Travel Tips | nikspixx

New sights, new sounds, new flavors, and new experiences is why we travel! But if you're like me and try to get as much adventure crammed into each day, it's easy to lose a few memories in an overstimulated mind. Take a small notebook that easily fits into your daypack for keeping notes on where you've been and what you've seen, but more importantly how you feel, because traveling has the tendency to open your mind and soul.
Grab a seat at a sidewalk cafe in the afternoon and take your coffee with a side of journaling. It helps you to slow down and focus your mind on your morning explorations while regaining energy for the rest of the day. Wind down the day with your notebook in hand as you reminisce about the rest of your day.

Scarves are one of my essential travel must-haves. First and foremost is a black pashmina for the plane because you know it's going to get cold! The dark color helps block out any light if you're trying to catch some zzz's, too. And I always spritz the scarf with a soft scent in case your neighbors are smelly, or there's always that person that brings on stinky food who's sitting in row 36 but you can smell it in row 15.

Once you arrive at your destination, scarves are an easy way to freshen up outfits. Search out pretty scarves to purchase as gifts for your friends or yourself. Not only are they light and easy to pack, but there's something satisfying when you're complimented on your scarf and you can say, "Thanks, I picked this up when I was in Paris!"

I’ve been packing my closet full of black clothes since I was a teenager (much to my mother’s dismay). Can I easily find things in my closet? Not quickly. Does everything kinda look the same? Only to the untrained eye. I have managed to expand my color palette by adding various degrees of gray and occasionally add in a splash of color to throw everyone off for a day here and there. But this color scheme has become a PLUS when traveling. It makes it easy for me to mix and match items to stretch my outfit options, and black hides wrinkles better than any other color. Bonus: black makes a nice backdrop to show off that pretty scarf you just bought!

I’m not the first one to advocate for packing cubes and I won’t be the last! This tip is an absolute must for all travelers who are going to be gone for more than a week, especially if you’re combining a work and vacation trip, as I often do.
Not only do the cubes keep you organized, I separate casuals with one color of cubes and business clothes in another, but I find I can get more into my suitcase as they slightly compress your clothes. Make sure to take an empty one or two to separate dirty socks, undies, etc.

Scent-sational!

Luckily many perfume manufactures are making their scents readily available in easily packable rollerball sizes. I don’t normally wear a lot of perfume during the day, but I do like to use it when I’m going out for the evening or at a work event. So for me, even the rollerballs take up too much space in my toiletry kit. I usually head to my local Sephora when prepping for a trip as they have a lot of great travel size products and I’ll ask for a small sample spritzer of my favorite scent to take with me. A scent related plea - Your plane and train neighbors beg of you, please refrain from your usual perfume and cologne dosages before boarding! It’s a small shared space and if you can smell yourself it’s safe to say everyone within a 4 row radius can smell you, too, and often many of us will get headaches if it’s too strong. We’d rather smell the food from row 36 than be brutalized by your brut!

I’m very sentimental, so that means I’m constantly fighting my desire to hoard. However, I’ve found it does come in handy when I travel. I keep all my tickets, museum maps and info, city maps, and other little items as I travel around. They make great mementos and they also help when people reach out to me for tips and advice to locations I’ve already visited. If you’re into scrapbooking, museum tickets often have images representing the art or exhibits they are showing, so they really do make a nice addition to your travel books!