As I’m settling down to write this, I’ve just gotten into my comfy clothes…sweatpants and a t-shirt. Not just any old t-shirt, but a genuine SkyTeam t-shirt. I donned my slippers with the fancy ‘F’ on them – my comfy Fairmont slippers. I put my book to the side (I’m reading Tim Ferriss’s updated version of The 4-Hour Workweek), marking my page with my Continental boarding pass.

This got me thinking about all of the travel-related items that I carry. Someone who went wandering through my bags could tell a lot about me just by these items.

In this week’s bag I have:

• Delta SkyTeam t-shirt that I received when my red-eye flight cancelled and I was sent to a hotel.
• Fairmont slippers from the Fairmont Newport Beach (hint to Fairmont: I could use a new pair!)
• Loews Conditioner bottle. The conditioner is long gone, but the bottle is perfect for refilling, totally leak-proof and great for a weeklong trip.
• Embassy Suites rosemary-infused hand cream. Love the scent!
• Hilton shower cap. Great for wrapping up shoes or covering my hair when I give myself a facial.
• Marriott sewing kit. I’ve needed this a few times for hem and button repairs.
• Continental boarding pass. Open any book I’m reading and you’ll find a boarding pass or two.

These are just the items in this week’s 4-day travel bag. I can’t begin to tell you what I have at home!

So what do these clues tell you about me?

• I stay in nice hotels and sit in first class … all signs that I like the finer things in life (all very true, but they do not occur as often as I’d like).
• I am feminine. I love the fresh scents of high-quality hand cream, shampoo and conditioner.
• I’m practical. I heed my mother’s advice and I’m prepared. Sewing kits and shower caps are multi-purpose and are right up there with always having clean underwear.
• I’m frugal. Why spend the money on a beautiful laminated bookmark when I can use a boarding pass for free?

It makes sense that we pick up items along the way that fit our lifestyles and personalities. Share with us what clues your luggage is saying!

Here are last week’s Travel Gems:

Monday Mar. 8th- When looking for the best deal at a hotel, ask for the concierge floor or bed and breakfast rate. While it may be $50 more a night or so, it will include breakfast, perhaps a light dinner and complimentary water and soft drinks. When traveling with a spouse or children, this can save a lot in meals and beverages.

Tuesday Mar. 9th- Sleeping in a hotel room can be tough. I’ve found a great way to relax and fall asleep to the scent of lavender tucked into my pillow case. Lavender is said to be a great natural remedy for calming nerves and helping to ease you into a sound sleep and the scent is wonderful!  This is why a few hotels give out lavender spray upon check-in.

Get your very own lavender sachet at Zen’s Purple Garden. Slip it inside your pillow case and feel the sense of calm when your head hits the pillow. Upon waking, scrunch it up and place it back in its travel-safe container. Use it again and again and again. It’s now part of my travel must-have’s. You’ll want to use it at home as well.

Wednesday Mar. 10th- I keep learning this the hard way–When you first get into a rental car, find out where these key items are turned on and off:I keep learning this the hard way–When you first get into a rental car, find out where these key items are turned on and off:

• Door locks
• Headlights
• Wipers (front and back)
• Emergency lights
• Emergency brake

It is very unsafe to be fumbling around the dashboard trying to find out where to turn on the headlights when it becomes dark as you are driving. And it is distracting to your driving to be turning on the wipers accidentally and not know how to turn them off.  I know … I had to find the wipers today and I fumbled around trying to figure out where to turn on the back window’s wiper.

Thursday Mar. 11th- When leaving your hotel to go for a run, wear a wristband, ankle band or shoe pouch that contains your name, mobile phone and contact information. A great source for these products is at RoadID.com.

Friday Mar. 12th- Leaving your kids at home while you travel? Be sure to provide a list of  medical contacts for their caregiver.Leaving your kids at home while you travel? Be sure to provide a list of  medical contacts for their caregiver.

If you would like a favorite travel tip of yours to be included in the Travel Gem of the Day, email your tip, name and website totravelgem@smartwomentravelers.com.

