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Our subscriber base has grown so much since we first started seven years ago, that most of you have missed all our earliest recommendations. The best of these are still valid and useful, so we’re trying out something new — Retro Recomendo. Once a month, we’ll send out a throwback issue of evergreen recommendations from the past 7 years. Let us know in the comments if we should continue this!
My travel packing list
Here’s the latest version of my travel packing list. It’s a PDF that can be edited in Adobe Illustrator (because I don’t expect anyone to pack the same things I do). As you can see, my list is broken down into sublists of different bags: charger bag, meds bag, tool bag, etc. I keep the stuff in these excellent Japanese mesh zipper bags . Now I don’t forget important things any more like I used to. I recommend that you make a similar packing list for yourself. — MF
Duplicate travel items
I have found it useful to purchase a duplicate set of cords, cables, chargers, desktop items, earphones, etc that I carry in a dedicated bag just for travel. Increasingly I’ve added duplicate articles of clothing, shoes, hats to my carry-on luggage. They never leave. That way I don’t have to pack, but more importantly, I don’t ever forget anything. The cost of duplication is minimal for the benefits. – KK
Travel tip for Starbucks people
Here’s a tip I haven’t tried yet, but it sounds like a great idea. When you’re leaving a foreign country and still have some of the local currency, take it to a Starbucks and load it onto a gift card. You can use the card later in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Mexico, and the Republic of Ireland. — MF
Secure travel docs
I stow PDF scans of my passport, visas, itinerary and key travel docs in my Dropbox, which show up in the Dropbox app on my phone so I always have them in case of loss while traveling overseas. — KK
Free filtered water at hotels
I once walked into a hotel room and saw a large bottle of water on the desk. After I took a swig I noticed the $9 sticker on the bottle. Not wanting to pay the same price again, I started refilling the bottle from the cooler in the fitness center. Now when I travel I bring a bottle with me and head straight for the fitness center. — MF
Find restaurants on Instagram
A helpful travel tip I received from a foodie friend was to find restaurants by searching hashtags on Instagram. This really comes in handy in places where Yelp recommendations are scarce. I was just traveling through Switzerland and searched for #Genevafood to find thousands of pictures of delicious looking food — most of them tagged with the location. This is great for me because I choose places based on Yelp food pics anyway. I clicked on the images that looked the best to me and then looked up the restaurant and its proximity. Searching hashtags also helped me find pages dedicated to local food. — CD
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Retro Recomendo: Travel Tips
retromendo! nice! i also will say that being on substack really opens the conversation up a lot. Its nice to be able to post comments and have direct feedback with the team.
yes, please continue with the retro recommendations, for me as quite new reader very interesting :-)