The Travelite® FAQ

A little piece of news snuck through last Friday: Beginning this October, United Airlines is imposing minimum stays for its economy class round-trip tickets. How long you have to stay depends on the price of your ticket and where you go, but this is yet another way a major carrier is trying to find ways to increase revenue. From someone who’s flown on United for no purpose other than to get enough miles to bump up to the next frequent flyer status (and who sat at the airport in New Hampshire for three hours), this is really heinous.

If you must do a previously unnecessary overnight trip and you’re on business (and you’re not a Mileage Plus Premier member), you have the additional challenge of trying to minimize your stuff to avoid United’s $15 first-bag check-in fee. The main thing you need to do is to minimize your entire load and still take the things you need to be able to work:

Consider switching to an ultralight portable laptop, like the Asus EEE or the Apple MacBook Air.

The Asus EEE PC might not have all the bells and whistles of a 15-pound brethren, but it does most of the things you want to do while on the road.

The Asus EEE is tiny, but it still lets you do a lot of your computer work.

If all you need to do is check your email, browse the Web for fun and stay in touch, consider getting something even smaller, like a Blackberry or iPhone. If you are making presentations, consider storing everything in a portable USB flash drive, and using the computer at your client’s site.

A USB flash drive takes up almost no room in your belongings, but can pack tons of data.

The main goal here is to lighten your electronics as much as possible, because doing so frees up a lot of room in your carry-on for overnight items, such as clothes and toiletries.

Make sure you keep your work stuff separate from your overnight stuff by keeping the two in separate compartments. The easiest way to do that is to pack your overnight items in something like an Eagle Creek Cube. Get ones with a mesh side and a carrying handle so that you could easily remove them from your carry-on.

An Eagle Creek Pack It Cube makes packing clothing a little easier.

Finally, chuck that horrible laptop bag! There’s nothing as heavy and cumbersome as the traditional black leather laptop case. You can tuck your laptop into a compact sleeve (made from padded materials like Neoprene) and slip it into the side of a regular carry-on bag.

The Redmaloo felt laptop sleeve is an innovative little laptop case that folds out to provide a built-in mousepad (product Web site).

If you need it to look presentable for work, consider purchasing a laptop sleeve that comes with carrying handles and that looks presentable on its own.

The Sherpani Laptop Sleeve (available from Luggage.com), is easy to slip into a carry-on but has a shoulder strap so that it could be carried around on its own and still manage to look presentable.

This may be heresy but one option is to go the way a lot of business now do, and just start flying the low-cost discount airlines where you can (like Southwest). The perks aren’t as great but their counter service is terrific—it will be the friendliest bus ride you will ever take.

Reading today’s blog entry from travel consumer writer Chris Elliott (“The coming dehydration crisis for airline passengers”), I was disconcerted to learn that the new policy US Airways is implementing for charging passengers for soft drinks includes charging them for bottled water (read the press release from the airline).

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a huge fan of drinking “tap water” from airplanes—they’re regular water hosed into a holding tank on the plane. On drinking water on airplanes, travel safety advocate and author Diana Fairechild says:

I stopped drinking airplane water my first year of flying after I saw floating particles in the water, and also after I saw mechanics filling the airplane water tanks from hoses on the runways, wherever we landed–even Bombay.

Serving tap water to passengers is common because the airlines don’t provide enough bottled water. They prefer to fill the limited supply spaces on board with liquor and soft drinks, both of which actually increase the passengers’ jetlag because they exacerbate dehydration.

I have a one-word reaction for ya: Ewwww.

The problem is, you can’t take your own bottle of water through airport security. You have to pay money for a new bottle of water once you’ve passed security. And if you have a long flight, that one-liter bottle of water probably won’t cut it for you.

You might argue that if I can afford to pay for an airline ticket, I should be able to spend $3.00 for a bottle of water, yes? Except that I think it’s ridiculous that the airline is charging for clean water. Food? Sure. Salted peanuts? OK. Booze? Of course. But clean water? Aircraft cabins are very dry and it’s common for people to wind up with symptoms of dehydration; I’m with Chris Elliott on this one—US Airways has some gall. I think I’d refuse to buy their bottled water on principle.

What to do if you don’t want to keep paying for overpriced bottled water at airports? Assuming that the water from drinking fountains at aiports is potable (that is, safe for drinking), my suggestion is that you take an empty vessel with you to fill once you get past security:

Refill a disposable water bottle – the easiest method is to take an empty disposable water bottle. If you’re the type that wants to look like you just bought a new bottle of Evian, this is one way to go. This way you can easily toss them when you’re done. As long as your bottle is empty, you can take it through airport security without a problem.

