Travel hacks for flying abroad

By Hannah Edensor

We’ve combed numerous Quora forums and done our very best to scoop up some of the best kept secrets of air travel.

Whether you’re a seasoned adventurer or an excited amateur, these simple yet genius travel hacks, curated from Quora users, will help you make the most of your time in the skies.

From tips to squeezing extra luggage onto the flight, to making sure you never lose your bag, these are a few top tips to flying comfortably.

And be sure to leave comments of your own travel hacks – we need as many as we can get our hands on!

Luggage and lost bags

Jonathan Breeze, CEO at AardvarkCompare said he took a leaf out of a British Airways crew member.

“Her advice for checked bags is that you should always put at least one business card inside the case – that way, the airline can track you down and give you the bag back,” he wrote.

Richard Clive Rowlands who works at Events and Festivals said, “Don’t put a residential address on luggage tags. It says ‘This house is empty, please burgle – and take your time.’

“Don’t put a friend’s house because the burglars don’t know it’s a friend’s house and will still burgle it. Ideally put a work address and mobile number on it.”

Rowlands also added that when it comes to always identifying your luggage, it’s easiest when you take a photo of it.

“Take a photo of your luggage, put it onto a word processor document with your contact details (work address, phone number) and the dimensions of your luggage (which isn’t always clear from a photo),” he wrote.

“If you ever lose your luggage, you can hand this to lost luggage when you arrive and, even if they don’t speak your language, they have everything they need to find your luggage.”

Nadia, author of travel blog ‘Couple Travel the World’, said, “Put all heavy items into carry on – They will always weigh your checked in bag but they will very rarely weigh your carry on.”

At the airport

Thomas Busson, Country Manager at ClaimCompass, said, “You’re not allowed to carry liquids of over 100m L. BUT you can pass an empty bottle through security and fill it with tap water afterwards. No need to buy the expensive bottles of the airport.”

Jeremy Camosse, Captain at TheMusterStation.com, added, “Bring a Travel Power Strip: Every time I show up to a charging station, they’re always full. I now travel with a portable, multi-plug adapter. Nobody has every minded unplugging and letting me in with my device.

“It’s actually a great way to add value at the airport and make buddies. You can also use it on your flight to get all your devices juiced up at once.”

On the plane

Maura Bustamante said, “Gum. It’s common knowledge that gum helps prevent your ears from “popping” during take off, but it can also help you feel refreshed and cleaner, especially during longer flights.”

Shaun Clark from globetripper added, “Pick your seat in advance – check in online, use Seat guru or other websites to get the best seats.

Kaushal Barot, Indian backpacker in Europe, also offered their advice such as “Turbulence is known to be the lowest near the wings of aircraft” and “Set your watch to destination time as soon as you sit in the plane. Then try to sleep and eat accordingly. It helps a lot adjusting to local time.”

Another user said, “A laptop is not counted in the weight, so if you are carrying a laptop bag, your laptop charger, phone charger, headphones and laptop will not be counted in the weight list.

“The hack is to stuff this bag with little items like chocolates, visiting cards, may be your make up items etc so that the security do not check you for extra weight.”

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Latest comments

stewart says:

June 15, 2017 at 6:20 pm

When in travel, you should also mind securing your devices especially when connecting to Public Wifi’s, so I really recommend to have an online security service. For more security purposes, use FrootVPN service when you’re traveling.

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