4 Travel Hacks That Will Make Any Trip Better
In many ways, holiday travel is like ice cream; even when it’s not the best, it’s still pretty good. Just the freedom to explore a new place and the fact you’re not tied down at work makes every trip a pleasure. But a good holiday is obviously better, and while destination and amenities are a fundamental of that, you can have a good holiday pretty much anywhere if you know how to make the most of your break. So below, you will find some indispensable travel hacks that will allow you to enjoy your holiday to the highest level. Enjoy!
Vacation rentals are better than hotels - in general
Staying in a plush hotel can be a treat, and there are some places that make the whole experience that bit more special with additional frills. However, being in a hotel still means that you’re restricted in where you can go when you’re not out and about. Plumping instead for short term rentals means that you can blend the joys of being in a new place with the comforts of being in a home. Your privacy is better, you can decide to get into your pajamas and order takeout rather than going out for a meal, and you don’t have to listen to other people coming and going. And usually, it works out cheaper too.
Mark your bag fragile, even if it isn’t
This one is a little bit of twisted genius, to be honest. When the airline sees that your bag has been marked fragile, they recognize that you’ll be quite displeased should anything happen to it. Even if they doubt that there’s anything fragile in there, they’re not going to want to explain that they rummaged through your things and found that to be the case. So they’re always going to make sure it’s handled with care and is among the first bags to come out on the carousel. You can ask for a sticker when checking your bags, and it doesn’t cost any extra.
Let your credit card company know you’re going abroad
Your credit card provider doesn’t want to stop you spending – that’s kind of the point of their existence! – but they do have automated systems that can lock things down when there’s “unusual activity”. If your card has only been used near your home, and suddenly is activated at a jeweler’s in Bangkok, they may well place a stop on it to prevent a fraud case that is costly to them. If you call to let them know you’ll be in a different country between certain dates, that stop will be overridden, which avoids red faces and tricky, multilingual conversations in an unfamiliar setting.
Download Google Translate before you go abroad
There are plenty of expensive translation services you can sign up to, but Google Translate is really very good, and understands language contextually rather than just translating the words. Also, brilliantly, you can use your camera to hover over signs in another country and the translation software will render it all into English. As well as this, there is an audio feature which allows you to type in what you want to say in English, and when you click on the pronunciation icon, Translate will say it for you in perfectly pronounced Portuguese or Polish (or any language really, those ones just worked better for alliteration!).