Travel tips that you shouldn’t forget

Inspired by a science blogs post on  travel tips for physicists and this quote:

They’re absolutely right when they say "if you must check a bag, it should never contain work-related items," by the way. Unless you’re on your way home from a conference, the absolute most important thing you have with you is whatever you need for your presentation. You have to treat that material as if it contained nuclear secrets. Actually, given the track record of the people who actually have nuclear secrets, that’s probably not secure enough– treat it the way you wish they would treat nuclear secrets.

I got to thinking about business travel.  We all need to do it from time to time.  It can be fun, tolerable or torture but one thing that always helps is planning.  I always make sure my carry on bag(s) have my core stuff.  Book, notebook, critical papers, laptop, charger, etc.  I’ve forgotten my AC adapter for my laptop a couple of times so I either pack it first or have a post-it below my laptop that reads "don’t forget power supply".

Which then brings me to the subject of work on planes.  Some folks do, others don’t.  For me it depends on whether I remembered to pack a cool DVD in my bag.  Here’s a great quote for the physicists article: "I avoid airplane chargers, extra laptop batteries and all that stuff. It’s just gotten to be ridiculous. I used to try and bring everything, but it’s become too much. I can’t take it anymore. I’ll do my 3 hours of work, or however long the battery lasts and that’s it."

Here’s the thing about working on planes.  You never know who is around you.  Paranoid?  A true story.  A person I know was sitting behind a couple other business travelers.  It happened that they were competitors.  The guys ahead talked shop, including strategy, the whole flight.  You can guess what kind of competitive intel goldmine that was.  So, what can you do?  You can decide if the person next to you is a potential competitor (not easy, of course) or decide to just read.  I’ve seen those 3M privacy filters on TV, but can’t find them here in Canada.  Not that I fly often, but I just think they are very cool.

Regardless business travel tips:

• pack light
• carry your essentials with you (I’m talking medicines, change of undies, etc)
• carry only the technology you need for the flight, not the technology you want (I am so guilty of this … yeah of course I’m going to need a 10′ length of ethernet cable on a trans-continental flight).
• bring a book

That’s not a bad list, but I’m sure there are more.  What are your PYW travel tips?

Tags: business travel, travel tips