10 Useful Tips Every Traveler Should Know
We travel for a variety of reasons—vacation, business, family—and in a variety of ways, but one thing remains constant: travel itself can be hectic , stressful, and expensive . Considering that Americans will take nearly 2 billion trips in 2025 alone, this stress can be overwhelming. From planning to disembarking, traveling can be a real challenge—unless, of course, you know and use these life hacks.
There are countless travel hacks out there, many of them dubious, but when one actually helps reduce costs, increase comfort, or simply solve an annoying problem, it’s pure magic. Here are the essential travel hacks everyone should use, whether you’re traveling for pleasure, business, or any other reason.
Buy a vacuum-sealed travel backpack.
You’ve probably been advised to roll your clothes to make packing easier. That’s not to say it doesn’t work—rolling your clothes tightly can improve the packing and unpacking process. But there’s an even better way: vacuum packing. You can use vacuum-sealed bags to compress your clothes, allowing you to fit more in your bag (or travel light with just one carry-on), but there’s a downside: the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) may require you to unroll your clothes for special screening during security, which can seriously damage your packaging.
It’s best to choose a carry-on backpack with a built-in pump, like this one . If you’re checked through security, you can quickly compress everything and continue on your way.
Travel during off-peak times.
If your main goal is to see exotic places, gain new experiences, or even meet up with old friends, then traveling off-peak season is a powerful life hack. Off-peak season simply means traveling to places where there aren’t many tourists. For example, most people travel for pleasure during the warmer months, so by choosing to travel to Europe in February, you’ll enjoy cheaper flights, cheaper hotel rooms, and fewer crowds.
Start using packing cubes.
Raise your hand if this has ever happened to you: You realize you need something from the suitcase you spent six hours meticulously sorting, squeezing, and zipping. You sift through everything to find what you need, and then repacking the suitcase becomes a sweaty, stressful, and ultimately fruitless endeavor. That’s where packing cubes come in handy.
Packing organizers won’t necessarily reduce the size of your clothes and other belongings, but they will significantly simplify the entire process of packing, unpacking, and finding the right items while traveling. They transform your chaotic piles of clothes and accessories into geometric cubes that can be sorted individually and easily removed and returned to your luggage. Because you’re working with uniform cubes, unpacking and arranging your belongings in your suitcase will be less of a hassle.
Pack clothes into carry-on pillows.
Now is truly the time to live life to the fullest: you can purchase so-called “basic” seats in economy class, where carry-on baggage is not permitted. However, carry-on baggage fees and restrictions are increasing. If you’re trying to travel with just one small bag, it can be challenging—and that’s where the pillow hack comes in. The basic idea is simple: take a neck pillow or pillowcase, remove the filling, and replace it with a few extra clothes. The pillow can be used as a regular pillow (your clothes will serve as the pillow-pillow), but you’ll be able to bring extra items on board. This works, although it’s best to use a neck pillow—a huge pillowcase stuffed with jeans and T-shirts is unlikely to fool disgruntled flight attendants.
Place your phone horizontally.
Keeping yourself entertained on long flights can be challenging, especially if your entire survival plan included getting ten hours of sleep and you can’t find a comfortable position. If your plane doesn’t have convenient screens (I personally love the “small screen in the air four rows in front of me” option), or the entertainment options aren’t what you’re looking for, you can always download movies, TV shows, and games to your device.
If you’re stuck using your phone as a screen, you can improvise a phone holder out of a vomit bag, which is usually found in the seat pocket in front of you, as shown here . By securing the bag between your phone and its case, then securing the top of the bag under the tray table, you can prop your phone horizontally at the perfect viewing height. This can be a real lifesaver (assuming you don’t need to use the bag for other purposes).
Pay for everyday expenses with a travel credit card.
You already spend money almost every day, but by paying all those expenses with a credit card that earns travel miles or points (and then paying off the card balance in full each month), you’re essentially earning free travel coupons. You’re still going to buy groceries, so why not earn 100 miles every time you do? Many travel credit cards offer large sign-up bonuses of 20,000 to 100,000 points (or more) after you reach a certain amount on your bill, so by paying your everyday bills with the card for a few months, you could fund an entire trip for free.
Before booking, perform a reverse image search of your Airbnb listing.
Booking accommodations while traveling can be a hassle, and you might wonder if you’re getting the best deal. Airbnb might seem like the perfect option but be a huge blow to your budget—but there might be a similar offer on other platforms, likely at a lower price. You can find out by using Google’s reverse image search feature. Select a photo from an Airbnb listing, search for it on Google, and other rental platforms will likely appear—or you’ll get a link to the hotel’s website directly. In a pinch, an image search can identify the specific apartment building or hotel pictured, potentially giving you a price advantage. There are also tools like HiChee that compare listings across multiple platforms, but where’s the fun then?
Use a trouser hanger to hang your curtains.
You reach your hotel room exhausted at night, not noticing that the curtains are hanging loose. You fall into bed, only to be awakened at 6 a.m. by the scorching sun shining through the cracks in the curtains. This simple life hack can significantly improve the quality of your sleep: take a trouser hanger from the hotel closet (the kind with metal clips) and use it to secure the curtains in your room. When the morning sunlight tries to penetrate your room and wake you up, the clips will block it.
Place one shoe in the hotel safe.
If you use the safe provided in your hotel room to store valuables or important travel documents, the worst thing you can do is forget them when you check out. A simple way to avoid this is to put something you absolutely can’t forget in there. Some suggest putting a shoe in there, figuring that when you’re getting dressed for the next leg of your trip, you’ll definitely notice if one is missing. But this will work with anything, as long as you choose something you absolutely can’t leave without.
Download offline maps before you leave.
We once lived in a world where navigating meant paper maps and confusing directions from friends, who often used fast food restaurants as landmarks. Today, we have access to military-grade GPS systems, and a pleasant computer voice will tell us to turn right in a hundred feet. It’s amazing when you’re traveling in an unfamiliar place—until the internet connection drops.
A great life hack is to download offline maps of your destination before your trip. You can do this using Google Maps or an app like HERE WeGo . This requires some planning, as the maps need to be downloaded while you have a signal, but once downloaded, you can use them almost as usual, getting directions and clearly seeing distances. Take a little time to do this before each trip, and you’ll never get lost again.