Four Tips to Preserve the Peace on Family Trips

Sign puns are the best puns. Image courtesy of Flickr user Jonathon D. Colman. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

I've been living back at the family homestead for most of this summer without incident. However, a recent family trip--along with a tweet from a friend traveling to San Francisco with her family--reminded me: there's a big difference between getting along with your family at home and getting along with them on a trip.

The biggest issue is that, a lot of the time, you can't leave. If your sibling starts bugging you while the family's on the interstate, well, you just have to suck it up You don't want to blow up whatever peace you've made with your family in one weekend outing, so here are some tips to keep your sanity about you while traveling.

Bring Music: This is a little bit of a no-brainer, but remember to bring whatever device you use to listen to music and its charger and headphones. You can either listen to the music you own or--my favorite--use an app like TuneIn to tune out whoever's sitting next to you. Smiling and nodding at your sibling on the sixth hour of a car trip is a lot easier when you're listening to Katy Perry loud enough to turn your brains to liquid.

Research Your Destination: If your family is anything like mine, they're likely to leave you out of the trip planning loop because they still think of you as a kid. So, be proactive: make sure that you find out where you're going and what there is to do there. If you can find something that you actually want to do wherever you're going, you can have at least one activity to look forward to.

Escape (At Least for an Hour): Part of what's frustrating about traveling with family as opposed to friends is that it's much harder to leave your family to go do your own thing for a while. However, if it's at all possible to leave for a little bit, do it. You'll be able to decompress and enjoy yourself. Even if you're not in a very exciting location, just go for a walk around the block for a little bit--you need time to breathe (and possibly call your friends to rant for a minute).

Set Ground Rules: This goes for both parents and any siblings. For the parent end, figure out exactly what your parents expect from you: can you drink? Do you have to be back at the hotel/cabin/whatever by a certain time? Can you explore the city on your own? Figure this out before you head on to your destination so that there aren't any surprises when you get there. For siblings, as much as you can, try to head off any arguments that you know are going to happen by settling hot-button issues (like, can your sibling pry about your personal life? Who gets to control the AC in the car?) before you leave for your trip.

Family travel is probably always going to be a little stressful, but with any luck and these tips, your trip will be more happy than rage-inducing. And if not... that's what headphones are for.

Use Air Tran’s Student Fares for Cheap Last-Minute Travel

Pack up your duffel bag: it's time to travel. Image courtesy of Flickr user Jeff Harbert. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

AirTranU is a fairly well-known program among students, but it’s worth revisiting during the summer months when schedules are likely to be freer than during the school year. AirTran offers $49, $69, or $99/leg standby flights for people ages 18-22 through its AirTranU program.

To use the program, students have to show up to the AirTran desk at your airport and work the flight out with an employee—so it takes longer than just buying a ticket online, and getting a seat isn’t guaranteed (AirTran recommends calling ahead at 1-800-AIRTRAN to check on availability, but my friends who use the program tend to just go and see what happens). However, if you need to book a last-minute flight home or are up for a spur-of-the-minute visit to a friend, it’s a cheap way to fly—particularly during the week, when flights aren’t as crowded.

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Travel Like a Champ: Spring Break Travel Roundup

By the sea, you and me... Image courtesy of Flickr user Kevin Tostado. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.It's the end of February and that means Spring Break will soon be upon us. HackCollege has your back with a collection of tips and tricks to organize your travel, remind you of airport basics, and fold your clothes completely wrinkle-free. Check out these blasts from the archives.

Road trip safety: For those of you who will be traveling by car rather than air, check out this list of basic safety supplies to keep in your vehicle. Particularly if you don't have AAA and are traveling in an at-all-remote areas, a well-stocked emergency kit can be a lifesaver.

Plan Spring Break with TripIt: I'm kind of in love with TripIt. For those of you who don't already use it, it is one of the most painless ways to keep travel information organized and accessible. TripIt's also useful for those of us with parents who worry--sharing all of your travel plans with them can soothe their fears about wherever you're going for the break.

