Lessons I've Learned from Airports

Packing, Airports and Planes
Part Two

Security

The two things I dread most when I travel are going through security and facing immigration to get my passport stamped. I always have a lurking fear that something will go wrong, which will lead to us missing our plane, and ruin our entire trip. So that is the reasoning behind my dread, if indeed I really need a reason. I mean, who really enjoys going through security at airports? 

To be fair, I have never, ever had any problems during the process, nor has my fear of a ruined trip ever been realized. Besides that, another thing that eases my mind is the effort and mental energy I spend in making sure I can get through the process without any hitches. 

Here is my mental checklist:

• Are all my liquids in my quart-sized ziploc bag? (Including lip gloss - just in case.)
• Is my liquids bag easy to access, so I can pull it out easily? (Since many airports require that.)
• Are my water bottles empty?
• Will my shoes be easy to remove?
• Is my coat off? (Or scarf?)
• Is my tablet (or laptop) out? And is it easy to access?
• Are my passport and boarding pass ready for inspection?

My nifty collapsible water bottles.

Because I have a fear of forgetting I have a full water bottle until it's too late to empty it, I go through this list dozens of times: when I'm packing, when I'm on my way to the airport, when we're getting in line for security, the entire time we're in line for security, when we're exiting one plane to get on another headed to an international destination, and many more times in between those moments. I do recommend considering these things while you're packing and in line for security, but unless it makes you feel better, it is not necessary to think about them fifty times like I do. :)

Which reminds me: something I forget is that if you have to change planes during an international flight then you will have to go through security again. It is a less frustrating experience when you remember this beforehand. When I forget and fill up both of my water bottles and put a few of my 3oz. liquids in their proper places only to have to undo all of that work, it certainly puts me out of sorts.

Immigration

Beyond looking a bit serious, there is nothing truly scary about the people who inspect your passport and ask you why and for how long you're visiting their country. In fact, there was a very nice lady at London Gatwick Airport who actually laughed when my mom made a humorous comment! So, the friendly immigration officer does exist. ;)

I recommend having the address of the first place where you'll be staying during your trip easily accessible so you can write it down on the customs form that the flight attendants hand out a short time before landing. I had the addresses in my phone, which was very handy (on more than one occasion).

Boarding Passes

If you ever fly with Norwegian Air, remember this: They do not send you a boarding pass ahead of time - in my experience - so go straight to the check-in area and find Norwegian so they can print you a boarding pass.

I mention that about boarding passes because when we caught our connecting flight out of LAX we had to walk all the way from one end of the huge check-in area to the other and back because we found out that the papers we had printed out at home were not boarding passes (they were called "Travel Documents," which means they simply have your flight info on them).

Instead of a Ziploc bag I use a zippered one. It won't pull apart at the top.

LAX Airport

I have a mixed verdict on Los Angeles's main airport. It didn't give us any trouble and the international terminal (once one is past security) is very nice with lots of seating. But the airport is very large, some of it feels a bit decrepit and all the food is outrageously expensive.

Because we flew into L.A. from a U.S. city we landed at Terminal 1, and since our flight out was going straight to London we had to get to the Tom Bradley International Terminal - which was two whole gargantuan terminals away. We decided to walk, because it was the only free mode of transport we could discover, but it was rather a long walk! Thankfully, we had a four hour layover, so a bit of exercise actually felt nice. The walk could be tiring, though, if one has tons of luggage or isn't feeling 100%, and I wondered why they didn't have a train connecting the terminals. Washington D.C. and Denver airports both have excellent train services, and L.A. is a somewhat important airport. However, they were doing construction all over the place, and their website announces that there will be a train there in the near future. Yay!

I have also since discovered that right now there is a courtesy shuttle bus service between terminals running every 10 minutes. I shall be looking for that next time! :)

One last tip is to bring your own food, especially if you have a long layover in the international terminal at LAX. I don't think we found anything that was less than $9.00.

