Five Tips for Packing Better

On February 22, 2016 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Travel Tips12 Comments

With every trip, we get a little smarter about packing for our trips. Along the way, we’ve picked up a few tricks that really do make a difference. We go out both day and night when we travel and usually want a variety of clothes with us. So these tips aren’t about packing for a six month backpacking trip, we wouldn’t even begin to know where to start. This is about making the most of your luggage space or simply packing smarter, whether a suitcase that you’re going to check or a carry-on bag.

Roll Your Clothes – Honestly, it makes a difference. Physics tells us that an object should take up the same amount of space regardless of whether you fold or roll your clothes, but for once physics is wrong. For some reason, rolling your clothes really allows you to put more into your suitcase or carry-on. In addition to making more room, your clothes will also be less wrinkled, a win-win.
Use Contact Cases – For moisturizer, face soap, conditioner, foundation, lotion, creams or gels that you don’t need a lot of while you’re travelling. Rather than taking the large container that the product came in or buying expensive travel size containers, using contact cases can save a lot of space.
Choose One Color Palette – Whether for clothes or make-up for women, sticking to one color palette can save you space and aggravation. You can bring a single belt, single pair of shoes, pants with multiple tops/shirts, etc. Stick with black or brown with warm or cool tones and it will make getting ready to get out the door a breeze and save space.
Put Plastic Wrap on Liquids – Putting plastic wrap over the spray nozzle or top of a liquid container can save you from opening your suitcase only to find that something has leaked over your clothes. An ounce of prevention can make a world of a difference.
Wrap Your Necklaces in Plastic Wrap – Obviously, this one is for the women, but necklaces can get tangled when you travel, even if you use a jewelry travel case. Lay a piece of plastic wrap down, lay your jewelry on it with a space between each piece, then put another piece of plastic wrap on top, pressing down between the necklaces. No more tangled mess.

Technology Has Changed the Way We Travel

On February 5, 2016February 5, 2016 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Travel Tips13 Comments

It is an obvious statement and perhaps just another sign that we’re not as tech savvy as our children’s generation. Or, maybe its just another indication that we’ve been on the planet long enough to see the whole world change. When we booked our latest trip, we did it all using apps on our phone. The hotel, car, and airline. In fact, the idea of where to go on our next trip came from using an app to explore our options. We’ve obviously booked plenty of trips on our computers, but this was the first time that we booked the entire trip on our phone (stop snickering at us).

Just a Few of the Things that Go with Us Everywhere

We’re really not trying to do a “we remember when” post, but when we think back to some of early trips, the differences are striking. On one of our trips, we had gone into a state park on the weekend to see some old wagon wheels and the ruts that are permanently carved into the limestone from settlers crossing the Oregon trail. As luck would have it, we got a flat and the car that we had just recently purchased, didn’t have a jack. No big deal, right, just call roadside assistance. Oh, that was in the days before cell phones, we’d be better off with smoke signals. And since it was a Sunday, there was no park staff, so we were faced with some of us hiking the five miles back to the closest service station while everyone else stayed with the car. Luckily we found someone working on a pump after about a mile and a good Samaritan had stopped to assist.

We’ve gone from travel agents to online searching, to travel sites, to travel apps. We’ve become so dependent on these technologies that we can barely remember how it was back in the Stone Age that was our early days of travel. What would we do if we didn’t TripAdvisor to tell us what others have thought of a place. How could we possibly survive without flight notifications on our phones or even having our boarding passes on our phones. Imagine the hours spent comparing travel sites before we had all of the travel search engines promising to get you the best deals (and some of them really do 😉 ). And what if the plane doesn’t have WIFI, what are supposed to do, use pencils and paper, those barbarians. So much for our trip down memory lane, time to grab our phones and prepare for the upcoming trip to Iceland.

Pictures from the Sky

On January 18, 2016 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Travel Tips6 Comments

Obviously, anyone who travels great distances frequently spends a fair amount of time in airplanes. At some point, we started taking pictures out of the airplane windows with varied results. It is clearly a great way to capture images that can’t be captured while on the ground or even at the top of a large skyscraper (although those can come pretty darn close). We only wish they’d clean the windows a little better so that we could get some better shots, although all of the pictures that we’ve taken have just been with our iPhones.

Needless to say, ninety-nine percent of time spent sitting in an airplane is dull beyond belief. Except for an occasional meal or beverage service to break up the monotony, it is time spent working, reading, blogging, but mostly fighting off boredom. Even when the flights offer television, for some reason that isn’t even entertaining. To make things worse, we can never seem to really sleep when we’re on a plane. We lean over and put our heads on each other’s shoulders, hold hands, close our eyes, but sleep seems to evade us. We’ve tried the neck pillows and other things as well, but I guess until we get to the point where we can fly business class and actually recline, we’ll have to muddle our way through with little sleep.

We didn’t always take pictures from the plane, it seems to be a relatively new phenomenon for us. It isn’t entirely due to blogging, we started taking pictures from the air prior to that, but we have definitely become more cognizant of it since we started photo cataloging our journeys. We wish that we’d taken pictures of the sun setting over the frozen waters around Iceland many years ago. We now find ourselves taking pictures in different ways and of different things. As we travel this year, what will be our first full year of documenting our travels as they happen, we’ll see what other changes occur to the way that we travel. Hopefully we’ll see some of you as we make our way to different parts of the world!