25 Reasons We Love Oaxaca

To feed a family of four in a very expensive tropical location like Anguilla or Bermuda (or most other Caribbean locations, for that matter), check to see if your hotel has phone books and look up the local pizza place. Nine times out of ten the pizza purveyors will deliver for free. You'll end up spending no more than $20 on pizza, bread sticks, and soda.

Create your own postcards by writing on the back of photographs that you've taken and developed while still on your trip.

A padlocked zipper tells thieves there's something in your bag worth stealing, but a key ring is much less obvious. Just use it to latch together the zippers. Best of all, you'll never have to worry about forgetting your combination.

Put an address label on your one-time-use camera. At a Final Four game in Indianapolis, we exchanged identical Kodak Fun Savers with another traveler so that we could take souvenir photos of each other with our respective cameras. But afterward, we couldn't tell whose camera was whose. Luckily, I remembered how many exposures remained on mine, so we got ours back. Next time, I'll just label it.

If you're headed to a country that requires a visa, ask the consulate of that country, in the United States, whether visas are also issued at the airport there on arrival. In many cases (like Turkey and Egypt), they are. Obtaining the visa on arrival is a much simpler procedure and a real money-saver: You do not have to have photographs taken (they figure your passport already has a photo), you do not pay a hefty fee to the U.S.-situated consulate of the country, you avoid the expense and risk of mailing your passport to that consulate in advance of departure, and you avoid the expense of using a visa-acquiring company in the United States. But be sure the consulate is correct that the visa can easily be obtained on arrival.

Carry the exact change for public transportation. In Venice, we were annoyed when a vaporetto (water taxi) ticket-taker refused to give us our change. Later, we discovered that if you don't have the exact fare, ticket agents make no promises about giving change.

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.

Try to book the first flight out in the morning, because those planes often arrive at the airport the evening before. You won't have to rely on an incoming plane, which could be delayed or canceled due to bad weather elsewhere, resulting in your own flight being delayed or canceled.

Carry a Polaroid camera when traveling to developing countries. In Cambodia, several village children gathered around us, posed enthusiastically for pictures, and were fascinated by their images in our digital camera. We wanted to send them the pictures, but they were unable to tell us their address. Polaroids would have solved the problem!

When looking for the lowest airfare, I've found that in some cases the best rates pop up when searching for one traveler instead of two. Recently, I wanted to buy one-way tickets from New York to Orlando for two people and came up with $87 per person. But when I selected one traveler, the fare dropped to $72.

If you take an overnight flight to Europe and early check-in at your hotel isn't an option, ask the concierge if you can store your luggage until later in the day and use the hotel gym's shower. You'll be refreshed and ready for sightseeing. Pack toiletries and a change of clothes in your carry-on.

My husband and I are retired, and we take two trips abroad each year. When unpacking, I put items we use repeatedly on each trip (flashlight, alarm clock, travel-size toiletries, etc.) into a box and keep it stored near the suitcases. No more searching or trying to remember if I've got everything for the next journey—it's all in one place.

Many tourist information offices provide discounted same-day booking services for local lodgings. My husband and I discovered this when we accidentally left a midweek gap in our travel plans between my husband's conference hotel and our B&B in Charleston. Instead of adding another night at either location, we stayed at one of the more elegant inns (normally over $200) for $70, courtesy of the Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Using restaurant.com, you can buy gift certificates good at eateries in your destination city, regularly snagging (in my experience) $25 certificates for as little as $5 to $8.The site is awesome, and it works as well for restaurant certificates in your own city and for obtaining gifts for friends.

When we visit places we think we might return to, we collect copies of free tourist magazines. At home, we write the address of each magazine on a postcard. Six to eight weeks before our return visit, we send out the cards asking for a current copy. The magazines are full of useful information.

Quotetravelinsurance.com gives you comparable details on more than one hundred travel-insurance plans, enabling you to make the best buy. It relies on ratings from insurance industry overseers such as A.M. Best and state insurance commissioners before allowing an insurance company into its extensive lineup.

It's easy to lose track of time in a windowless interior cabin. Before going to sleep, tune into the ship's bridge-camera channel for real-time videos of the front (or bow) of the boat. The screen will act like a virtual porthole, and you'll rise and shine with the sunrise.

