[travel] Old-school organization

[mattbell]

I'm compiling little "country guides" for myself that are essentially cheat sheets for 90% of the relevant info I'd need to get around that country.

The cheat sheets cover
- Major things I want to visit, how I get to them, when they're open etc.
- Bus/train/plane schedules and fares
- Contact info for local places to stay.
- Maps (photocopied from my travel books)
- Currency conversion (which I'll have memorized by the first day anyway)
- Basic phrases (photocopied from travel book)
- All the advice Ive received about stuff in that country, in really really small text. 

Basically, it's a hell of a lot better than thumbing through a tour book every time I want to look something up. 

Are there any other things you all can think of that I should have on the cheat sheets?

Comments

[amysun.livejournal.com]

Locations of bookstores with English books.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Good point. I have bought travel books for the first half of my trip, and I was thinking of giving the books for the second half of the trip to my friends who are meeting me in Israel so I don't have to carry an extra 5lbs of crap.

[serolynne.livejournal.com]

Location and contact info for the US Embassy, just in case.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

good one.

[doublefeh.livejournal.com]

Are you still planning on carrying around full travel books in your backpack? I've taken to lighten my load on trips by selectively trimming my books. My honeymoon to Japan, I wasn't going anywhere near northern Honshu, Hokkaido, Shikoku, or Kyushu, so I basically ripped out the last third of the book. I still had the comprehensive info about the regions I was visiting, but kept about 200-300 pages out of my backpack. Then, late in the trip, when we were on our way back to Tokyo, out came everything but Tokyo! Suddenly, I'm carrying around a nice svelte booklet.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

I got the nice Eyewitness/DK books, so it feels sad to tear them up. Maybe I just need to get over that.

[serolynne.livejournal.com]

I know this iPhone app that is an audio tour guide that is supposed to reduce your need for carrying guide books.

If only it was another year or two ahead... :D

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I was thinking downloadable audio from such a company would kill my 100mb monthly bandwidth rather quickly.

[doublefeh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not so hard with the Lonely Planet books. Their recommendations are fairly reliable, but they're practically phonebooks. Nancy wouldn't let me throw out our Michelin Guides for Paris or Switzerland even after we were leaving them.

My philosophy is that enough of this information changes from year to year, I'd rather just buy the LP phone books for each trip, and use the internet for the shiny pictures.

[doublefeh.livejournal.com]

Actually, I just remembered the final piece that brought me to the current strategy of ripping up my travel books;

Compared to the cost of the trip, how much is it really going to cost to replace the book if I ever want another copy for display or use on my next trip? An extra thirty bucks on a multi-thousand dollar jaunt is a pretty big change in perspective.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Yeah, after reading your comments, I did some thinking about my per-day travel cost, and realized that by comparison, informaiton is very very cheap. I ended up getting all three Lonely Planet Europe amalgamations (Western, Eastern, and Scandanavia) and chopping out the chapters I need. I did however, speed-read the DK books for the countries I cared about first. The pictures do help orient me in terms of priorities for things to visit.

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

When I do this, I also add cultural competency / etiquette notes. Stuff like reminding myself that in England you move left (and NOT right) to avoid another oncoming pedestrian, and you never tip the bartender with money but only by buying him a drink.

btw, I don't know what format you're planning, but I find that printing it in the form of a little booklet is totally the way to go. Page imposition is the key phrase for searching for useful software to do so; but it's been long enough since I've done so that I don't have any current recommendations.

Also, additional space for scrawling notes is very handy. As are maps of any tricky transportation transitions, clipped from google maps.

I print several copies when I make a booklet, largely in case of loss. Usually n+2, where n is the number of pieces of luggage I have. The booklet then also serves to identify my luggage and help it catch up to me should I lose it. Because of this approach, I sometimes leave spaces for stalker-iffic information but leave the actual information to be written in by hand. For example, I usually have a page with passport number, credit card numbers, and credit card company phone numbers. But the booklet gets printed with a blank line where the actual passport or CC number is, and I only write them in on the single copy that gets carried on my body.

[danea.livejournal.com]

I was going to add the cultural notes as a recommendation (ie, where to avoid certain hand motions, when you should burp after meals, etc) but this last little bit about the blank lines is a really good idea. I'll have to do that next time I head out!

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Good point re manners, tipping etc.

[dixiemouse.livejournal.com]

If you see a bar with balloons tied to the chairs, prolly safer to have a drink somewhere else?

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

??

[dixiemouse.livejournal.com]

My brother has... colorful... stories from Thailand and such... just thought it might be a handy tip...