TANKS Travel Tales - a travelogue.......

I loved travelling. It was not so long ago that travelling was as easy as going online to book my return air tickets and hotel accommodation before jetting off to the destination on the day of the outbound flight.  In particular, if I had the opportunity to travel in the premier classes of a flight, the flight itself was as much an important part of my trip as any other expected travel experiences such as dining on local cuisines, meeting the locals, sight-seeing and enjoying the local culture and practices.  At times, I pampered myself by spending my hard-earned cash on a return Business Class ticket at promotional rates. Or I redeemed my expiring miles for a discounted Business Class ticket. And on some rare occasions, the airlines actually kindly and generously upgraded me to the next class of seat from my purchased ticket. How the upgrade works still baffles me. I supposed it all boils down to pure luck. But I really don't know. Travelling in the premier classes of a fligh...

Travelling smart and Packing Effectively I've just returned from an overseas working trip which involved taking two different flights and spending close to 24 hours on those flights as well as on transit. Including the outbound flights, it totalled four flights and close to 48 hours just on travelling within a single week. And because it was a work trip, there will be milestones to be achieved, meetings to be conducted, technical details to be discussed and reports to be written. Throw in the time differences between the various locations and the accompanying jet lag and the result was a very tiring trip. While I cannot control the hassles associated with long haul working trips, I can still do a lot to smoothen the process to aid in my personal comfort and recovery. And a key point to this self-help is to pack effectively. For this trip, I decided not to bring along any check-in luggage. But because I will be travelling through Europe over the peak summer period, I also...