travel
- Schedule time off at work 1
- Call the vet to make pet boarding arrangements
- Ensure airline has TSA Pre✓ info
- Notify the bank about travel 2
- Buy travel toothpaste
- Buy disposable razors
- Buy travel shaving cream
- Get passports from safe
- Check in to flight
- Get $40 from an ATM 3
- Download reading material 4
- Stop eating spicy food 5
- Charge the USB battery 6
- Pack pants
- Pack shirts
- Pack undershirts
- Pack underwear
- Pack socks
- Pack shoes
- Pack jacket
- Pack sandals
- Pack shorts
- Pack belts
- Pack a wearing-around hat 7
- Pack swim trunks
- Pack a sun hat
- Pack a sun shirt
- Pack gaffers tape 8
- Pack water bottle
- Download podcasts and meditations 9
- Pack dopp kit 10
- Pack first aid kit
- Put passport card in bag
- Put backup credit card in bag 15
- Set wake-up alarm
- Charge laptop
- Charge iPhone
- Charge iPad
- Charge Apple Watch
- Charge AirPods
- Charge Switch
- Remove TSA-unfriendly stuff from bag 16
- Pack USB battery
- Pack passport book in suitcase 15
- Pack handkerchief
- Pack food bar
- Pack AirPods
- Pack Switch
- Pack magazine for plane 4
- Pack boarding passes
- Pack sunglasses
- Pack journal
- Wear my Apple Watch
- Turn on Fog of World 17
- Set the thermostat to vacation mode 18
- Pack laptop charger
- Pack iPhone charging cable
- Pack iPad charging cable
- Pack Apple Watch charging cable
- Pack USB charger’s charging cable
- Pack AirPods charging cable
- Pack multi-device charger
- Pack laptop
- Pack iPhone
- Pack iPad
- Pack pillow
- Buy airport stickers 19
- Check in to return flight
- Buy airport stickers
- Set the thermostat to normal mode
- Put away passports
- Update the travel template 20
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This seems obvious but I always forget. ↩︎
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If you don’t do this, your bank may see transactions from an unusual location and freeze your debit or credit card. ↩︎
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I’ve never regretted having walking around money while traveling. ↩︎
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If I didn’t have something to read on a flight, I’d lose my mind. ↩︎ ↩︎
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Yes, the Thai curry native-extra-hot is delicious. Do you really want to be trapped in a plane while your stomach tries to digest it? ↩︎
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I take a plug-in charging block and a portable USB battery. If my phone is running low in the middle of a long flight, I can still charge it with the battery. ↩︎
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It’s vacation. I want to throw on a hat to step out for coffee or breakfast. ↩︎
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Ideal for covering obnoxiously bright power LEDs in hotel rooms, blocking light under the door, etc. ↩︎
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If it’s too bumpy to read, it’s nice to have something fun or relaxing to listen to. ↩︎
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See “Building the Perfect Dopp Kit”. ↩︎
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Hotel curtains never seem to close all the way. Bend them to your will. ↩︎
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Ever been rained on, had to walk around a lot in wet pants, and gotten chafed from it? Yeah, me neither. ↩︎
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“Ow, these new shoes are killing my feet and I’m walking way more than usual.” ↩︎
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Jet lag. Strange hotel. Travel excitement. These add up to difficulty sleeping. ↩︎
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Carry at least 2 forms of ID and 2 forms of payment in 2 separate places. If 1 set gets stolen, you still have the other to get home. ↩︎ ↩︎
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I have a tiny multi-tool in my EDC bag, and I don’t want the TSA to confiscate it. ↩︎
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This is a fun little app that records everywhere you’ve been. ↩︎
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Save money not heating or cooling your house as much while you’re away from it. ↩︎
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I collect them for my carryon suitcase. This is in here twice in case I have a different layover on the way home. ↩︎
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I take notes of things I wish I’d done or packed. When I get home I immediately update the list so that I won’t forget next time. ↩︎
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Do it while you still have all the receipts in one place. ↩︎
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Once the office has reimbursed me, the trip is officially done. ↩︎
- USB gadgets to charge
- Toiletries to pack
- Things to remove from my messenger bag (so I don’t find myself in line at security and realize I’ve still got my pocket knife)
- People to notify, such as telling my credit union that I’ll be using my debit card in some exotic place like Topeka and please not to block it as fraud
- Enable a six-digit passcode on your device.
- Set your device to erase itself after 10 failed passcode attempts. You should do these two steps anyway!
- Before you get to airport security, turn your device off. iOS devices require a passcode to unlock themselves the first time after they’re turned on. For dumb legal reasons, passcodes are generally thought to be protected by the 5th amendment, but fingerprints are not.
- Turn on iCloud backup.
- When it’s finished backing up, reset your device to its factory settings.
- When you get where you’re going, restore your device from backup.
- Turn on iCloud backup.
- When it’s finished backing up, reset your device.
- Start using it. Add a few contacts. Set up a (disposable) email account. Add some songs.
- Turn on iCloud backup. Let it finish.
- Leave this device at home.
