People often tease me, asking if I actually work.  I’ll admit I like my vacations and take full advantage of every generous vacation day my company provides, isn’t that the point??  I joke that I keep my passport in my purse, ready at a moments’ notice to jet-set on a new adventure.

My frequent travel has lead me to rely on a few essential tips to make navigating trains/planes/automobiles a little easier.

As you may have gathered from this here blog, I love to eat.  Nothing pains me more than wandering an airport for sustenance.  I’m all about indulging in treats, but succumbing to a slice of subpar pizza or stale french fries at an airport isn’t worth the indulgence.  I make an effort to always bring travel snacks to last me through the flight and see me through to my final destination.  Yes, I’ve been that girl that’s brought hard-boiled eggs on a plane.  Other favorites: apple with single serving of Justin’s peanut-butter, homemade salad in disposable container, mixed nuts/trail mix, or a low-sugar KIND bar.

For road trips, it’s all about good jams, a playlist is essential.  Old school games like mad-libs, I-spy, and slug-bug can keep friends entertained in the car, and for times when you just want to zone out, I’m all about books on tape.

I obviously can’t leave home without my smart phone.  Some of my favorite apps for traveling:

My favorite tote that works just as well as a carryon as it does for a weekend road-trip.  

Lastly, I keep a handful of sanitizing wipes in my bag to keep germs at bay on shared surfaces.  There’s nothing worse than catching a cold on your travels!

One new service that I’m eager to add to my travel arsenal is the airport car rental by Turo (formerly RelayRides).  For those that don’t know, Turo is a car-sharing service that allows car owners to rent out their cars when not in use.  What I’m especially excited about is the availability of cars at SFO given the fact that when I travel home, the plane flight is just the first half of the journey.  After a 6 hour flight I still have another 2 hour drive to my house.  My parents have long ago stopped offering to pick me up, so I’ve resorted to the airporter bus service, which is perfectly convenient, when the timing works, but when it doesn’t, I’m stuck waiting.  I love the idea of picking up a car and driving myself home for the weekend, it would save so much time!

I’d love to know, what are your travel essentials??