their way through the aisles as soon as the plane lands do hate me. I become a self-appointed, large bald traffic cone at that point.

“OK, enough about planes, carry-ons and packing. What about money, ATMs, etc.?”

Always carry at least two crisp, unmarked $100 bills. We use these for visas and other last-minute purchases. In Africa, $100 bills are readily accepted but they must absolutely virgin. I think the idea is that wadded up, torn and marked counterfeit bills are easier to disguise, so they demand pristine ones.

Always carry two credit/debit cards. That way you’ll always have a back-up. We use a Charles Schwab card as our ATM because they reimburse all of your ATM fees and have good foreign exchange rates when you withdraw local funds. Our other card is a Chase Sapphire which has no foreign transaction fees and gives us “points” for stuff like flight upgrades.

Have a foreign currency app on your phone home screen. We use Xe. You can load different currencies and it updates second by second. Life saver.

Finally, Sally and I maintain Ziploc bags of local currency we call “flip flop” (a name stolen from a CIA guy we met in Mozambique a few years ago who was “looking for investment opportunities” close to rebel territory.) He always kept $50 or so of local currency when he left a country in case he ever went back, enough to get a local SIM card or a cab ride to a hotel. Plus, it is fun to look through your flip flop from time to time and remember where you have been.

“What if we need to call you from _____ to talk about these travel hacks? What is the best way to do that?”

Sally and I have “dual SIM” phones that have an e-SIM (for our US line) and a physical SIM where we can put in a card from anywhere we travel. So we are reachable on our local numbers, just at a cost.

We use T-Mobile because they have decent worldwide cell and data coverage, even in the developing world, for a fair price. But we also usually buy local SIM cards if we are going to be somewhere more than a week. Local airtime and data is almost always cheaper that using US services.

We try to use WhatsApp (via wifi) for phone and video calls, although bandwidth sometimes isn’t robust enough for video. But WhatsApp is free and our cellular data is often strong enough to use it, even without wifi.

“Anything else?”

Bring a headlamp. It is not uncommon in many places we travel for power to cut out. If that happens you don’t want to use your $1,000 phone as a flashlight.

Develop a personal “must have” list. Sally’s backpack always includes her passport pouch, assorted charging cords, earplugs, earphones, IPad, actual pad of paper and pens, socks, toiletry kit with melatonin (for sleep), hand lotion, chap stick, and her travel blanket and pillow. You already know mine.

Finally, adjust to your new time zone ASAP. Our flights usually arrive in Uganda at 7:00 am (after 28 – 32 hours of travel and an 10-11 hour time change) so it can be challenging to stay awake. But do. No matter how tempting the 4:00 p.m. nap might be DON’T DO IT! I have also started using an app called Timeshifter which begins setting your schedule to your new time zone days in advance, including recommendation for when (or when not to) drink alcohol or caffeine. I’m not sure I like it but I know others swear by it.

Oh – one last thing – the Tripit App. You can actually e-mail all of your travel plans (car reservations, flights, hotels, trains, events) and the app consolidates them all. For my Rwanda trip last week, if I wanted to see my flight time or remember the checkout time for the hotel, rather than go to the Rwandair or Marriott app, I went to Tripit. Super slick.

Feel free to comment here with your latest travel hacks! We know that journeying is a ever evolving artform and we are committed to continuing to perfect it during our upcoming adventures. We welcome your ideas!