A few years ago, Evian used to sell the Nomad, which made carrying them really easy. I stopped seeing them about five years ago, although I saw them a few years ago in Singapore.

The Evian Nomad; alas, no longer sold in the U.S.

Bring and fill your own reusable bottle – For a while, Nalgene had a real hit on its hands with its wide-mouth Lexan bottles (purchase here). You couldn’t walk through a college campus without seeing these dangling off of people’s bag straps.

The popular 32-ounce Nalgene drinking bottle.

The problem was, you had to unscrew the top to drink from it, and because the opening was wide, you were likely to have some splash issues if you were say, flying in turbulence. Nalgene has begun selling modified versions of their popular bottle, but for my penny I’d rather spend it on the Camelbak Better Bottle (purchase here).

The Camelbak Better Bottle.

Unlike its Nalgene cousin, the Better bottle uses Camelbak’s patented “bite-valve” straw. It means no leaks, no splashes, no unscrewing the top to drink. The loop in the handle means you can hang these off your bag, and the plastic is the same hearty stuff that Nalgene uses.

Use a collapsible water bottle – One really good option is the Platypus. Not nearly as common as other bottles, this one is marketed specifically for backpackers and travelers, and seems to be a custom fit for our particular situation. Designed for backpackers, the Platypus Platy Bottles (purchase here) are made of thick flexible plastic that collapses completely flat. They come in various sizes, and you can easily carry a couple of these with you for your flight. Just fill them up at a water fountain once you’re past security. Slip them into the seatback pocket in front of you, and you’re all set.

The Platypus Platy Bottles.

The Platy bottle is probably your best solution if you have to fly US Airways. My suggestion? Fly another airline.

If you’re like me, you probably think the Transportation Security Administration’s ban on liquids is pretty ridiculous. Their current policy (what they now refer to as “3-1-1″) was implemented in August 2006 after they foiled some liquid-based terrorist plot. Remember that shoe-bomber guy, and how we now have to remove our shoes to go through airport security because of him? I’m just waiting for some terrorist to sharpen the underwire from bras into pointy weapons; I’m sure the TSA can’t wait to prohibit women from wearing bras. These inconveniences are like death by 1,000 paper cuts, and the sad part is that it’s being done to us by our own government.

All complaining aside, if you find yourself having to fly, you will need to mind their 3-1-1 policy for taking liquids with you on the flight. Here’s how the TSA explains it:

Make Your Trip Better Using 3-1-1

• 3-1-1 for carry-ons = 3 ounce bottle or less (by volume) ; 1 quart-sized, clear, plastic, zip-top bag; 1 bag per passenger placed in screening bin. One-quart bag per person limits the total liquid volume each traveler can bring. 3 oz. container size is a security measure.
• Consolidate bottles into one bag and X-ray separately to speed screening.
• Be prepared. Each time TSA searches a carry-on it slows down the line. Practicing 3-1-1 will ensure a faster and easier checkpoint experience.
• 3-1-1 is for short trips. If in doubt, put your liquids in checked luggage.
• Declare larger liquids. Medications, baby formula and food, breast milk, and juice are allowed in reasonable quantities exceeding three ounces and are not required to be in the zip-top bag. Declare these items for inspection at the checkpoint.

There’s actually quite a lot you can do within their allowed parameters, and I’ll be going over each of these steps in detail separately:

• Use a nondisposable plastic bag. There are way better alternatives that let you fit your bottles better.
• Pack liquids in your own containers
• Reduce the number of items that are in liquid form
• If you’re traveling with a partner or a group (such as a family), each person can carry a 3-1-1 bag, so consider distributing liquids evenly among all party members.
• Don’t bother carrying the stuff with you; that is, ship it, buy it there, store it there, or go without.

If you’re visiting here now (as in, mid-2008), it’s probably because you’ve been hearing about all the new rules the airlines have started implementing for charging us a fee for our first piece of checked luggage. While I normally don’t check in any luggage myself, I think this policy is preposterous, and I think airlines are completely misguided if they think this is the way they could recover some of their costs.

That said, now more than ever, it makes sense to learn how to travel lightly!

I’ve moved out of the 20th Century and right into the contemporary internets with a blog-focused format, which will let me post more frequently.

If you’ve been a reader of my site for a long time (and I think we’re going over 10 years now), welcome back!

More shortly.

In the meantime (until I figure out where I want to link stuff from), if you are looking for my older content, please visit my archive page.

– Lani