Pack Everything into a Suitcase Without Wrinkles: Though the New York Times favors rolling your clothes to pack them in to a suitcase, I've found that this method is more compact and leaves clothes way less wrinkly. Particularly since Spring Break clothes are light-weight anyway, this can make packing unbelievably easy and compact, leaving more room for novelty magnets and beer.

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Use Interchangeable Power Cords to Streamline Packing

This right here would be what we're trying to avoid. Image courtesy of Flickr user tr67. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

When you're traveling, packing up cords can be a much bigger pain than it ought to be. Most electronic devices in the Kindle/iPod/iPad/phone vein don't take up much space, but syncing cords and docking stations do--not to mention, they get tangled and they're easy to lose when you travel. However, if you're lucky, you're using devices that charge primarily via USB--as all the iDevices, the Kindle, and many phones do.

Pick one of your devices that has a removeable USB-AC power adapter (or buy one for cheap if you don't own one). Chargers like this a really two separate pieces: the USB-AC adapter, which plugs into the wall, and a USB cable which plugs from your device into your computer, typically for syncing/charging purposes. For an entire trip, you only need one USB-AC adapter--if you pack that, along with just the USB cables which are device-specific (and lightweight), you can charge all of your devices from a wall even if you don't shell out for device-specific travel chargers. This way you have fewer bulky outlet adapters to deal with and/or lose, and you can charge all of your USB-charging devices even without a computer--great if you're visiting somewhere where you don't need a laptop but want to listen to music or read an eBook.

For the remaining USB-to-device cables, this tip from Lifehacker works as well for cords as it does for headphones--and will keep your cables untangled, separate, and undamaged while they stay in your bag. Traveling is stressful enough as it is--your electronics don't need to contribute to that.

Coordinate Your Holiday Travel with Gtrot

Book and share your excursions from campus, and find out if your friends are going to be in the same place.

With Christmas Break fast approaching, and Spring Break travel planning about to get into full swing, The college-exclusive Gtrot is here to coordinate and share your travel plans with friends.  

There's no signup required, save for connecting your Facebook account, so you can immediately use their online booking interface, powered by the incomparable Kayak, to find the best deals on hotels, flights, and cabs.  Once you book your trip, you can share as much or as little information as you want about your itinerary with your Facebook friends, and even see which met-them-twice Facebook acquaintances will be at your destination at the same time.  Gtrot's cleverest feature though is the ride matcher, which facilitates cab-sharing with your buddies to and from the airport, or around town.

Obviously, this is the kind of service that is only useful when a lot of your friends are utilizing it, so spread the word!

Take Advantage of Government Apps

Yes we can enter the web 2.0 marketplace. A screenshot of the apps.usa.gov site shows a few of the apps the US government offers.There are plenty of things that come to mind when one thinks of the US Government--but “web-savvy institution” probably isn’t one of them, no matter your political leanings. However, that may change with the government apps website. There are six pages of government-sponsored apps to do with national security, BMI measurement, and what’s currently being recalled. For people who need quick an easy access to that information without having to search through government websites, these apps and mobile web pages have the potential to be quite useful. Here are a few of the most interesting offerings.

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TripIt Combines Social Networking with Travel Planning

TripIt removes stress from travel plans. Image courtesy of Flickr user Robert Bruce Murray III. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.One of the perks of being a college student is travel flexibility--especially during the summer months. For those of us jet setting this summer (or who need to organize trips to and from school during the year), TripIt allows for easy, at-a-glance trip organization combined with some interesting social networking aspects.

TripIt's major selling point is its ease of use. You simply email your flight, hotel, or rental car confirmation to TripIt, and the site assembles all of them on a single, easy-to-read page. In addition, it provides handy links to check in to your flight beforehand and contact information for hotels and rental car companies. It even adds city maps and the weather report for the length of your. Traveling companions can all be added as travelers on a specific trip simply by adding their email addresses, allowing them to see and edit the itinerary--including adding daily activity plans.

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