I have yet to take any towels, sheets or bathrobes, but you will always find me wearing a soft pair of Fairmont Hotel slippers no matter where I stay (they just fell into my bag …. seriously!).

Here are last week’s Travel Gems:

Monday Mar. 1st - Avoid missed flights and getting stuck in a middle seat. Always confirm your flight info the night before your trip – better yet, a few days before. When booking your flight weeks in advance, the departure time may change from what you originally booked.  You do not want to arrive at the airport only to find your flight left earlier than you thought.

The plane configuration may also change, resulting in a middle seat that you did not expect!  (Tip: many frequent fliers get upgraded into first class in the few days before a flight, so you may have a chance to move out of a middle seat as their coach seats become available.)

Validating your flight a day or more ahead of time gives you a chance to contact the airline online or via telephone to address any seating, timing or other ticket issues.

Tuesday Mar. 2nd – Looking for great facial cleansers without all the liquid? Travel with easy to pack, non-liquid make-up removers.  Several to choose from: Olay Make-up Remover Towelettes , Pond’s Clean Sweep Cleansing and Make-up Removing Towelettes with Chamomile and Green Tea and Facial Cleansing Tissues by Olivella are available at Amazon.

Wednesday Mar. 3rd – Ever feel rushed when reviewing your hotel bill? Here’s a quick way to check hotel or cruise bills for accurate restaurant and other purchases where a gratuity is included:  During your stay, adjust the amount of the tips so that each room charge ends with the same digit. For example: Add enough of a tip to end each charge in an odd cent (17.03, 25.43 …. Notice the ‘3’ at the end of each charge).  It takes only a moment to scan the bill for items that do not end in ‘3’ and thus may not be your charges.  The odds of an mischarged bill ending in this odd number (‘3’ in this example) is low.

Thursday Mar. 4th - Ever have to cram clothes from one bag into another to avoid overweight baggage fees? Don’t you hate doing this on the airport floor with people walking all around you? Now know the weight of your luggage before you get to the airport check-in counter!

Check out the Balanzza Digital Luggage Scale. It weighs 10 oz. and can weigh up to 100 pound bags. Other frequent fliers have found this digital luggage scale to be very accurate. Allow for a 2 lb margin of error as the airline scale may differ.

You can also weigh your luggage on your home scale before you depart on your trip. Trouble is, your bag may be under the weight limit upon departure but they you buy lots of stuff during your travels.  A 40 lb bag can quickly become an over-50 lb bag! In this case, the digital luggage scale is your answer!

Friday Mar. 5th - Leaving your kids at home while you travel? Keep them busy with creating their own  ‘postcards’ of what they did while mom was away.

Each day have them take a 4”x6” or so piece of paper and draw a picture about something they did. If they’re old enough, have them write a few sentences on what they learned or what fun they had. Have them address it to mom and draw a stamp on it like it’s a postcard. They can add these ‘postcards’ to the pile of mail that’s awaiting your return.

If you would like a favorite travel tip of yours to be included in the Travel Gem of the Day, email your tip, name and website totravelgem@smartwomentravelers.com.

I am starting to have as many suitcases as I do laptop bags! I feel like Goldilocks and The 4 Bags – trying out each bag to find the one that is just right. Though the ‘right’ luggage is different depending on the length of my trip. Here’s my collection of bags and when I use each one, along with what I like (and not like) about each. This week I’m using my brand new Hartman 22” Tweed Mobile Traveler (compliments of Delta for my million-miler gift). Beautiful in design and functionality… just way too heavy for me to get into the overhead bin. Will Goldilocks ever find the perfect luggage?

My mom finds out what parts of the globe I’m in by reading my ezine, Pearl of Travel Wisdom. I send out this ezine every week to thousands around the globe. Mom will read this when she gets around to checking her email and she’ll then know where I’m at this week or where I’ve just been, and maybe where I’m heading.

When I stop to contemplate this latest way of keeping in touch with my mom, I want to be laugh and cry.

