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Take These With You Next Time
1. A durable, lightweight, smooth-rolling wheelie bag that holds a lot and doesn’t tip over easily. REI makes the Stratocruiser 25″, which comes with handy backpack straps and a detachable day pack. Four-wheeled bags are even less likely to tip over, but they’re slower to walk with and prone to rolling away when you’re standing in line somewhere.
2. A slim digital camera that turns on and focuses quickly. Canon’s PowerShot series does both jobs well.
3. Duct tape…because you’ll inevitably wish you had some. Packing a whole roll is annoying, so take a 2-ft. strip and wrap it around a pencil, a straw or marker.
4. A copy of your passport. You’ll probably never need it, but if you lose your passport, having a copy greatly expedites the process of getting a new one. A scanned copy that you e-mail to yourself works fine.
5. One-quart zip bags for getting liquids, gels and toiletries through airport security. I always pack a few extra ones in case one rips or someone you’re traveling with forgets to bring one.
Travel Insurance
According to Time Magazine, travel insurance is worth purchasing for big-ticket trips that are largely non-refundable. The typical plan will cover emergency medical expenses and baggage loss and delay, and recover at least some of the cost of your trip if your vacation has to be canceled or cut short (the amount is partially determined by which state you live in), including if the travel operator goes belly up.
Note: Most insurers consider a layoff to be a valid reason to cancel a trip.
Always buy from a third-party insurer, not the company selling your cruise or tour. And considering the fragile state of the insurance industry these days, you’d be wise to choose a large, established company that’s less likely to go under, such as American Express, instead of one you’ve never heard of. Other reputable travel insurers include Travel Guard, Medex and Travelex.
User Reviews
Ever wonder about those reviews you read for hotels and B & B’s? User-review sites have changed the way some people plan their travel. This can be an enormously useful tool for evaluating hotels, restaurants, tourist attractions and the like.
TripAdvisor.com is the big kahuna, with more than 20 million reviews, mostly of hotels, but also less traditional lodging like B&Bs, villas and private homes, as well as restaurants and attractions.
TravelPost.com is another, owned byKayak.com. TravelPost.com collects reviews from various websites, such as Citysearch.com, Yahoo! Travel and IgoUgo.com. Check outYelp.com for locals’ takes on restaurants, shops and other businesses, or OpenTable.com, which guarantees that reviewers have actually eaten at the restaurants they rate.
User reviews are helpful but not foolproof, so keep in mind the following tips:
• Read between the lines, asking yourself if the writer shares your mind-set, or if a negative review is the result of a persnickety traveler or a singular bad experience. As a rule of thumb, the more people have contributed, the more valuable overall ratings become.
• Always see how recent the post was. Establishments are quick to change, move or close.
• Always look at photos posted by users; you may find them more telling than words could ever hope to be.
Pigeon Point Lighthouse
Lighthouses along northern California’s coast warned mariners of the dangers lurking in the rock laden waters. When you drive along the coast, take some time to stop and look at them. All are slightly different and all are impressive in their own way.
Perched on a cliff on the central California coast, 50 miles south of San Francisco, the 115-foot Pigeon Point Lighthouse, one of the tallest lighthouses in America, has been guiding mariners since 1872. Its five-wick lard oil lamp, and first-order Fresnel lens, comprised of 1,008 prisms, was first lit at sunset, November 15, 1872. The lens stands 16 feet tall, 6 feet in diameter, and weighs 8,000 pounds. It sits in a lantern room that had been constructed at the Lighthouse Service’s general depot in New York before being shipped around the Horn. Although the original Fresnel lens is no longer in use, the lighthouse is still an active U.S. Coast Guard aid to navigation using a 24 inch Aero Beacon.
Surf’s Up
Waves Along California Highway 1
California Coast
Items to Pack
Think about packing these items next time you get ready to travel somewhere:
Mesh laundry bags: They come in handy in your suitcase for keeping smaller items, like socks all together. Plus it’s easy to see what’s in them. You don’t need to spend a fortune on them, either. Go to a dollar store where they often come in packs of three sizes.
Calculators: While you’re at the dollar store, pick up a couple of cheap calculators. Use them to figure everything from your tips to the exchange rate.
Plastic table cloth: These inexpensive items are great with kids. Use them on the beach when you’re having lunch and really don’t want sand in your food. Or cover a not-so-clean picnic table or use one on a bedspread to keep it clean.
Glow in the dark key chains: Again, these work for kids as well as adults. They give off just enough light to find your way to the bathroom.
