4 New Travel Hacks to Make Your Life Easier
We’ve become pretty savvy travelers over the years. But we still occasionally drop the ball or learn a helpful tip. Here are four new travel hacks to make your life easier.
1. Don’t Rely Solely on That GPS Voice
My iPhone has been invaluable for navigating. But GPS has limitations and is subject to human error.
We had scheduled a food tour in Turin, Italy. Our meeting point was at Santa Cristina, a well-known church in Piazza San Carlo, which is in the historic core of Turin. Our trusty iPhone app took us straight into the middle of the Piazza and declared that we had arrived at our destination.
Except that there was no church in front of us in the large piazza. The GPS voice kept insisting that we were there, but we didn’t see it.
Most of the people nearby were also tourists and didn’t know where the church was. Finally, we spotted a person walking a dog, a good indicator that he was a local.
He pointed out that the church was not in the piazza; it is part of the entrance wall at the beginning of the piazza. The GPS voice had us walk right by it, and it was now behind us. We quickly backtracked and found our tour a little late (which, conducted by Do Eat Better Experience, was excellent). I later looked at the map itself, which indicated that the church is at the edge of the piazza, not in the middle. The tour’s website also clearly showed the same, had I bothered to look before we headed out. So, trust [your GPS] but verify.
2. Double Bag Your Medications
Everyone I know these days takes daily medications and/or vitamins. Many people rely on pill sorters when they travel to keep their pills organized and separated.
But what happens if the container opens and loses its contents? When Doug and I were in Tokyo, I accidentally knocked over his toiletry kit. His pill organizer cracked open, and several pills rolled all over the floor. Luckily, we were able to find them all and reorganize them. But after that episode, I double-bag my medications in a Ziploc bag just in case. I don’t want to go through that again.
3. An Extra Key Card Can Save the Day
Another travel hack to make your life easier is a multi-purpose tool.
Many hotels have moved to key cards, shaped like credit cards, that do the double duty of letting you into your room and turning on the electricity in the room by inserting the card into the designated slot. When you leave the room and take your key card out of the slot, the electricity shuts off.
I strongly support sustainability and the environment. But honestly, sometimes it’s nice to be able to keep the electricity on when you’re not in the room, say when you’re charging your iPad during breakfast. And this summer it was so brutally hot in Europe that after a long day of sightseeing it was torture to come back to an overheated room. Running the air conditioning all evening helps, but after several hours the room can still be unbearable. If you have two people staying in the room, you can leave one room card in the slot during the day, but that only works if you stick together. A traveler who only has one key card may not have that option.
However, Bobby, who spent several weeks this summer in Europe, pointed out that any key card the same size as the standard hotel key card will fit in the electricity slot. That way you can keep the electricity, including the air conditioning, on in a pinch if you need to, even when you’re not in the room.
We resorted to this in Krakow, Poland, where the daytime temperature was close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit during our stay. It so happened that I had neglected to turn in my room key card from our prior destination, Helsinki, Finland. The Helsinki key card fit perfectly into the Krakow electricity slot; when we returned to our hotel in the late afternoon, our room was comfortable. There was a chance that housekeeping would remove and/or confiscate the card, but they didn’t; I think they understood.
There’s an added benefit to carrying a spare key card: in a pinch, you can use it to jimmy open a bathroom or closet door you've inadvertently locked. Just jiggle it through the crack where the lock is and press down on the latch. I’ve used this hack on my own bedroom closet door. Talk about a lifesaver! Just expect the card to get ruined if you use it this way.
I now take an extra key card with me just in case. You can use an old key card from a different hotel, or even an expired, little-used, or replaceable store or membership card. Just don’t use something important, like a driver’s license, bank card, or credit card.
4. Pack a Spare Used Cork
As you know, we are wine aficionados. We frequently purchase a bottle of local wine when traveling for a picnic or to enjoy in our hotel room, Airbnb, or cruise ship stateroom.
But what do you do if the cork breaks while you’re opening the bottle? At home I have stoppers and extra corks I can use. But what if you’re on the road? If you leave the bottle open, the air will ruin the remaining wine. But you can’t always drink the whole bottle in one sitting.
This happened to us recently in Napa, California. We purchased a great wine to bring back to our hotel room. As luck would have it, the cork broke while we were opening the bottle. Not good.
So now I tuck a used, spare cork in my suitcase when I travel just in case this mishap happens again. So far, so good. But if there is a cork snafu in the future, at least I’ll be prepared.
We hope these four new travel hacks make your life easier. Learn from our mishaps!
Have any other travel advice or funny stories? Please share! We’re at info@winewithourfamily.com. Always feel free to reach out to us with any questions or feedback.
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