London Gatwick Airport

Gatwick was a lovely airport! It doesn't seem as bewildering or official as Heathrow does. We did have a bit of trouble figuring out what would be the best way to actually get to London, since the airport is over 25 miles south of the city. We found the train station inside the airport, got in line for tickets, but then decided that the price might be more than we wanted to pay, and got out to look for another option, such as a bus. The National Express bus service had a desk back inside the terminal, so we got in line there, and discovered that train tickets were sold there, too! And they cost only 10 pounds instead of the 16 that they were in the train station. We were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves after that. :)


© 2015 Anna Morton

Pre-trip Packing Tips for England

Packing, Airports and Planes
Part One

There are a thousand and one pins on Pinterest about how to pack three weeks in a carry-on, which I must say are very inspiring. I've done this twice before - once for an eight week trip - in a carry-on travel pack, which is basically an extra large backpack, that weighed a lot when I left home and weighed an absolute ton when I returned home, because I always buy clothes, books and chocolate. :) This time I was more determined than ever to pack light and not have to carry everything on my back like a turtle for six weeks. So I invested in the smallest, lightest hard-sided rolling suitcase I could find, and pared down my wardrobe to its barest (as well as hopefully its most sophisticated) necessities.

This suitcase divides in half and measures 21 inches long (with wheels), 14 across and 9 in depth, and weighs 6 lbs. It is made by IT and I found it at TJ Maxx. I was quite pleased with it! Having handles on the top and the side is very handy (pun intended), and the extending handle is set back, leaving a space to set my backpack on so I could roll them both at the same time.

My backpack on top of my suitcase.

This time I brought:

• Three dresses (one casual, two casual-dressy)
• Three shirts
• Three sweaters
• Two pairs of pants (one pair of jeans, one pair of khakis)
• Pants and tank for PJs
• Two pairs of tights 
• Three pairs of socks (two wool, one cotton), plus footies
• One coat
• Two scarves
• One hat
•  Two pairs of gloves
• Four pairs of shoes (boots, heels, brogues and sandals)
• And new stuff!! We went shopping in England. :)

Notes on how useful it all actually was:

Wearing a skirt over my dress.

Dresses. That was a good plan. I was able to change up the look by switching sweaters and/or scarves, or wearing them with or without tights, depending on the weather. After I bought some skirts on the trip I was able to wear them over the dresses, so it was like they were extra shirts. I would recommend bringing a couple of versatile dresses.

One of my favored cardigans.

Shirts. The striped breton was very useful, but I would bring a more versatile white shirt than the one I decided on. My grey t-shirt I traveled in was mostly for when I wanted to be comfortable, but I was able to wear it with a skirt.

Sweaters. Two would have been sufficient. The two I wore most were the ones that matched the majority of my clothes. They were all cardigans, which I prefer because they are easier to take off and put back on. So my advice is: choose sweaters wisely and bring at least one very warm one! A thin wool cardigan works quite well.

Pants. Definitely a good idea. I didn't bring any on my last two England trips, which worked out fine, but I was glad to have some this time, especially when the weather was excessively cold and windy. The khakis were made of a thinner material, so those were better for the slightly warmer days (which did not occur very often...), and they were comfortable to travel in. Of course, variety is rather nice, too. :)

PJs. I only brought one pair. This could become an issue laundry-wise, but these were made of a thin (yet warm) athletic material, so they dried quickly, even if I had to hang them up. So my recommendation is to use athletic clothing for PJs: comfortable and easy to wash.

Tights. Life-savers!! They enable you to wear skirts on cold days. They are also quite stylish because I noticed countless ladies in London wearing tights every day. :) Both my pairs were the standard nylon tights, which can be a little too thin in really cold weather, so I would suggest bringing one pair like that and another pair that's slightly thicker, such as fleece-lined, knitted or wool.

Socks. I like Smarwool socks because they are not itchy. :) I had one dark pair to wear when my ankles would show, and another to sleep in. I mostly wore my footies under my tights to keep my feet warm, and it works nicely.

