long queues in general:
especially with airport security these days, long queues, even in nations who do not like to queue much, have become the norm.
This tip is very simple:
the ends of two parallel queues are self levelling, even
when one queue is moving a lot faster. People join the shortest, not the
fastest queue. So, imagine seeing two lines approaching two passport controls;
one line has two desks open, one line has one desk open. The 2 desk line
goes twice as fast, but the end of the queues will be at roughly the same
place. Pause before you join a line, take a moment, look at the front of
the queues to determine which one to join.
This tip can easily save you 40
minutes of hell!
dryness:
Flying in a plane dries you out - your nasal passages, your
eyes, etc. We could discuss why, but it happens and it's quite unpleasant
on a longish haul flight. Salvation comes with the first meal: take
the pepper sachet, open it, take a pinch, snif it. Shortly, your eyes will run, you
nose will run (you may sneeze a little) and all dryness is rehydrated. Keep
the pepper sachet, repeat as ofteh as needed. Your seat companion will think
you are mad, or on drugs, but just get on with it. Posh pepper or touristy
class pepper all work.
Life changing tip, honestly!
Also, staying at altitude (eg in a ski resort - you should be so lucky!)
means very, very dry air. At night this is awful - no more so than for young
children and babies. Simple remedy - fill all baths and sinks with water
before retiring (assuming that water is not too scarce) and they will increase
humidity wonderfuly during the night.
time zones:
I once fell asleep taking off from Johannesburg and awoke
as we hit the tarmac at Schipol. My seat companion was furious - "how
did you do that"
she exclaimed. "It's easy", I said, "all you have to be is
tired". Which
is a big clue towards jet lag avoidance. You need to follow a few simple
rules:
- set your mind to
your destination time. Forget your real home time completely. Try to think of yourself as
already living in the new time zone. It helps a lot. You don't necessarily
have to chnage your watch as long as your brain can see that it is showing
the time somewhere else, not here. But it's smart to change computers,
PDS, iphones etc - these days they should sort themselves out anyway. Never,
ever think things like "it's lunchtime back home now...",
or "I'd be going to bed now...". Everyone
knows this, few really do it;
- if in doubt stretch rather than shrink the day - better
to hang on and go to bed tired but near to the evening time of the place
you have arrived at than to grab an afternoon nap - and end up awake at
2.00 am. Being tired briefly is a small price for rapid time readjustment.
To sleep at night, it helps to be tired, and then not be woken up;
- ...and it really helps to stay asleep if you have a completely
darkened room - no light at all. Again good science behind
this, but just do it. Leaving the TV, or the laptop brightly on is a disaster.
- arrive to activity: have meetings, hire a bike, do something,
get busy in the local time as soon as you are off the plane;
- get out of doors, preferably in sunshine,
for at least an hour, around midday at the first opportunity, and as often as possible
at subsequent middays after that. Plenty of science behind this, but your
brain will lock onto local time a lot quicker, quite magically;
- If you are only there for a couple of days, consider staying
on your own time zone - the hotel gym is very quiet at 4.00 am and there
is
no not
much shame in going to bed at 8.00 pm;
aeroplane pressure problems:
With the wonderful exception of Concorde, most planes are built way
too lightly to be able to contain a normal air pressure when up at
33,000 feet - the fuselage would literally blow apart of they tried.
So the air pressure is significantly reduced at altitude. This means
your ears pop as you ascend / descend, your shoes won't
fit when you put them back on, your tongue is slightly swollen so
you are more prone to biting it - in fact all your bits are bloated
and slightly oversized (which may, ahem, explain some gentlemen's obsession
with the Mile High Club type of activity - this may be their best chance
to impress). Your body feels ponderous and ungainly (it is!)
as you arrive. These tips all help this a lot:
- adults know how to "click" their ears - usually by swallowing
- but tiny children don't know. Moving a chin as far as possible
from side to side (try it with your own) will "pop" ears
and stop a lot of distress with babies. It also works if your own
ears are a bit reluctant to "pop"
- if you have a bad cold for example;
- having laced shoes helps - you can loosen them off to fit in time
for the landing, and you may also consider elasticated waists etc;
- as soon as possible after you land try to
immerse yourself completely under water - this seems to help level out the pressure problems
very quickly: a bath, a swim all work, a shower doesn't help at all.
