Pick The Cheapest Travel Periods and Save
Plan a Little and Still Save Money
Even if funds are low and you need to travel on the cheap, you can still visit some of the most popular destinations in the world and have an unforgettable vacation if you time it right.
How’s that? In travel, like love, timing is everything.
January is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* New York, NY
* San Francisco, CA
* Washington, DC
February is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* Ireland
* Netherlands
* Dallas, TX
March is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* Los Angeles
* Italy
* Spain
April is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* Jamaica
* Asheville, NC
* Charlotte, NC
May is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* Hawaii
* Washington State
* Atlanta
June is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* Phoenix
* Utah
* Albuquerque
July is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* Tucson
* Memphis
* El Paso
August is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* Las Vegas, NV
* Killington, VT
* Kansas City, MO
September is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* Japan
* New Orleans
* Orlando
October is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* St Martin
* Costa Rica
* Breckenridge, CO
November is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* Lake Tahoe, NV
* Reno, NV
* Dominican Republic
December is the Cheapest Time to Visit…
* Napa-Sonoma, CA
* Germany
* Greece
Shirt Folding Packs and Shirt Folders for Compact Travel
Some of us are casual clothes travellers, some of us prefer a bit more style and like to bring along dress shirts on our trips.
While t shirts are easy to fold and pack, dress shirts can be a bit more trouble. Long sleeves, buttons, collars and sleeves all add to extra volume which means you may not be able to bring along as many.
One travel accessory I’ve found helpful for carrying half a dozen or so dress shirts in a compact size are the folding shirt packs made by many of the travel accessory manufacterers. Folding packs are essentially a flat bottomed pack with a flexible plastic base and nylon flaps that fold out into sort of an X. The shirts or pants go into the center and the outside flaps wrap around it.
While the carry on sized units may not be made for holding as many as six shirts I have found you can do it with a bit of precise folding and packing. Here’s what I do.
- button up the shirt completely, lay flat, then fold each shirt carefully to the width of the folder, fold the arms behind then fold in half or thirds
- place first shirt on the bottom of the folder, most have a thick but flexible plastic sheet on the bottom
- carefully place the second shirt upside down with the shirt collar opposite to the first
- keep doing this until all six shirts are on top of each other
- now carefully, (keeping the shirt tower from leaning) fold the flaps as tightly as possible after placing the plastic cover on top ( you may need to put some muscle into it
Your shirts will obviously get squashed a bit but if you unpack the shirts immediately after settling into your hotel and put them on hangers they should be fine with a minimum of wrinkles.
Of course getting a sturdy folder pack is required as you are essentially forcing the shirts in place.
Here are a bunch of quality travel shirt folder packs.
Tumi’s folding pack makes one with an exterior mesh pocket.
Ebags has one called SmartPack folding pack that is made for two shirts. Hah! Sure, if you putting everything in spacy box containers. I say my trick can fit at least five shirts in there.
The one I use is the Eagle Creek Pack-It series 15.
Kensington Pocketlink 4 in 1 Travel Cables-Most Flexible
I talked about what to consider when deciding what computer cables to bring for a trip.
In my quest for the perfect travel cable I have purchased numerous travel cables of all lengths. Flat cables, short lengths bound together with velcro for easy carrying, and various self winding travel cables with adapters I’ve tried them all.
From all my experimenting I have only come across one that is both portable AND fulfills all my requirements listed.
The Kensington Pocketlink 4 in 1 cable is the only commercially available unit that includes Ethernet, phone cord for modem, USB and Firewire all in the same compact self winding casing.
Most all inclusive units I have come across will have Ethernet, phone and either USB or Firewire but not both. Kensington themselves make a 3 in 1 cable with all of the above but Firewire.
The 4 in 1 covers all the bases and includes adapters for 4 pin Firewire and standard USB A and USB mini-B. The non network cable ends are actually native Firewire cables. The adapters turn them into USB cables.
The cable lengths are an acceptable 5 feet for USB/Firewire and 6.5 feet for Ethernet.
So there you have it the perfect portable cable system that combines connection flexibility in a portable unit. With this gadget most of your basic cable needs are covered. Of course the only thing drawback is if you need more than one cable at one time.
Having one extra bus cable support jacks up the price over other cables but at $49.99 suggested retail, it is a reasonable price if you never have to carry extra cables again.