{"id":162,"date":"2005-01-16T23:48:07","date_gmt":"2005-01-16T13:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelnielsen.org\/?p=162"},"modified":"2005-01-16T23:48:07","modified_gmt":"2005-01-16T13:48:07","slug":"optimizing-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelnielsen.org\/blog\/optimizing-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"Optimizing travel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update:<\/b> See the improved version 2.0 of this post here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most researchers travel a lot, and I\u2019m no exception. Recently, I\u2019ve been collecting tips to optimize my travel. Nothing incredibly insightful, but the gradual accumulation of small but consistently applied habits has made a big difference to my travel. I thought I\u2019d post them here as a way of forcing myself to systematize them, in the hope of providing something useful to other people, and in the hope of hearing some other tips in comments!<\/p>\n

At home<\/h4>\n

Buy at least one large or extra battery to enable longer laptop use on the plane.<\/p>\n

Buy a collection of travel adaptors which will enable you to plug in anywhere.<\/p>\n

Put together a travel drawer at home. This contains foreign money collected on earlier trips (one envelope per currency), my passport, travel adaptors so I can plug in my laptop elsewhere, remote mouse for presentations, the checklists mentioned below, and any other specialized equipment \u2013 it\u2019s handy to buy miniature versions of various things (toothpaste, laptop adaptor, and so on), in order to minimize luggage.<\/p>\n

Try out some different types of earplugs, and when you\u2019ve found some you like, buy a large supply of high quality earplugs. I find these extremely helpful for sleeping on planes. (Some people like noise-cancelling headphones. I find them okay, but prefer earplugs.)<\/p>\n

Join the Qantas club or equivalent. This provides access to Qantas and partner lounges all over the world. Most significantly, this means access to showers and good quality chairs while connecting, as well as faster checkin. It\u2019s usually not possible, but some lounges will have a massage service, which I find helps significantly with recovery at the end of the flight.<\/p>\n

Booking flights<\/h4>\n

Construct a list of standard routes and flight times that work best for you, and request those. To be effective, you need to either memorize the list, or file it in a location very easily accessible (< 30 second) from where you make travel bookings.\n\nMy preferred seats are forward in the plane, on the right hand side (get off faster), window seat (people don\u2019t climb over you when you\u2019re asleep), exit row or bulkhead.\n\nHaving exit row or bulkhead seats is particularly important, as most aeroplane seats are sufficiently small that it\u2019s very difficult to use a laptop onboard unless you\u2019re in an exit or bulkhead (or business). The exception seems to be American Airlines, who have extra legroom.\n\nFrequent flyers can set up seating preferences which are then applied automatically to every trip.\n\n\n\n

Preparing for the trip<\/h4>\n

Create a checklist for choosing a hotel. Here\u2019s mine:<\/p>\n