All your body underwater for a few minutes is what is needed.
- anything packed at surface pressure will "pop" if opened
aloft. Open yoghurts etc away from you!
Flying on Concorde was wonderful, if not particularly
eco-sound, because the pressure stayed to same all the way, thus avoiding
all these problems. To fly at over 66,000 feet the fuselage had to
be so strong that a normal pressure could be contained by it.
hand luggage wherever possible:
It really doesn't matter if you are flying, taking
the train, or even sailing, carrying all you need in one stuffed bag
can avoid so many problems. You are nimble, on planes you can can save
hours waiting for your luggage on carousels, you can rush to another
plane/bus/train instantly (and get that last seat tonight...) and so
on. But you don't want to be one of those sad saps who try to take
27 bags and the kitchen sink with them as hand luggage, so:
Wear your bulky items - coats, biggest shoes (not ski
boots though!!) - you can take them off onboard. Put things in pockets,
but mostly remember that it is a rare place where you can't buy socks,
or whatever. Conferences will probably give you shirts, and you can
get away with surprisingly few items. Some items (linen) looked distinguished
crumpled, others look just, er, crumpled.
A bag with small wheels might look like a boon, but
the chassis and wheels take up a lot of space - a
decent back-pack is best by far, and you can run with it. Squashable
shapes are more likely to be allowed onto a plane or coach with limited
storage.
I had a pal who would Fed-Ex his dirty underwear and
socks home to his (delighted?) wife to save carry-on weight when flying
home. This may be a step too far: he has remarried.
robbery and similar:
It happens, so plan for
the possibility. That means
a simple log of your passport number, credit cards, etc - just put
them all on a photocopier, of take a digital photo, but given that
a robber may take your PDA or camera too, think about where you store
that data. Sometimes paper still works.
I'm constantly amazed by people who carry posh leather
shoulder bags with DELL or whatever emplazoned on the side, and then
are all affronted when the bag is, inevitably, stolen. Nothing is more
anonymous that a simple shopping bag for your laptop. Use one.
Most countries allow you more than one current passport;
the UK allows four - assuming you don't carry them all at the same
time this gives some real protection against the sheer inconvenience
of theft. By the way, it isn't hard to memorize your passport number
- you'd be amazed how often this is helpful. Remember it as three blocks
of numbers.
Carrying a "sacrificial" wallet can be a
sensible precaution - with a sensible amount of money and some useless
cards in it. But make sure it has some value - thieves are usually
not (that) daft.
cheap flights - no seat bookings:
On the currently fashionable super cheap no-frills
flights you can't book seats and people get very stressed queueing
ever-so-early to get on and get a "good" seat.
If travelling alone,
don't queue. Early in the queue will be a number of elderly
couples who queue for ever and thus get aboard early. They sit one
at the aisle and one at the window, leaving a (much hated middle)
seat between them - usually in the front three rows. Other passengers
pass this by, in the hope of "better" seats further down
the cabin. Wait till most passengers have got on, then join the last
few and board. Go straight for these front three row middle seats -
there will be one or maybe two paces left and the couple will want
to be together and will move across when you try to sit down leaving
you with an aisle seat in the front few rows. Never fails.
countries where English is very
rarely spoken...
...but you don't have time to learn a few basic phrases,
or can't pronounce them - Japan would be a good example, outside of
the main tourist areas and in contrast to China, badly pronounced Japanese
is not well received. Use your camera phone to take a picture of your
hotel, the airport terminal (take it as you arrive), a beer, and so
on. Get in a cab and show picture of your hotel... you'll get home
every time. Show beer in bar, get beer. Easy. Smile a lot.
You can achieve wonders with http://translate.google.com too.
I try to memorize at least a sentence or two. For example "well,
I'm sorry not to be addressing you in <langauge> but now that you have
heard my attempts at <langauge> you know why I have to use English"
I hope you found this all vaguely useful - happy travelling...
BTW, I'm very happy for you to cut paste and pass on these tips - but please
do credit the source - Prof. Stephen Heppell
