Maybe Bring Your Own Coffee?
Most of us enjoy drinking coffee or tea when we fly, but there is a good reason that you should actually take a pass on this. The flight attendants already know this as well as a lot of regular fliers.
Coffee and tea are made from hot water from within the planes internal tank, and reports indicate that these tanks may not be cleaned as often as we would hope… and that some awful things have been found in them. Things like coliform bacteria, (think e. coli). The New York Post referred to it as e. coli soup.
So maybe juice or a soft drink is a better choice when you fly. Also avoid the “bottled water” unless you see them open the bottle. There is always a chance that an open bottle could have been filled from the tank water.
Your Flight Attendant Could Save Your Life?
Most people only know flight attendants as extremely patient people who bring them food or drinks on a plane. If you know anything about the training they receive, this is the last part of their job that they cover.
If you are having a medical emergency on a flight your best friend is going to be a flight attendant. Part of the rigorous training they receive is in how to handle a medical emergency. If they can’t help you at the very least they will find someone who can as well as alert the pilot so they can determine if they need to make an emergency landing.
Summer Travel = $$ Expensive Traveling
When the weather starts to warm up it seems that everyone wants to travel to a beach. It is a very convenient time for families because most children are out of school then. The problem is that the tourism industry charges based on supply and demand.
In the summer more people want to fly and there are only so many seats, so you can expect to pay more for your tickets. If that wasn’t bad enough the hotels also want to cash in, and they can’t add extra planes to add a few extra seats, so their prices jump a lot faster than the airlines do.
Here is the nightly room rate for a hotel at a popular summer island in Greece.
As you can see the price difference from May to August is a 67% jump. If you can plan trips outside of the peak summer months you can really save quite a bit. Business Insider even recommends waiting until the 2nd week of September to book your European trip as that’s when the prices will drop post summer. But if you absolutely must have your summer trip to the sea, here is when the cheapest days to buy your tickets are.
Buy tickets online to skip the line
In some of the more popular places to visit, usually places with a lot of history and museums, you’ll find that lines can be hours long just to buy tickets. It can really make your vacation better to not spend it standing in line, often in the hot sun just waiting for hours for tickets that are available online.
If you see something that you want to visit on your trip it is always worth it to see if you can buy tickets online. This helps you plan things out, and lets you know that you won’t be waiting in a line when you are on a vacation.
It is worth noting that there may in some cases be a convenience fee, but it will almost always be worth not waiting in a never ending line.
Wear comfortable shoes
Always know where you are going and wear the correct shoes for each day. If you know that you will be at the great wall in China, wear something comfortable for walking, and not 3” heels as I saw one woman wearing. She ended her walk less than 10 minutes after arriving, where most people will spend hours there.
Red square in Moscow is a huge cobblestone area, also not designed for heels. So while you are out seeing things, comfortable walking shoes are best, and save the fancy dress shoes for nice evenings out.
Wear socks when going to the airport
If you asked me where the dirtiest place in any city or any country is I would point you to the security screening lines at the airport. Countless thousands of people walk through each day at every airport.
Who knows what people walked in, or what funk is living on their feet, and yet every time I fly I see, mostly women bare foot on this floor. To avoid picking something on your feet and carrying it around with you for hours until your trip is over wear some socks or even some booties if you will need to take your shoes off at the security checkpoint.
