Being your travel advisor is more than offering you enchanting vacations to the far reaches of the world.  It also involves offering you personal support and helpful advice to enhance all your travel experiences, whether near or far.

The travel tips below are chock-full of important information that will help you travel the world safely and efficiently, wherever you travel.

As always, please feel free to contact us about your future travel plans. Phone 717-7637878, toll free 800221-6763, email: , or come see us in the State Street Plaza, 829 State Street, Suite 2005, Lemoyne PA 17043.

Happy Travels from your friends at Holiday Tour & Travel.
 

4 Ways to Make Your Flight in Coach More Comfortable

A great holiday is one that’s perfect from start to end. That involves the flight, yet some people believe it’s impossible to fly comfortably in coach. Whether you’re starting your holiday or heading home after a dazzling week in Hawaii, here are some simple steps to make the most of your seat in coach.

Choose the Biggest Small Seats
Fact #1: coach seats are small. Fact #2: not all coach seats are the same size. When available, we will gladly seat you in a bulkhead row that, while decreasing foot room, will give you more leg and knee space—a fair trade off for those seeking more comfort.

Fly at Night 
We all try to sleep on long flights, but for some, success is seldom achieved. However, on a night flight, you’re flying at your body’s natural sleep time, increasing the chances of falling fast asleep and arriving at your destination more refreshed and ready to launch into your holiday.

Board Early
Boarding the plane early means you have more time to settle in and a better chance at storing carry-ons nearby. Many credit cards issued in conjunction wtih airline loyalty programs offer priority boarding to cardholders.

Pack Your Carry On-Bag Wisely
The most important way to be comfortable is to have everything you need within easy reach. Those items, on a long, comfortable flight, will include a quality neck pillow, eye mask, personal music device loaded with low-tempo or ambient music, and your book or e-reader.

Think Before You Eat
No one is comfortable when they’re flying with too little or too much food in their system. Check ahead to see if there’s a meal on your flight. If not, pack a small, healthy meal to eat whenever you need. If there is a served meal, think about choosing the vegetarian option, which oftentimes is prepared more recently than the standard dinner.

 

Key Items to Pack that Save You Money

There are travel expenses you expect, such as dinners, attraction tickets and cab fares. But then there are those you don’t expect, and you find yourself looking for the nearest pharmacy or grocery store to buy them. These unexpected expenses tend to inflate our travel budgets, so it’s wise to pack the following items that will surely save you money.

Reusable Carry-On Bottles
While travel-size products seem relatively cheap, they’re not when you compare the price per ounce to their regular-sized counterparts. The money-saving alternative is to purchase 3-ounce reusable travel bottles and fill them with whichever products you need.

Travel Laundry Detergent
One of the most important items to pack in your reusable travel bottles is laundry detergent. Doing laundry at a resort or on a cruise ship can be expensive, so pack some detergent, a stain stick or both to handle those dirty clothes on the go.

Luggage Scale
We add pounds when we travel…pounds to our suitcases, that is. No matter where we go, we always come back with more gifts and more clothes. If these additional items push your suitcase over the weight limit on your return flight, the result is more money you have to shell out, sometimes as much as $200. A simple luggage scale is easy to pack and use to determine if there’s space in your luggage for even more.

Duct Tape
You can’t take a Swiss army knife on a plane, but you can take its just-as-useful cousin, duct tape. This handy adhesive can help you temporarily fix luggage damaged during the flight, so that you don’t have to purchase another bag. It’s also good as a make-shift lint roller, to tape curtains together to keep sun out of your hotel room, to seal over the drain in a hotel sink so that you can wash laundry, and, with a little tissue paper or cotton, even make a makeshift Band-Aid.

 

Inspiring Travel Books to Read on Your Next Vacation

A great vacation replenishes the traveler. It’s absorbing, taking you on an uplifting narrative of adventure and relaxation. It recharges you, so that by the last day, you are ready to tackle the real world with fresh and vibrant intentions.

The same can be said for a great novel, especially those, like Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, that wonderfully combine travel and inspiration. By the last page, you accept the end of your literary journey with a smile, for it has filled you with a positive motivation. To be positively motivated on your next vacation, consider downloading these titles to your e- reader.

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
This philosophical examination of why and how we travel goes around the world and throughout history to describe, in poetic detail, the pleasure of anticipating a journey, the magnetic allure of the exotic and the value of observation.

Tracks by Robyn Davidson 
A frank and funny account of a courageous young woman’s journey through the Australian desert, where she learns a lot about herself and her companions: a dog and four camels.

Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah Macdonald
A woman who vowed never to return to India again returns to India again. The resulting story is one of discovery and adventure in this land of beauty and chaos.

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts
This is more than a how-to manual on independent travel (which needs good travel agent advice just like any other form of travel!). It’s also an essay on experiencing the world in your own unique way.

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner
Weiner, a foreign correspondent, decided he’d had enough of the war-torn locales he reported on. So he traveled around the world in search of mirth, discovering, along the way, the true meaning of happiness.

 

The World's Most Unique Museums

We all love art museums when we travel, but sometimes we get a little museum-ed out. If the thought of seeing another original Picasso or staring up at Michelangelo’s David gets your yawn-maker going, consider visiting one of these museums instead:

El Museo de las Momias (Museum of the Mummies): Guanajuato, Mexico
Graveyards are fun, but all the cool dead people are buried and out of sight. That’s not the case at the Mummy Museum, where the skeletal remains of hundreds line the walls to haunt your vacation for a few hours.

Currywurst Museum: Berlin, Germany
Have you ever wanted to listen to the sounds of Currywurst—a hot pork sausage smothered in a spicy curry sauce—cooking? You can in Berlin, where Germany’s national dish gets the royal treatment. Here you’ll learn about the history of currywurst and can even pretend to work behind the counter of a currywurst snack bar.

Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments: Prague, Czech Republic
If the words “Iron Maiden” make you think of the torture device instead of the English metal band, then this is the museum for you. Sixty morbidly fascinating torture devices are on display, each with a useful tutorial on how to operate them, which might come in useful to parents of teenagers.

Tap Water Museum: Beijing, China
The oddest thing about Beijing’s Tap Water Museum—built in a former pipe-house and containing 130 mouth-watering displays, such as vintage water coupons—is that you shouldn’t drink the water here.

British Lawnmower Museum: Southport, England
Did you know that Princess Diana owned a lawnmower? You would if you visited the British Lawnmower Museum, which showcases the past, present and future of lawnmowers.

Hair Museum: Avanos, Turkey
Some Turkish potters work from shacks, but one potter works in a cave covered by the hair of 16,000 women. Believe it or not, this is the world’s largest collection of hair.

Celebrity Lingerie Hall of Fame: Los Angeles, United States
The five people in the world who have not seen Cher’s bra should go here, where unmentionables are clearly mentioned. Also on display are Forrest Gump’s boxer shorts and Milton Berle’s feminine undies.

Cigarette Lighter Museum: Tokyo, Japan
Every “world’s most unique” list has an entry from Japan. In Tokyo alone there are museums for kites, baseball equipment, John Lennon memorabilia and cigarette lighters.