• Cry because an ezine isn’t the way a daughter should let her mom know where she’s at.  What has this world come to that it’s easier to update a fan page, post a tweet or send an ezine than it is to make the time to call Mom from my hotel room?

• Laugh because it’s great to know that Mom is sufficiently tech-savvy (ok, this is being generous!) to join the new way of online life.  Mom will never, ever be a Facebook friend or a Twitter follower, but she’s ok with email. It helps that my ezine is available directly within the body of my email. If it was in Adobe, the ‘open an attachment’ thing would be an issue.

So while I cross the continental U.S. this week and spend time in three cities before heading home for a few days, my Mom will feel some comfort in knowing where I’m at and where I’m heading because she has my ezine. She also likes the photos I include, and she really likes when I include a Featured Smart Women Traveler.

And just so you don’t think I’m a really horrible daughter, I actually do talk on the phone with my Mom. And I travel with her a few times each year. I may not call her every week, but I do call each time that I’m home on a Sunday night. I walk the dog while she and I talk, and her first question to me is always, “And where are you now?”

To see how Mom finds out where I’m at, see this week’s Pearls of Travel Wisdom ezine.

Great movie but it was far from reality. Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling, but it is hardly easy. What are the downsides to traveling every week?  Let me count the ways …

It begins with packing, typically an hour in total (20 minutes packing my luggage, 40 minutes packing my laptop tote). While I am pretty good about including everything after so many years of experience, sometimes I shake my head in disbelief at all of the items I want to take with me that just don’t make sense. Am I really going to work on knitting a scarf while in-flight or read a dozen magazines?

The actual travel time to the airport, and for some the parking of the car, adds to the hassle.

Then there is the occasional check-in at the ticket counter – mandatory if you have checked bags. On a good day, the wait is relatively short. In Orlando, due to many tourists departing on Monday mornings the waits are generally long.

Early flights are the best because the plane is most likely on time. The downside here is having to get up quite early. Depending on the flight time, I am awake as early as 3 am to achieve this benefit. It always means a very short night of sleep of only three to four hours.

Even the best of flights require some long TSA lines. While a few airports have an “Expert” traveler line, TSA routinely ignores it. If any Orlando TSA workers read this, please enforce this rule! All in all, it can take 20-40 minutes to get through security, and you are rewarded with an additional wait for the shuttle to the terminal plus a 5-15 minute walk to the gate.

Flight delays and canceled flights are no picnic. I always check the weather for any connecting cities, but planes delayed elsewhere can impact flights even where the weather is fine.  At its worst, it means sleeping overnight in an airport. I have been in this situation too many times!

Travel time is always very long. It includes getting to the airport, getting from the front door to the gate, flying to a destination, walking to the rental car agency, renting a car, driving to a hotel, parking, checking in, getting to your room, and finally unpacking.

And after all is said and done, the road home requires re-packing, checking out of a hotel, driving to the airport, returning a rental car, and going through that long walk – including the dreaded TSA lines – all over again.  Add to this the jet lag, missed events and family moments back home and it begins to look ugly. Eventually you get to your home airport, walk to the baggage claim to wait again, complete the drive back home and get ready for unpacking the mountain of mail which always awaits. A few days at home and it starts all over again.

There are many upsides to business travel, but after 25 years I accept the downsides. In the real world, I feel more like Groundhog Day than Up in the Air. When my mind wanders through movieland, just once it would be nice to get to a destination by clicking my heels together or saying, “Beam me up, Scottie!”

Here are last week’s Travel Gems:

Monday Feb. 22nd – Start each trip with small bills for tipping and incidentals. Fellow travelers recommend starting each trip with $10 to $20 in one-dollar bills. This saves time, hassle and money! Without having a sufficient amount of small bills, the small tips typically end up being $5 tips vs. a dollar or two.

Tuesday Feb. 23rd - Multi-purpose hotel shower caps: Beyond using these to keep your hair dry, how about wrapping one around each shoe to keep the rest of the items in your luggage protected? Or slip one over your camera lens to keep light mist off the lens when you’re shooting photos.  I also wrap a shower cap around a can of hair mousse or hair spray, as these are the two items that most leak in my luggage.  They’re also good for wrapping around anything not fully dry, such as a damp bathing suit.

