Keen to travel but hate the queues to get on the plane and wait for your food, here are my top 10 travel tips every new traveler should know.
- Choose a seat towards the back of the plane, you are almost guaranteed to board first as most international flights first board older people, families with children, first and business class passengers.
- Book in and choose your seats online from 72 hours prior to your flight.
- Book your meal before the flight. Special request meals are always served before regular meals.
- If you are traveling with someone and both love to sit on isle seats book on either side of a middle row or on two isle seats separated by an isle. The book a middle row trick sometimes even gets a 3 seat coach for the 2 of you – not many people like to sit in the middle of 2 strangers.
- Take a sleep mask, not all airlines give these anymore.
- You do need to phone your bank’s credit card line to let them know that you will be using your card overseas – else they may try to phone to confirm if it was you spending money overseas. Failing to reach you, your card may be deactivated.
- Always check when you book your holiday/flights with a credit card if you can’t get free travel insurance. FNB offers this service with TIC.
- Take your facial cream in your hand luggage – you will thank me later.
- Catching multiple flights with different airlines? Rather take hand luggage if you know you won’t have a lot of time in the airport to wait for the luggage conveyor to spit out your suitcase, go through customs and security, check in and go through customs and security again.
- Always keep your passport on you. The hassle is not worth the 10 minutes of comfort. Seriously.
Traveling by plane is not for the impatient. Sitting around at airports aren’t fun. Getting to your destination and experiencing all the sights and sounds makes it all worth the hassle.
