The best travel tips help everyone travel smarter. Some vacations are perfect from start to finish, but more often than not, at least one thing goes wrong. Because part of the fun of travel is often its unpredictability (for those of us that like serendipity, anyway), cutting down on big deal problems help ensure that the problems that do arise are small, and easily remedied. Consumer Reports’ ShopSmart (April/May) offers expert travel tips; these are The Vacation Gals’ favorites. All opinions herein are our own.
Best Luggage Tip:
There’s been a bit of an uproar; this week, Spirit Airways announced plans to start charging for carry-on luggage. 
Now, when US Airways charged for water, the resulting outrage quickly saw the airline put an end to this egregious policy — perhaps the same will ensue with Spirit. Nevertheless, it’s still a great idea to avoid checked bags. Carry-on bags can’t get lost or waylaid, and remain safe from unscrupulous baggage handlers. Some best carry-on luggage tips can be found on OneBag.com and travel blog posts such as this one!
Best Air Travel Tips:
Fly nonstop whenever possible. If you can’t, at least try to avoid the airports with the worst delays. A few especially problematic airports are Dallas, Miami, and Newark (NJ). Smart air travelers should use flightstats.com to research reliable airlines, and bts.gov for airport stats. The more we know, the better armed we are for wise flight decisions.
Choose an airline that has multiple flights to your destination each day. This way, should some unpreventable error occur with your particular flight, it will be easier to change flights and get to your vacation destination relatively unscathed. Switching airlines is much harder than switching flights, although neither are desirable!
Try to take the earliest flight of the day. Problems and delays have a domino effect, and a slight delay in takeoff for one plane affects the next, and the delays can get worse and worse throughout the day should new issues arrive on top of the old ones from previous flights. Similarly, do you best to avoid the last flight of the day, as a mechanical issue on that plane could leave you in the airport overnight.
Best Rental Car Tips:
Check the rental car before you leave the lot. Sometimes the company’s employees miss scratches or dents, and it would be a real bummer to get charged for someone else’s driving mistake. Also, check the tire pressure. It’s less safe to drive a car with tires low on air.
It’s probably best to waive the extra coverage. Consumer Reports has been preaching about declining the car rental’s on-site coverage for years. Before you decline that waiver, though, check with your credit card company, or your insurance agent, to see exactly what accident coverage you already have.
Best Hotel Tip:
Don’t fall for that gorgeous full-page ad in that magazine in your dentist’s waiting room. Before you make reservations at a hotel, do some online research. A lot can be learned from reviews written on trustworthy travel blogs, travel aggregators, and major review sites like TripAdvisor. Also, a few minutes of your time could save you a bundle; those rack rates listed by hotel reservations desks can often be beat by even the hotel’s own website.
The best travel tips help all of us have better vacation experiences. This short list of seven suggestions is, obviously, not all-encompassing. We’d love to hear your favorite travel tips as well. After all, who wouldn’t want to be a smart traveler?
Lisa at The World is Calling (@theworldcalls) offered this tip on Twitter the other day: if you are renting an apartment or condo, and see some damage when you check in, take a digital photo of it, so that you have dated back up (make sure your date on your camera is correct!) if you are ever questioned about breaking a vase, scuffing a wall, breaking a toilet-paper holder, etc.
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I’d like to add this tip for travelers looking for original places to stay, but are still traveling on a budget. Two years ago we launched http://www.darngooddigs.com – we’re trying to build a guide to the best of the best independently owned accommodations with rooms under $150, even in the high season. We now have reviews of over 100 places. We select our content from travelers who nominate their all-time favorite places.
You mentioned Trip Advisor as your “Best Hotel Tip”. We definitely use that site, and others like it, all the time as part of our research – but sometimes having someone actually do editing and fact-checking can make a difference. That’s what we we do – albeit for a very small niche – the extraordinary, budget small hotel, b&b, or guest house.
This list is a brilliant resource! I agree wholeheartedly about:
Unpredictability. For instance, forgetting your camera in the car and not remembering until you’re in the airport’s security line…only to discover that an iPhone works almost as well;
Packing for carry-on. However, don’t count on strangers helping you get them down from airplane storage bins…I’ve seen some atrociously rude behavior of late;
Checking the rental car before you leave the lot. A couple years back, we rolled out of a Thrifty in Sacramento at night, with only a wan glow to light our (hastily approved) car inspection. Turned out the vehicle had several scratches we missed, and it took a month to negotiate our way out of being held responsible. (Good thing we now have a flashlight app on our iPhones.
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I was really pleased to come across your site.I wanted to thank you for the grand read!! I definitely enjoying every bit of it & I have bookmarked your site & will check out new things as you post.
I can totally relate to the luggage tip. The last time I traveled, I was ignorant of the checked-in baggage fee and had to dish out money for the extra weight. And let me not even get started on the unending wait for the bag to arrive at the carousel. That was it for checking bags for me. So, now I have decided to stick to carry-on luggage – whether it’s for adventure, pleasure, or business. I have already placed an order for a new carry-on from Briggs & Riley’s Transcend collection and planning to buy another one from their newly introduced outdoor luggage collection BRX.
As for the luggage, it’s best to travel light if at all possible. When we take a vacation from our working lives, why not take a vacation from rampant materialism as well? You can survive on amazingly little.
[...] on some tips from USNews and the VacationGals, common methods to improve your world explorations [...]