Three items that will change the way you travel #Travel #ExpatLife

In my bio, I often write that I have a wicked case of wanderlust that has yet to be cured. I’m not just making stuff up. I really do love to travel. I’m not a beach person. I don’t want to use my vacation days sitting on the sand – even if the sand, sea, and horizon are beautiful. I want to see things! Whether it’s the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal or Mayan ruins of Palanque, I want to see IT ALL.

Travel to far-off lands used to be reserved for the wealthy. It was arduous, expensive, and time-consuming. Those days are long gone. Heck! Those days were gone before I arrived on this planet. But I will admit that travel has gotten a heck of a lot easier than the first day I flew on a plane to Europe many, many moons ago. I remember bulky suitcases without wheels, long lines for check-in, and infrequent flights. There was no booking.com or expedia to find hotels with recommendations from other travelers. Hotels and restaurants were hit and miss.

Traveling today is almost without hassle. You can check-in online. Suitcases have four wheels so you can easily maneuver them throughout the airport. There are tons of websites to find recommendations so you never have to spend another night in a hotel that has cracks in the wall, no hot water, and no locks on the door. I’d like to share with you three things that changed the way I travel for the better.

Kindle (and kindle app). After the smart phone, this is the item that has most changed my life. Packing for a trip used to be an excruciating exercise between deciding which books I could take with and how many I would allow myself to schlep around whatever country (or countries) I was visiting. I have a friend whose only reason for reading War and Peace was that it was the thickest book she owned and she was heading off to three works traveling around Turkey. Now, there’s no need to decide which book I can take with me. I can take THEM ALL. I admit I do often take one physical book with me – a history of the region to which I’m travelling.

Powerbank. This is a recent addition to my packing list. In the old days, I don’t think I took anything electrical with me while traveling. Seriously, nothing. I don’t care about drying or curling my hair, so what electrical items did we have in the good ‘ole days to carry with us? Things have changed. I carry my power bank with me everywhere. Well, I do now. I had an interview at a radio station in an industrial area of town late at night. When I went to leave, my phone was nearly dead. Hard to order an uber without a working phone! As I waited for the uber to arrive, I watched the percentage of my phone battery tick away until it was at one percent. At that point, I saw the uber driver literally pass me by! I am never experiencing that again. The powerbank is my friend.

Dirty clothes. I admit, this isn’t an item but a state of mind. My family recently visited me in the Netherlands, and we went off for a five-day excursion to Greece. I was shocked they each had an entire outfit planned for each day of their fourteen-day trip. Um, what? No. Just no. There is no need to wear a new outfit each day. Find durable clothes like jeans or canvas pants which you can wear for several days. T-shirts, bras, and underwear can be easily washed in the bathtub or – my personal favorite – the bidet.

What about you? What items have changed the way you travel?