Travel Like a Pro
7 Strategies to Save Time, Money, and Stress

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #551: Travel Like a Pro: 7 Strategies to Save Time, Money, and Stress

Jeff Sanders
Have you ever used a packing checklist for a big trip?

You probably have, but do you have a comprehensive system to guarantee all of your future excursions will be stress-free?

Well, if not, I've got a few ideas for you.

This is the 5am Miracle, episode number 551.

Travel like a pro.

7 Strategies to Save Time, Money, and Stress.

Good morning and welcome to the 5am Miracle.

I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful, lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy.

I am a keynote speaker and corporate trainer specializing in delivering high-energy, interactive, and action-oriented presentations and workshops focused on productivity, wellness, and personal and professional growth.

If you want to learn more, head over to jeffsanders.com/speaking.

In the episode this week, I'll break down a recent business trip that I took that was the least stressful trip of my life thus far.

How you can create a travel system that makes your next trip as smooth as possible, and why you need a checklist for everything in your life, including your next big adventure.

Let's get to it.

Wichita, Kansas.

That's right, I just got back from a great speaking gig there a few weeks ago, and it reminded me of a lot of things that had to do with travel.

Yes, I was there for a speaking gig that went really well, I had a great time with a great audience talking all about productivity and the 5am miracle and awesome content there.

However, what stood out to me wasn't the content or the speaking gig.

What stood out to me was the travel.

This trip for whatever reason just kinda pushed my buttons in a good way.

What it did was it forced me to reevaluate my systems.

Of all the things I've done the last few years that have been the most profound and most beneficial, it has been my intentionality towards checklists and systems and recognizing problems and then wanting to jump in and solve them right away.

With the best, smoothest, most amazing checklists I could get my hands on, I have recently become a fanatic when it comes to checklists.

You're gonna hear about those a lot on this podcast going forward because they run my life and my business and everything that I encounter somehow comes back to a new checklist being created to move me forward in a better direction.

And travel is no exception.

In fact, if anything, travel is the best example of why checklists are so valuable.

And so this week we're gonna run through a bunch of strategies to help your next trip be the best that it can be and honestly, there's a lot to learn and a lot to polish when it comes to travel.

Even if you're experienced, even if you've done this for decades, there's always room for improvement.

There are always new strategies to try and so let's just dig in.

This is your chance to learn how to travel like a pro with seven strategies to save time, money, and stress.

Strategy number one.

Plan all of your upcoming travel for the year now.

This is a very common tactic that is talked about, but it's not utilized.

And I know this because I know people's schedules.

I have seen them.

I have worked with them.

Yes, we have some big things on the calendar in the future, but details are always missing important details.

Things that when they're put down on the calendar, change your experience.

Simple example.

Let's imagine you have a trip scheduled for six months from now.

It's a new vacation you want to go on.

You're looking forward to it.

It's going to be awesome.

But when that actual vacation shows up, what are you doing?

You're scrambling at the last minute.

You're freaking out.

You forgot your passport.

You don't have all your stuff together.

There's stress.

There's chaos.

Why you had six months to plan for it.

Really there's no excuses, right?

Well, some, yes, but the majority of what you're experiencing in that scenario is preventable.

The majority of the stress that we tend to put on ourselves at the last minute for big events.

I honestly believe most of that can be eliminated completely if we have the right plan in place.

One thing that I started doing years ago to help make all of my trips way smoother was to schedule a full day off before and one full day off after every single trip that I take.

Now what that means in practicality is I do not schedule work on those days or anything required that has to get done aside from trip preparation and trip recovery.

So travel prep and travel recovery one day before and one day after.

If you have not done this before, this will change your experience.

And I say that because the one thing we don't tend to realize is the necessity for on ramping to a new experience and then the off ramp to recover from it.

We basically assume we could have work on a Tuesday and vacation on a Wednesday and just the very next day off we go.

But the reality is our lives don't tend to function like that.

There are too many logistics to get into place.

Too many bells and whistles.

You want to have experiences with all these check boxes to go through and you're not gonna have time for those.

If you just force yourself into, okay, tomorrow's vacation, ready?

Go get on the plane.

Here we go.

It's just too much.

It's too much, too fast.

So when I say plan your upcoming travel now ahead of time, I am talking about yes, the vacation.

Yes, the business trip.

Yes, the excursion.

It is planned for the itinerary of the trip, but also leading up to and recovering from.

That's all a part of the experience.

And when you have that mapped out, you realize one very important thing.

