Secrets of Traveling Revealed!- Part One

Long Beach, CA

I've just got to take a minute here to toot my own horn- I am becoming quite a good traveler (domestically, at least)! After many years of roadtripping and having been ditched by an ex-husband who did not share my perverse lust for a good plan along with a couple of backup plans for good measure, I have got roadtripping nearly down to a science. Except for a brief incident this afternoon when I was getting off the freeway and accidentally started driving down the wrong side of the road (so sorry, Californicators! my bad!), today has gone extremely smoothly. And I owe it all to a little gadget I call The Magic Notebook.

Here's what I do. I get a three-ring notebook (with pockets inside both the front and back covers), some tabbed dividers (ones with pockets are best), and one of those three-hole punches with rings on it so that you can stick it in a binder. For a multi-stop trip, each tab is labeled with a destination name. All the items for that particular destination go behind that tab. I put post-it note stickies on the first page of each item behind each tab. Those stickies are basically the same as the tabs for a single-destination trip. Since I'm on one such trip right now, I will talk more about that right now.

Tab 1 is Maps. I go to my favorite map generator and generate maps and driving directions for everyplace I want to stop in the order that I will be going to those places. For example, my first map was from home to my hotel. My second map was my hotel to the conference location. My third map was from the conference location back home since I'll leave directly from the conference on the last day.

Tab 2 is my Itinerary. Since I'm on business travel, this was automatically generated from our reservation system and has my hotel reservation information and confirmation and my rental car reservation and confirmation. If I'm on personal travel, I will just assemble all of my reservation/confirmation information behind this tab in whatever format it comes in- printout of an online reservation, typed up note with the details of a telephone reservation, snail-mailed confirmation, etc...

Tab 3 is usually a Restaurant list. This was more important back when I was doing the vegetarian thing with my ex-husband although I don't think he ever appreciated it. Back then I'd make sure we had a list of places we could eat so that we'd never be stuck having a cheeseburger, hold the burger at McDonald's or something like that. Now I keep lists of my favorite restaurants in locations I visit repeatedly, and I save recommendations from friends and articles and such for places I expect to eventually visit. Then when I go to these locations, I can just print out a handy list, hole-punch it, and I'm set. The list contains each restaurant name in bold followed by as much of the following as possible: website URL, telephone number, address, cross streets, days/hours, and a paragraph or two describing what the place is all about. I like to break out coffee places separately from regular restaurants and include information on whether or not they have wi-fi, where to look for power outlets, etc... (I get this information from JiWire or The WiFi Free Spot Directory.)

Tab 4 is usually a list of Stuff to Do. This is not a list where I expect to get everything done and checked off. I just like to have options so that when I wake up in the morning and wonder, "What should I do today?" I don't wind up killing half the day trying to find something to do. Instead, I just go to my list and find something. This is particularly handy for places like the museums in Balboa Park in San Diego that have free admission or some other deal once a month or whatever. That way I'll know right when I read the item if I should go today, or if I should wait two days and get in free. I like free stuff. If the trip is business travel, Tab 5 becomes Conference Information or something else relevant.

Tab 5 and beyond vary based on whatever other junk I happen to have that needs to get stashed somewhere. E-mails related to my business travel, emergency contacts and other telephone numbers, or things like that.

The pockets come in handy for things that don't work well with hole punches. I slip odd-sized menus from restaurants I liked into the pocket of the Restaurant tab, paperwork from the hotel or rental car company into the pocket of my Itinerary tab, a local map from the hotel into the pocket of the Map tab, etc... This is especially handy for keeping track of receipts for reimbursement, parking lot tickets, etc... that I have been known to easily misplace.

There are many up sides to all this. Everything goes so much smoother when I know where everything is right when I need to get to it. And when things DO go wrong as they always do, I am not already frazzled to the brink of insanity and I deal with those things a lot better. Driving on the wrong side of the street? Oops- get back on my side quick. No harm, no foul. Lost my glasses somewhere in Little Italy (this happened on my last trip) and my spare pair is sunglasses? I'll just retrace my steps to the hotel where I started my walk, and if I don't find them I'll have time to hop in the car and go to a one-hour glasses place and get them replaced before dark. Fortunately, I found them only about four blocks back and was back on my merry way. People at work used to make fun of me, but everyone who has traveled with me for work has been happy afterward because we ate at the best restaurants and found fun things to fit in after work or before flights or whatever.

The down side of all this is that if I ever lose The Magic Notebook, I am SO VERY SCREWED! But so far I've had a lot easier time of keeping track of one kind of large thing than I did eight bazillion smaller things.