- When you get where you’re going, buy a replacement device. Restore it from the backup you made earlier. Now you have an exact clone of the original.
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This isn’t meant as advice for criminals. Lots of people travel with information they’re legally obligated to safeguard, like company plans, legal documents, and other confidential information. ↩︎
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Similar ideas apply for Android and other devices, but I don’t have one of those to experiment with. ↩︎
My travel project template
In an older post, I talked about making a project template for trip planning. The goal is to build a comprehensive list of everything I might want to prepare, pack, or do before, during, or after a business or vacation trip. Before I made this template, I was more anxious: Did I forget to do anything? Do I have everything I need? What am I missing? Now I can relax and concentrate on the fun times ahead.
Friends have asked me for my list to use as a starting point for their own, and this is that lightly annotated list. Regrets from past adventures inspired every item. The moment I’ve booked a trip, I copy this template into my to-do app, then delete everything that doesn’t apply this time. For instance, if I’m going to visit family, I can use their pillow instead of packing my own. If I’m going to Chicago in winter, I don’t need swimming trunks. If I’m traveling for personal reasons, I may not take my work laptop. It’s much easier to remove items I don’t need than to scramble to remember the things I do need.
As always, the “update the travel template” action near the bottom is the critical feedback loop that makes this all work. Every time I’ve wished I’d done or packed something, I made a reminder to add it to the list for the next time. If I were to start over with a new template having that as the only item, after a few trips that template would look a lot like this one.
As soon as travel is planned
Three weeks before travel
One week before travel
Two days before travel
Day before travel
Night before travel
Day of travel
The day before return
The day of return
After return
Airlines Restrict 'Smart Luggage' Over Fire Hazards Posed By Batteries
Airlines Restrict ‘Smart Luggage’ Over Fire Hazards Posed By Batteries : The Two-Way : NPR:
“Beginning Jan. 15, customers who travel with a smart bag must be able to remove the battery in case the bag has to be checked at any point in the customer’s journey. If the battery cannot be removed, the bag will not be allowed,” American said in a statement on Friday. The same day, Delta and Alaska announced similar policies on their flights.
American’s policy dictates that if the bag is carry-on size, passengers can take the luggage onboard, so long as the battery can be removed if needed. If passengers need to check the bag, the battery must be removed and carried onboard. But if the bag has a nonremovable battery, it can’t be checked or carried on.
An FAA spokesman told The Washington Post that the airlines’ policies are “consistent with our guidance that lithium-ion batteries should not be carried in the cargo hold.”
Last month I wrote: “Listening to an ad for luggage with a built in USB charger, which may be the worst idea ever. Now your suitcase can grow obsolete. What if it breaks? Or a bigger battery comes along? And you always have the weight penalty even when you don’t need it.” I think we can all agree now that this is a terrible idea for many reasons.
Traveling with OmniFocus and OmniOutliner
I don’t travel a lot, so when I do I invariably find that I’ve forgotten something important (9 PM the night before: “say, dear, where are we boarding the dogs?” “I thought you were doing that!”). I wrote an AppleScript to copy items from an OmniOutliner document to an OmniFocus project so that I never have to forget again.
I love OmniFocus. It runs my life. But it lacks any kind of a template systems to let you quickly churn out copies of a project. That’s exactly what I needed here, though. Fortunately OmniOutliner fills that gap and gives me a nice way to describe that project. Here’s how mine starts:
When I run the AppleScript and say “I want to travel on June 24”, it creates actions like “Call the vet to make pet boarding arrangements, with the Phone context, due on June 3 at 5PM”. I add everything to this list:
A magic moment for me was hearing Merlin Mann’s suggestion to add an “update this list” action:
A couple of days into my trip, I get a reminder to add anything new I’d forgotten or wish I’d done differently. This turns my template into a living document of exactly my own personalized requirements.
Search-proof your devices when traveling
Over-eager airport security has recently taken to making travelers unlock their phones and tablets for examination. This is both unforgivably invasive and trivially easy to defeat. Here’s how to protect your data1 on your iPhone or iPad2 when traveling.
Simplest: disable Touch ID
Now you have at least the physical ability to refuse to unlock your device. Be prepared for mental or legal pressure to supply your password, though. File this under “better than nothing”.
If you want to keep your current device
You’re traveling with a device, but one as bare as the day you originally bought it. Be prepared to explain why you’re carrying an empty device.
Keep your device, but less suspicious
Now you have a plausibly used device. When you get to your destination, reset your device again. Restore it from backup. This is more work than the previous instructions, but also less suspicious.
If you’d rather travel bare-handed
This is the most expensive option, but you can’t unlock what you don’t have.
Conclusion
Searching travelers’ devices at airports is security theater. It’s a massive and inconvenient violation of privacy, and only the world’s least prepared criminals would ever get caught this way. I guarantee I’m not the first person to think of backing up a phone and restoring it at my destination. Since it’s ineffective and almost certainly unconstitutional, cooler heads would recommend ending these pointless searches. Don’t wait for that to happen. Protect your data.