[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

[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.