Handy How-To's

Miscellaneous preparations Buy travel insurance that covers medical emergencies, lost luggage, and delayed flights. Make photocopies and softcopies of your passports, visas, plane tickets, travel insurance and other travel related documents and store them separately them from the originals. Upload the softcopies to your cloud storage or email them to yourself. Test all the important apps on your smartphone. Then, do not update your apps anymore until after you get back from your trip. The reason for this precaution is that an update may log you out of an app or, worse, cause the app to not to work anymore. For Android, open the Play Store app and, under Settings, select “Do not update apps.” Also, postpone Android upgrades when prompted. For iPhone, postpone software updates when prompted. Sometimes, your smartphone will prompt you to log on again to your email or other app. For this reason, make sure that you know the passwords of the various accounts that you have in your sm

Take advantage of your smartphone’s capabilities Your smartphone can greatly enhance your travel experience and make life on the road more convenient. Complete as many of the following preparations as you can before your next trip. Activate international roaming Your first task is to ensure that you can call and be called through your mobile phone when you are overseas. The surest way to do this is to activate international roaming on your mobile number. Before traveling abroad, contact your service provider and ask them how to get international roaming. International roaming allows you to make long distance phone calls from abroad through your smartphone and instant access to the Internet via your smartphone’s mobile data. Compared to the alternatives mentioned below, international roaming is very convenient and more reliable. However, such convenience comes at a steep price, so resort to it only when the suggested alternatives have failed. For more on international roami

Luggage-related tips One day, as I sat in one of those trans-Pacific flights, I heard the pilot announce that he was diverting our plane to Anchorage, Alaska because of volcanic activity that was happening somewhere along our original route. Luckily, I had chosen a connecting flight whose departure time allowed for some delay in my schedule. And boy, was it cold in Alaska! Although our stopover at Anchorage was very brief, I was so thankful that I wore my jacket instead of packing it into my checked luggage. On another trip, a flight attendant accidentally spilled coffee on me. I smelled like a percolator and felt uncomfortable for the rest of the flight. These incidents have taught me to always have spare clothing with me. I'm sure you also have stories to tell about trips that have gone awry. Years of traveling have taught me to be ready for sudden turns and mishaps. In this and succeeding posts, I will share how I have made myself better prepared as a traveler. While these

Make the floor more visible   In an earlier post, I described how windows and mirrors can relieve the feeling of being closed in by a small room. Here, I will describe strategies that focus on improving sight lines towards the floor of your home. Using thin, streamlined furniture makes a small space more roomy. As can be seen in this example, the dining table and chairs take up very little space, allowing for greater freedom of movement in this small dining area. They also allow unobstructed views of the floor and walls, which create the illusion of a bigger space. A big bonus is that this type of furniture is durable, lightweight, easy to move, and easy to clean. By raising its bottom slightly above the floor, the cabinet shown below appears to float between the living and dining areas, looking a lot smaller than it really is. Raising the cabinet also improves the air circulation between the two spaces, making them feel cool and comfortable.  Another effecti

Use windows and mirrors to make a space feel big Confined spaces are so…confining, and many people find it almost impossible to feel comfortable in them. Unfortunately, many of us cannot afford to live big homes with expansive rooms and picture windows. But do we small-house-dwellers have to put up with that feeling of being boxed in? Not at all! In this article, I would like to describe a couple of strategies to make small spaces feel bigger and more relaxing. While being in small room or space can make a person feel ill at ease, a mere glance outside the window provides instant relief. Why? I believe it’s mainly because looking out the window enables the eye to focus on a more distant scene. So here is one way to make ourselves forget that we are in a small room: get a view of the outside world! Open those windows​ and curtains! If the window glass is frosted, replace it with clear glass. If there is some concern about security or about the heat, cold, rain, dirt, i

You will become a victim of credit card fraud if you do not handle or use your credit or debit cards with care. Here are some safety precautions. When using your physical credit or debit card A growing number of stores don’t allow their employees to handle their customers’ cards. That is, you must be the one to tap or insert your card into their online card terminal. This is good practice because you are always in possession of your card during the transaction. In stores that still do things the old-fashioned way, make sure that the store employee will perform the card transaction on a nearby terminal where you can plainly see what she will do with your card. Bear in mind that it only takes a moment for a thief to copy your credit card details. Be prepared to pay in cash rather than lose sight of your card. Wireless-enabled cards Technologies like RFID and NFC have enabled speedy and convenient wireless transactions. To pay, just tap your card at the card terminal. For small-va