Summer Camp Vacations for Kids and Adults

No longer do the many key chains I get as advertising languish in bureau drawers. I attach one or two at the ends of my luggage zippers. They make it easier to work the zippers and help me identify my luggage on airport carousels.

I always try to work out before heading to the airport. It usually gets me tuckered out enough that I can relax and sleep on the plane. If I don't have time for pre-travel exercise, I take a brisk walk through the terminal before boarding or find a quiet spot in an empty gate for a little yoga.

As a flight attendant, I'm always amazed by the stuff that people leave behind. Most of it never gets back to its rightful owner because there's no way of knowing who the owner is. To avoid misplacing your property, put things back into your carry-on after using them--never on the floor or in the seat-back pocket. Label important items like books or games with return address labels so they can be sent back to you if found.

Read the fine print on your rail pass. You can often use it to save money on other modes of public transportation. With a Scandinavian rail pass, for example, you'll pay less to ride the ferries. In Switzerland, a rail pass can get you free bus rides, as well as complimentary entrance to museums and discounts on funiculars and hotel accommodations.

Every summer, we drive out West from Pennsylvania with our two kids. To avoid that infamous road trip question ("Are we there yet?"), I give each child a map with our route highlighted on it. Along the way, they can match up the town names with road signs we pass, and that way, they always know exactly where we are and how much farther we have to go until we'll get there.

If you're looking for authentic street food--whether you're in New York or Bangkok--don't buy from the pitifully lonely vendor who has no customers. Head to the cart with the longest line of hungry people in front of it. Locals know which vendors serve the best (and safest) food. Even if you have to wait, your stomach will thank you.

Scuba-diving vacations can get expensive. As I start planning a trip, I call one of the local PADI dive shops and ask the employees about accommodations nearby. They give me hotel connections I couldn't find on my own, and I often save enough to pay for my dives.

Whenever my husband and I get new pairs of eyeglasses, we relegate the old ones to our luggage, along with an inexpensive repair kit from the drugstore. If something happens while we're away from home, we can hopefully fix the glasses ourselves. If they're beyond saving, we have the backup pairs to get us through the rest of the trip.

Save the flip-flops you're given at the nail salon after a pedicure. They make great shower shoes. They're lightweight and dry quickly, and you can throw them away at the end of your trip.

Grab-rails and nonskid surfaces aren't common in European bathtubs and showers. I pack a few decorative rubber pads that have non-adhesive suction cups, so I can use them when needed to prevent a slip or fall, and then I take them with me to the next hotel.

Before traveling overseas, look at your health insurance card. If it only shows an 800 or 888 number for precertification of hospital admissions, call that number and obtain the local number with an area code. Many 800 numbers can't be dialed from foreign countries. I learned this the hard way during an emergency hospital admission in Switzerland. The delay in reaching my carrier could have been avoided.

Pay close attention to those newsletters enclosed in your frequent-flier statements. They usually contain special offers and promotions that can earn you double or triple miles if you stay at a certain hotel or eat at a certain restaurant.

When buying bottled water, look at the bottle cap to see if the seal is still intact. While visiting the Acropolis on a very hot day this summer, I caught a young boy refilling empty water bottles from a tap and recapping them. He was then selling the bottles to thirsty tourists.

I find that hotel bathrooms rarely have enough hangers and hooks for clothes and wet towels, so I always bring a few snap-lock suction hooks. (They function better than regular suction hooks because they're more secure and are therefore able to hold heavier items.) It's always nice to have a place to hang a bathrobe.

Restrooms abroad rarely have hooks on stall doors. Our solution: Pack a small S hook in your shoulder bag and make use of a hole in the wall, a pipe, etc., to hang purses, jackets, or anything else you want to keep off the floor. S hooks can be found in most hardware stores, near the screws and bolts.

Whenever I'm in a country where drinking or brushing my teeth with the tap water is a risk, I cover the faucet handles in my hotel bathroom with a towel. As a result, I never accidentally turn on the faucet when I'm half asleep.

Download the most up-to-date airline schedules from the individual airline Web sites to your PDA before you leave home. Should you encounter a delay or cancellation at the airport, you'll have all the information needed to find another flight quickly.

When planning a vacation, we send away for brochures from major tour operators. They provide hotel and restaurant recommendations and sightseeing itineraries, which we then duplicate on our own. Use this trick to mimic the vacation packages of high-end tour operators for what can turn out to be a fraction of the cost.

I unpacked a pair of black slacks recently to find them covered with white fuzz. I didn't have a lint brush handy, so I used the luggage sticker from my bag--the gummy side took the lint right off.

Before using frequent-flier miles, investigate how much the flight actually costs. For example, it takes at least 25,000 miles per person to travel from Boston to Alaska. The same flight cost us $288. After paying for our tickets, we received enough additional miles to travel for free to Sweden instead of Alaska!

I was booking tickets online for an upcoming flight to Europe from the East Coast. One particularly attractive fare was offered on a U.S. airline as well as on its foreign "partner airline." Same plane, same flight, same base price. But it was more than $100 cheaper per ticket to book with the foreign airline versus the U.S.one. We saved more than $400 for four tickets, but we'll be on the same plane!

Before you buy expensive bottled water from your hotel room minibar, head to the fitness center. You'll be able to fill up an empty bottle at the gym's water cooler or fountain for free, and you don't need to break a sweat.

Once the hotel shampoo bottles I always seem to bring home are empty, I refill them with my own brand of shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel--instead of buying travel-size containers at the drugstore. I toss them, along with other small items (toothbrush, toothpaste, nail file, pillboxes, and a comb), into a medium-size Ziploc bag, and I'm ready to go; the clear plastic lets me find things easily.

I prefer laminated city maps because I can circle all the things I want to see in a given day with a dark erasable marker. Once I have everything marked, I plan my route and start walking. The next day, I erase the previous day's marks and begin all over again.

You can enjoy free airport-area parking by staying the night before departure at an airport hotel or motel that offers park-and-fly rates. The cost of that overnight (which usually entitles you to two weeks of parking) is much less than what you'd otherwise pay at an airport parking lot.

We like to buy shipboard souvenirs, so we try to choose a ship that's completing its run of an area--that's when merchandise is generally put on sale. Last year, for example, on a sailing in South America, all of the T-shirts, glassware, and rain jackets were 75 percent off.

Tired of catching colds while traveling? Take along a travel-size package of Clorox wipes. Disinfect the tray table and armrests on the airplane, and the telephone and TV remote in your hotel room.

Dry-cleaning bags stop clothes from wrinkling. Slide each garment into its own bag (leave the hanger at home) and place them flat on your bed, one on top of another. Then carefully fold the entire stack to fit it in your suitcase. Once you get to your hotel, hang everything up as soon as you can. You'll never unpack a suitcase of wrinkled clothes again.

If you can't sleep due to the heat in your non-air-conditioned hotel room, take a cold bottle of water and place it on your pillow, in the crook of your neck. It will cool your whole body down.

I always have problems locating my rental car in a large parking lot. Now I bring along a brightly colored bandanna and tie it to the antenna.