Coat. Bring one you like, because if you visit England in the Spring you will wear a coat every day. There were maybe four days that I didn't need a coat at some point during the day. A wool coat, or something equally as warm, is really essential for comfort, especially if you plan to walk much at all. I would recommend bringing a lighter jacket as well, because there were a significant amount of days when a wool coat would have been too warm. I bought one in the middle of our trip and ended up wearing it quite often during the second half as we went into April.

*Packing tip: wear your wool coat on the plane; even if it gets too warm, you can take it off and it still won't count as an extra carry-on. :)

Scarves. BRING SCARVES! It is simply too cold over there not to wear one. It increases one's comfort greatly when there is no chilling wind on your neck. They don't need to be woolly, knitted scarves, just a medium weight fabric like cotton, rayon or a pashmina. Two was a nice amount for me, although I added to my collection by buying two more. :) England is a great place to find scarves, especially in charity shops (a.k.a. thrift stores).

*Packing tip: you can wear at least one of your scarves, and/or tie them onto the handles your smaller carry-on, saving room in your suitcase.

Hat. It was cold enough a few times to justify wearing a hat, so if you get chilled easily or just don't like to be cold, I advise bringing a hat.

Gloves. I would have lost my hands to frostbite if I hadn't had gloves. I had the kind where the index finger and thumb are coated with something that enable you to use a touchscreen, and that was brilliant. I used my smartphone a lot, so those gloves were a lifesaver. The other gloves were warmer, though, so sometimes I did need them. I also bought some lined leather gloves, which were nice and cozy, since there are no gaps to let cold air in like there were in my knitted ones. Those are also rather in style at the moment. :)

Wearing all of my cold weather gear.

Shoes. 1) Ankle boots - these took up a bit more room, but it was so worth it. I wore them nearly half the time. They had short heels (1 1/2 inches), which was very comfortable to wear on a long day. I did need to switch to flats in between, though so I brought an alternative shoe that covered my feet nicely.
2) Brogues - these were also very comfortable and kept my feet warm. Mine were not waterproof, though, so I would not wear them on a wet day, next time. I walked around half of Paris one day in soggy shoes and socks...not fun.
3) Kitten heels - these were for fancy occasions. I would try to find a more comfortable pair, if I could do it over again, so that I could walk around town a little in them. I'd hoped to with these, but even with their 1 1/4 inch heels they hurt my feet. My advice is to get heels made for walking, or to buy heels plenty ahead of time so that you can test them out.
4) Sandals - being a California girl, my feet long to be free after being suffocated in socks for too long, so I brought sandals in case of an emergency and in hope that we would have sufficiently nice weather to wear them. I am glad I brought them because it turned out that we did have some nice days! They were just very thin, flat sandals that took up almost no room in my suitcase.
5) Tan flats from Primark - I bought another pair while we were in London that enclosed my toes, were more Spring-like and very inexpensive (only 4 pounds!), and that looked a little dressier than my brogues and boots. I wore them very often, too, so they turned out to be a good investment.

*Packing tips: I wore my boots on the plane to save room; they were easy to get on and off, so they worked well in going through security. Stuff socks and tights into shoes when you pack them; it maximizes space and saves your shoes from being smashed. Wrap plastic shower caps around your shoes; they're cheap and protect your clothes from the bottoms of your shoes!

**Comfort tip: I wore half-inserts with my flats to support my arch, since I've had knee trouble on past trips by wearing flat shoes without sufficient arch support, and they worked great! They're available on Amazon. They take up less room than full inserts, so they worked better in my flats and brogues than my full inserts I used in my boots.

Resting our tired feet at a Caffe Nero.

New stuff. I left room in my suitcase for new acquisitions to my wardrobe, and I did find a few items that have since become some of my favorite things to wear. I found two skirts with little pleats all the way around, one in wool with a black and white houndstooth pattern and one in a solid eggplant purple polyester. They hit my natural waist and were long, so they worked well to wear over my dresses. I found a champagne colored pullover sweater, a geranium sleeveless top (a popular color, btw), a blue jersey scarf, the lightweight coat and the tan flats.

With all that, plus the 15 or so books I found, my suitcase was literally jam-packed. And weighed a ton. Again. (At least I could roll it this time!)

© 2015 Anna Morton