You can't miss these travel hacks

Not because you asked, but because I'm at LaGuardia for eight hours waiting to go you know where.

Surprise! I’m going back to Albania.

I’ll spend a week at the same Airbnb in Tirana, then I’m taking a loop by car: Korce => Gjrokaster => Pellumbras. But first, a week in Madrid with My Manly (Wolfgang), his son, Sebastian, and his fiancée, Ava, along with a highly anticipated (by W and I) four days/ three nights at the Hotel Voramar. Every time I hit a rough patch this spring semester, I visualized the balcony over the sea.

I woke up this morning at 3:30 a.m. so I could drive to the Columbus airport, so I could board a short flight, so I could wait at LaGuardia for eight hours.

The man in front of me kept watching what I call “The Ladyboy Monologue” from The White Lotus. The people you meet on vacation! Amirite, Emily Henry?

Maybe everyone is afraid to fly these days, because the airports have been shockingly peaceful. This time to sit and be somewhere, not my house or office, is a vacation already. By 10 a.m. this morning I’d read “The Gap Year” by Lori Ostlund, refreshed my memory of the drum parts of “Middle of the Road” by The Pretenders, and listened to “The November Story” by Rebecca Makkai on the Levar Burton Reads podcast (because it was one of three podcasts I’d downloaded a year ago).

And as if that weren’t enough, while I examined the perimeters of my terminal this morning, I realized that I had achieved a life dream (aside from seeing Albania): I have traveled enough to have my very own travel hacks.

Hack One: All you need is a carry-on. Okay, that’s the same old Rick Steves hack, but hear out my refresh:

You know that outfit you would wear every day if it weren’t totally embarrassing? You’re in a foreign country now. No one cares. Pack that + 7 pairs of underwear.

Scared of losing your fav? A risk, but remember, you’re not checking the luggage, which will travel the world without you, only to wind up in Boaz, Alabama, at The Unclaimed Luggage Store (Slogan: “You never know what you’ll get!”).

I sprang for bougie Away luggage last year, and yes, I love how I’m finally gliding through plane aisles like everyone else, terminal to terminal. It rolls so well that last year, as I took a picture of Corfu, Greece, from Sarande, Albania, the luggage rolled away from me and tumbled down a flight of steep Balkan concrete stairs. The fall bent the handle so badly that once I shoved it back down, I could no longer pull it back out, killing my glide vibe. (Away replaced the handle when I got back, but not the suitcase.)

To finish the review while we’re here, the other negative is the finish scratches, just like the non-5-star reviewers griped. But the design and light weight are great. With the new handle, I’m flying again.

Sub Hack: Pick bright colors so you can find stuff and people can find you. While every color of the bummer rainbow might be trending, I have a red suitcase, a red phone, a red wallet, red shoes, and yes, red hyperlinks because red is a color I can see.

Hack Two: You only need one pair of shoes, ECCO sneakers.

Bless Gen Z, because they made it okay to wear ankle socks and sneakers with dresses. If I’d shown up dressed like that in the 70s, I would have had to leave my Alabama elementary school to go live in Boo Radley’s tree hollow.

I looked at ECCO online, and they no longer make this kind? Nooooo. All I see are ugly American styles. The entire point, ECCO, is to look like an Italian woman instead of a Midwestern throw pillow.

Yes, they are expensive. But put them in your cart at Zappos, then don’t buy them. Zappos might send you a discount code. Or they did for me. That one time I bought these shoes. A year ago. Worth a try.

And okay, I also snuck a pair of sandals in my suitcase. But they are so small and flat. I need them for balcony sitting.

Hack Three: The Hydrate Hack

Bring one of those plastic water bottles gathering dust and fill it with water as you leave the house. Time your guzzling of the water so that you won’t have to pee until you’ve gone through your TSA check. Probably you’ll be chugging in line.

After the chug, unscrew the cap and put it in your bag so you don’t get stopped. We can’t even play around with that anymore.

Now you are hydrated and do not have to buy overpriced airport water. And when you lose this bottle, which you will, it wasn’t your good bottle.

Hack Four: The Matryoshka Trick

Airlines allow one carry-on (the luggage) plus a “personal item,” which you can massage into a second piece of luggage. I use this ugly but super functional weekend backpack*, which is lightweight and sits magically on the upper part of my back so my neck and shoulders don’t ache.

*Note: the price on the backpack has doubled since I bought mine, I swear. I would never pay that much for a backpack! It has lasted, though. So if you have the $$$....

Inside my backpack, I sneak a small, smushy purse, which I can use for going out and not looking like a very old student. The purse is where I store my panic items: phone, passport, wallet, so I can touch them the five thousand times per minute required.

The button on my backpack says, “I [heart] Athens.” Those Albanians will think I mean Greece! But the button was made in Athens, Ohio! HA!

Hack Five: Suck it up and eat healthy on travel day

Do I want vegetarian sushi and an apple? HELL NO. I want Shake Shack, which pops up every three terminals here in NYC. It’s not helping that what looks like a basketball team just sat down, each guy with his own, individual, gooey, cheesy, pepperoni pizza.

But then I ask myself: Do I want to spend the first day of my dear (in every sense) Europe trip in the bathroom while my embarrassingly attractive Spanish in-laws “wonder if I’m okay?” If I’m going to get the traveler’s ailment, let me get it from the food I eat in Spain.

Full disclosure, five hours later, I went to Shake Shack. I’m only human. I did go veggie and no “sauce,” which is honestly no sacrifice because I loathe mayo.

Hack the Last: Kiehl’s facial soap as hand soap

The bottle is fifteen dollars, lasts forever, and saves your hands from cracking open from dryness. I used to have an even smaller size that I kept in my canvas jacket pocket, along with my earbuds, which I am destined to lose with the water bottle, but I’m giving them one more try.

I’ve realized I write a lot about losing stuff. True, I lose more than most people, but also that’s part of travel. Stuff will get gone.

In case you are wondering, I get ZERO endorsements. But I’m open. Are you there, Kiehl’s? It’s me, Kelly.

There they are! The hacks that work for me. Do you have travel hacks to share? Comment below.

And now, by writing this post at a terminal, I’ve achieved yet another life goal: to look like one of those People Working on Something Very Important at an airport.

When you open this post, let’s hope I’m in Spain.