When you are travelling on a Tour you’re going to be accompanied by a suitcase or bag of some kind. Your bag is the world tourist that never speaks, or complains but that travels as much as you do. On the journey, it will be thumped, bumped, kicked and generally abused. You will take it for granted, curse it occasionally and otherwise ignore it. There are things you can do as an experienced traveller that will make like easier, both for you and your non-speaking companion and there are things you can do that will make life much more difficult for both of you. Let’s take a moment to consider…
Don’t be tempted to buy cheap luggage. It will work just fine, until it doesn’t. At some point in the journey, that bargain basement suitcase will lose a zipper, wheel or handle and now you’re in the middle of a foreign country pulling a 3-wheeled heavy suitcase along a bumpy street and you may even have to buy a new bag at short notice. Your suitcase is an investment. Buy a hard sided suitcase from a respected brand with 4 wheels (not 2 – much harder to pull). It will last longer and be more reliable. Make sure it has a TSA (US Customs) approved lock. If Customs or Border Security in any country wish to check inside your bag without your being present they have the right to do so, and will break the lock if they can’t open it with an approved lock key. Try and avoid zippered suitcase – they are too easy to break into (If you don’t believe me, try Google).
Buy a Hanging Toiletry Bag. Many hotel bathrooms look lovely, but lack a practical amount of shelf space to lay out toiletries (I’m looking at you, Italy). You can hang the Toiletry Bag from the towel hook and access everything easily and then just fold and close for a quick departure.
Don’t over-pack or over-load your bags. Let’s be honest here – How many times have we all packed stuff that we never used and, on looking back, wished that we’d never brought with us? Apart from that, an overloaded suitcase is much more likely to get broken (see above). Sometimes my clients have turned up with enormous suitcases that weigh 50lbs or more, and sometimes with more than one each. What on earth do such bags contain? Small children? Automotive spare parts? A favoured pet? I then have to watch these poor people trying to move enormous bags along cobbled streets, or station platforms or carrying them up the stairs to the upper deck of a train, with great difficulty. You’re on Tour to enjoy yourselves, not carry bags around like a Himalayan Sherpa! Yes, on some Tours there are Porters to help with our bags, but that’s in the hotels and there are still many occasions (airports, railway stations) where you have to manage your own bags. So, before leaving home, lay out on the bed everything that you’re planning to pack. Now remove 25% of it. You won’t need it. No, really… you won’t. Trust me on this. Items rarely required on any GRJ/VBR tour include… Stiletto Heels, Tiaras, Ballgowns, Tuxedos, Patent Dress Pumps, Ties, Dress Shirts, Hair Curlers, Crockery or Cutlery, More than 1 Hat, More than 2 Handbags, More than 3 Shoe Pairs, Hot Water Bottles for Bed or thick winter Waxed Jackets for India in Summer (all of these have turned up at some time on Tours that I have taken).
Invest in modern travel clothing. Modern materials are astonishingly efficient and easy to care for. The majority of my ’On Tour’ wardrobe can be hand-washed in the sink/basin or bathtub, will drip-dry in 4 – 5 hours and does not require ironing. In a pinch, hotel shampoo bottles will work as laundry detergent. One of the most useful things that I own is a travel clothes line with a clever design (braided) that means clothes pegs are not required. If your clothes aren’t as dry as you’d like after washing, a quick 10 minute session with the hairdryer or half an hour on a the heated towel rack will usually solve the problem. By the way, speaking of hotel hairdryers… If there are two of you sharing a room and the bathroom mirror is all fogged up after the first shower, try the hairdryer for 10 seconds on the mirror. Happy days!
The overwhelming majority of hotels that we use on Tour will have a Laundry service, usually overnight and sometimes (at a small premium) on the same day. If you’re in a city hotel for several days, there will often be a laundromat nearby. Hotels in the USA & Canada will usually have a laundry room with washer/dryers and soap powder dispensers which is fantastic. My American clients sometimes expect this to be the case in other parts of the world, but sadly, it isn’t so. One way or another, you can always get Laundry done, meaning that you don’t want or need to be carrying 14 days worth of clothing with you. I never pack more than 7 days worth. Put all of this together and it will help solve the over-packing problems mentioned above.
I’ve mentioned Packing Cubes in a previous blog post. If you haven’t yet got some, you should. I consider them essential. f you travel on tour at all frequently, you’ll discover that packing a suitcase effectively can be a challenge. Whatever you want is often at the bottom of the case, underneath several days of used clothing, and takes some time to find. Fortunately, help is at hand in the shape of packing cubes. These are soft, usually rip-stop nylon mesh bags with zips that come in various shapes and sizes. They are available anywhere on the internet (I use Amazon Basics) and are inexpensive. Here’s what you do – underwear in one, T-shirts in another, socks in another, and so on. You then lay them out flat in your suitcase so they interlock. On arrival at your destination hotel, you extract one required item per person from each cube, for the following day. Hang them up and you’re ready to go but your suitcase remains fully packed and ready for departure. The trick is to keep one (large) cube empty for dirty clothing – but remember, it will expand during the Tour, while the others contract. If you need to do laundry during the Tour, it’s all in one cube and ready to count.
I’m a bit sad, in that I’m always looking for ways to save space and weight in my suitcase, probably because I use it to make my living. I love my Kindle E-Book reader, because books are heavy, and if you enjoyed them, have to be carried back home. Every electrical item I own (Shaver, Toothbrush, Watch, Phone, Headphones, Laptop, Torch/Flashlight etc. etc.) runs off a USB socket and so can be charged from either of my two multi-socket travel power adapters. By the way, if you have forgotten your USB power adapter, there’s nearly always a socket on the in-room TV that you can use if needed. I purchase travel size toiletries and generally shave a little weight off everything that I can, whenever I can. Over time, I’ve managed to save 2 – 3 Lbs off my packing weight this way. Like I told you, I’m a bit sad!
Finally, there is of course, one really easy way to avoid 100% of these baggage problems and that is to make use of the GRJ/VBR Luggage service. Your bags are collected from your front door about 5 days before the tour departs and they will be waiting for you in your hotel room on arrival. It works the same, in reverse, on the way home with your luggage being collected on departure day. This means that when you travel, you only need a tiny travel bag for the day – somebody else has done the heavy lifting for you. The Luggage Service is reliable and efficient. I often find that clients who opted not to make use of it rather regret that decision and approach me half way through the Tour to ask if they can use it on the way home (which means that I have to come up with a creative and courteous way of saying… “Sorry… No”). The Luggage Service is chargeable, but if you’re worried about moving your bags around without help, it’s worth its’ weight in gold.
TimOnTheTrain 