As summer creeps up on us, and the thought of travelling looms, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and researching on the best ways to use rewards points, best travel gadgets to waste money on and how to score luxury stuff for peasant prices. So, for your benefit, I’ve put it all together in my “Brian Thompson’s Get-Gone Guide to Summer Traveling:”
Best packing method: A lot has been made of travel cubes – mesh bags that allow you to look down on the rest of society who don’t know what travel cubes are – and new packing techniques, like the KonMari method of rolling everything like sushi. But I actually subscribe to the “big ball method” where you wad everything into a giant ball, jam it into your suitcase until the zipper pings across the room and ignore the wrinkles because most of the stuff you’ll never wear anyway.
Rewards points: There is nothing more incredible or satisfying than bragging to friends that you paid for an entire trip using nothing but rewards points and miles. And the best part is, you don’t even have to earn points or learn how to spend them. I have a better way: Just TELL your friends you paid for an entire trip using nothing but rewards points or miles. Let me tell you, they will be so impressed, and you’ll look like a genius!
Sleeping on airplanes: From dropping big bucks on first class seats to fancy, new age tricks like draping wet seaweed across your forehead while singing the “Happy Days” theme song, everyone has a sure-fire way to fall asleep on a plane. But I have the simplest, and most foolproof technique … and it’s free! We spend so much time futilely trying not to bump our heads on low-hanging luggage bins while getting into our seats, but if you just embrace that inevitable collision – and really put your head into it – you can knock yourself out for the entire flight, and maybe even get a free wheelchair ride to baggage claim.
Chargers: No one wants to go on a trip, get there and then realize your phone is completely out of power. How am I going to check work email when I’m trying to enjoy the Grand Canyon!?! So, the hottest new travel device is a 43-megawatt, fusion-powered portable charger. It’s only 43 pounds, comes in its very own full-size suitcase, requires an entire seat in your car and is capable of generating enough power to run a medium-size city. Granted, you will need to wear a full radiation suit at all times, and it requires 84 hours of nuclear reaction certification, but dead cell phones and spent laptops will be a thing of the past. (Also, it’s been known to cause renal failure.)
Driving in a foreign land: If you’re like me, and planning a trip where you might have to drive in a foreign country on the opposite side of the road (and to make matters worse, I’m dyslexic and barely remember which side to drive on over here!), you can use this simple trick: Before you go, get a sign made up that you tape to the rear windshield that reads: “Just deal! Y’all drove like this when you came to Florida! (Plus, my wife said you left the toilet seat up.)”