Have you ever been on a vacation or business trip and everything seemed to go wrong? For instance you forgot the adapter for your smart phone, or the cord for your laptop. Perhaps you didn't pack the right clothes and you ran into weather and found yourself, rather than enjoying your vacation, trying to find a local Wal-Mart to get a jacket. It's happened to me several times, and usually it's because I didn't plan my travel needs correctly.
However, since I am now a seasoned traveler, I have a little checklist, it's really simple, but it prevents me from forgetting the important things. Things like phone numbers that I need to call when I get some place, or universal travel plugs. Travel planning can be very simple, or it can be quite complex, and it often matters what type of traveling you're doing. Even a simple 3 x 5 index card as a checklist inside of your suitcase can help.
If you are like me and you like to travel light, you might even stick it on the inside of your laptop bag, or the bag you use as your carry-on luggage. It makes sense to keep it simple. Having printouts of itineraries, emergency phone numbers, and secondary plan B or escape plans also makes sense. You never know if you're going to get stuck in weather, or stuck in an airport for hours on end. What are you going to do if you miss your connecting flight?
Sometimes, if you plan these things in advance, then what might have been a major catastrophe for someone else, can turn into an opportunity for you. For instance if you are stuck for four or five hours at an airport, perhaps you know something very close by you can go see or do. Having secondary itinerary travel plans make a lot of sense and it sure has helped me out over the years. In fact, I've made many friends who were also stuck at airports who decided they would rather join me and accompany me in my secondary plans while we were stuck at the airport for six or seven hours waiting for the next connecting flight.
The reality is you just never know, and "if you fail to plan, you are really planning to fail," and that goes for travel planning as well. Indeed, hope you'll please consider this, and if you have any other ideas or suggestions please send me an e-mail. Think on it.