Paramedics now look for emergency contact information in victims' mobile phones. Store the word "ICE" (In Case of Emergency) in your address book, along with the name and number of the person you'd like emergency personnel to call on your behalf. (For more than one entry, use ICE1, ICE2, etc.) Tell your friends or family members that you've chosen them as your contacts and make sure they're aware of any medical conditions or allergies that could affect your treatment.

Give your children a coach's whistle in case they get lost; put it on a ribbon so they can wear it around their neck. The piercing sound may be annoying, but you'll definitely find them quicker!

After looking for years for the perfect toiletries bag and being frustrated by many that were less than ideal, I finally discovered one that is just right: a soft-sided lunch box I bought at the supermarket. It has an outer zipped pocket with small compartments and slots perfect for often-used items like a toothbrush and toothpaste. There's a small removable zipper pouch inside (meant for a small ice pack) for those smaller, hard-to-find items like nail files and pill bottles. The remaining space inside is just right for larger items like shampoo and hand lotion. Other helpful features include both a small handle and shoulder strap and a waterproof, easy-to-clean interior. As an elementary school teacher, I know firsthand that it'll last: It was designed to withstand daily use by kids!

Ziploc now makes extra-large bags with handles. They're nearly two feet by two feet, and although Ziploc advertises them as being good for storage, they're also useful for traveling. Bring one on long shopping excursions and then use it as an extra carry-on for souvenirs on the way home.

If you plan to travel to a less-developed country, pack an extra suitcase with hand-me-downs of all sizes. Housekeepers and other resort workers make so little money that the clothes are greatly appreciated. On your way home, you can use that empty suitcase for souvenirs.

When renting a car, photograph any damage the car may have before leaving the rental agency; a digital camera records the date and time of each picture. On a recent trip to Argentina, I rented a car with extensive paint damage. When I returned the car, the agency attempted to blame me for the scratches. I showed them my photographs, and they rescinded their accusations.

I'm a gadget freak, and I don't like to travel without things like my digital camera and iPod. On one trip, though, I put my camera down in a crowded restaurant and then forgot to put it back in my bag. By the time I remembered it, the camera was long gone. Now, I attach those kinds of items to my daypack with a lanyard. They're still easy to pull out and use, and they never get left behind.

My daughter and I bought disposable digital camcorders at a CVS pharmacy before going to Europe. It was a nice way to document our trip--each camera stored about 20 minutes of video. Once home, we dropped the cameras off at the pharmacy. The next day, our DVD was ready. We were very pleased with the quality and the cost: $30 for the camera and $13 for each DVD.

When my husband and I travel, we take at least three different credit cards. I carry one he doesn't have, he carries one I don't have, and we both bring our primary card. If one of us has our wallet stolen, we can cancel two cards and still have one to use. We each have different ATM cards, too--useful if a machine doesn't honor one of the cards, or if we need more cash than our daily limit allows.

When I called to book a hotel room in Budapest, I was offered a rate of $75 per night. After I told the concierge that I was looking for a room in the $35 range, he agreed to the lower price without much fuss. It sometimes pays to barter.

When I'm on a cruise with my wife's family and we're in a foreign city for the day, I get off the boat as soon as we dock and hail a taxi. I ask the driver to call his dispatcher and find me a van with an English-speaking driver. Then I negotiate an hourly rate and a pickup time at the dock. The family tours together for a few hours, and then each couple either gets dropped off where they want to spend extra time or returns to the boat (this is great for my elderly in-laws). We get a tailor-made city tour for a much cheaper rate than if we had booked through the cruise line.

Don't assume you can save a spot at the pool with your towel. Cruise lines give you one pool towel at the start of the cruise. If you don't have it (or a cleaned trade-in) at the end, you'll get charged. If you let it out of your sight, you run the risk of losing it or having it stolen by a fellow cruiser.

I use an inexpensive, thumb-size USB flash drive to store medical and insurance contacts, confirmation codes, credit card numbers, addresses, and phone numbers. It fits in a secure zip pocket in my travel purse. If I don't have my laptop, I can insert the flash drive in most hotel or Internet café computers. Some USB flash drives password-protect your data, or you can download a free encryption program.