Wednesday Feb. 24th – For overnight walks to the bathroom where lack of light can cause bumps into doors or stubbed toes, pick up a small Night Light that will give off just enough light for safe bathroom trips and not add much to your luggage.

Thursday Feb. 25th – Are your documents protected in case your laptop is stolen? As a preventative measure, consider investing in Lojack For Laptops. Lojack is software that will help secure your documents and recover you computer in case it is stolen. You can buy a 3-year license for $63.49, but do this now or it will be too late once your laptop has already disappeared.

Friday Feb. 26th – Like to journal your travels but don’t want the weight of the journal? I like to write in a travel journal to keep track of where I’ve been, who I met, where I stayed and ate and anything else of interest. But I often do not want to carry the travel journal with me due to the added weight. When I leave it at home, I instead buy a few postcards and make my notes on the back of these.  I slip these into my journal when I get home.

If you would like a favorite travel tip of yours to be included in the Travel Gem of the Day, email your tip, name and website to travelgem@smartwomentravelers.com.

Resume of a Frequent Traveler on Smart Women Travelers.

Here are last week’s Travel Gems:

Monday Feb. 15 – Still using a generic travel checklist (or not using a travel checklist at all)? It’s too easy to forget needed items even if you do have a standard travel checklist. Instead, create a travel checklist for each season, and for each type of trip. See our Travel Gem from 01/04/2010 for a free download of a sample travel checklist. Create several based on your types of travel.

For example:

• Winter trip
• Summer trip
• Business meetings
• Business conference (may need more layering of clothes, recording device, extra business cards, for example)

You can also create different travel checklists for:

• Long flights
• Shorter flights
• Car trips

Create one standard travel checklist of items that you always bring on each trip, and then copy it for each unique type of trip. This will save you tons of time when it comes to packing, and lots of money to buy items you intended to bring but forgot.

Tuesday Feb. 16th – Feel like you’re shedding your skin due to too much air travel? Flying can really dry out your skin. What can you do when your hands, arms and legs look all scaly and your loofa is back at home?

A simple and free remedy is to mix in a packet or two of raw sugar to the body lotion provided by your hotel. Rub this on your body just before showering to create a nice body scrub that helps remove flaky skin. Good-bye alligator skin!

Wednesday Feb. 17th – Got an international trip coming up? Remember these key credit card to-do’s:

• Select two of your credit cards (at least one with cash advance privileges) for your trip.
• Call your credit card’s customer service department prior to traveling internationally.
• Ask them:

• Provide the dates of your travel and a telephone number where they can reach you at.
• For any necessary cash advance on your credit card, be sure you know your PIN number for your card.  If you do not have this PIN number, contact your bank and request a new PIN at least two weeks prior to your travel.

Thursday Feb. 18th – This handy travel data can help you plan your flights. Go to this Department of Transportation site for lots of great data on airport and airline delays, baggage claims, the number of passengers bumped by airline and more.

For example: the number of passengers denied boarding for Jan-Sep, 2009 was highest at United and US Air. If you’re looking to get bumped and score a voucher for the next flight, your luck will be better on these airlines.

Also note the percent of on-time arrivals at major U.S. airports. The percentage is almost always higher in the mornings, so plan your travels early in the day.

Friday Feb. 19th – Help your kids build a postcard collection of your travels by picking up a few postcards at the airport upon arrival (bring postcard stamps from home). Each day, write a few words about where you’re visiting, what you love about your family, and any other journal-type of writing. Mail one every couple of days, or at least once per trip.

Have your kids save these postcards in a binder with clear plastic sleeves, so that they can see the picture on the postcard as well as your writings.

This is a great way for your kids to be excited about your journeys as they build this postcard anthology, and you will have fond memories as you look back on your trips over the years.

If you would like a favorite travel tip of yours to be included in the Travel Gem of the Day, email your tip, name and website to travelgem@smartwomentravelers.com.