Even little trips take a long time.

Even small excursions require a lot of preparation and a lot of recovery.

My last trip to Kansas was only two calendar days.

I left on a Tuesday.

I came back on a Wednesday and yet I was preparing for this trip for weeks in advance and it took a solid two, three, four days afterwards to fully recover from what that trip was.

And that's fully inclusive of all the things required for that trip to be what I wanted it to be.

And so for your next excursion, travel, business trip, vacation, holiday, it's going to require this kind of prep.

So plan now for the idea that you can on-ramp yourself well for weeks and months in advance.

And if you do, your stress will be reduced and it's going to be so, so great.

All right, strategy number two, use a travel booking service.

So for years I have used Expedia as my main travel booking site that I go through for all of my trips.

You might use Kayak, Booking.com or any number of other sites that are out there, or you may choose to book independently for your flight, your hotel, rental car, train trip, whatever the thing is you're trying to book.

You may actually look into these things individually, but I would argue that most of the time for most people, a booking service is your best call.

And I say that for one particular reason, and that is logistics.

Sites like Expedia will batch things together for you and pre-plan certain transitions.

They'll make it easy for you, for example, to go from your flight to get your car you rented to then get to the hotel you booked.

All of these things then flow together in probably a fairly smooth fashion.

A booking service like this will figure a lot of this stuff out for you.

A lot of those details of how long your layover might be and how to connect from one flight to the next.

Those things are pre-worked out for you if you use a service where those things are already included.

I just did this from my last trip and it was very smooth.

I used Expedia to book the flight, the hotel and the car all together in one big bundle.

Yes, I saved some money.

That's part of it.

Well, not a lot, a little, but the biggest savings for me was trying to figure out those logistics, trying to nail down when and where to be at certain places.

If your goal is a stress-free trip, then don't add stress where you don't need it.

Let someone else handle logistics if that's possible so that you can just be present in the moment and enjoy the experience.

When that happens, like what I just had, it's really great.

I was surprised throughout the entire process in terms of my lower stress levels than normal because travel for me is not always breezy.

Sometimes it really is a pain in the butt and I don't want that to be the case for me or for you.

Now, along those same lines of using a travel booking service, it's also great to join rewards programs.

I say that for airlines, hotels, rental cars, all the perks and all the directions.

If you're a frequent traveler, you probably know this and do this.

If you're not, but you're planning to do a lot of traveling, rewards programs come with perks that you will probably use in the future at some point.

Even if you don't, you might and you might get perks that you don't expect.

Most of these are free and easy to join.

It really does make things a lot better if you can then tap into those free perks in the future.

Rewards programs are pretty fantastic.

Strategy number three.

Now that you have booked your entire experience upfront for months in advance, you have a booking service in mind, you've got rewards programs lined up.

Now it's time to plan specific logistics for your trip.

That includes the flights, hotel, rental car, restaurants to go to, grocery stores to shop at, supplies you want to purchase when you arrive, exact times for every major event.

What I just experienced my last trip really highlighted this particular point more than most, which was that if the logistics are nailed down in advance with specifics, I mean exact times you're going to wake up and go to bed, exact times for the flight, exactly where you get the hotel, exactly which restaurant you're going to get your lunch at on the way to the airport.

All of these pieces when they're lined up in advance means the moment of is just flowing to the next thing.

It's just easy, it's breezy, and it works beautifully.

If you do not do these things, if the logistics are not lined up and your plan is to wing it in the moment, good luck because it's going to be a stress inducing activity.

Anything that requires you to make choices in the moment that could have an impact on the rest of your trip will just be adding additional complications where in most cases you probably could have done some homework ahead of time to at least lessen that necessity.

So what I just experienced recently to nail down, literally I'll eat lunch at this exact place before I go to this hotel and I'll get this food over here and I'm going to buy groceries at this store there.

It was helpful.

It was super helpful.

Plus this actual trip I just went on was a very tight turnaround.

It was get in, get out, and make everything happen very swiftly.

So I needed that level of organization.

Now if your trip is more low key, if it really is a very chill holiday and that level of specificity is just overkill, okay.

Well then we can just hang out, but there's going to be choices to make in the moment.

And if you're the kind of person who's going to sleep better at night because you did your homework up front, you're a type a planner like me, then do your planning.

Allow that type a personality to kick in and just make sure the boxes are checked.

You will feel better about it, especially in the moment when this stuff happens.

All right, strategy number four, and this is my personal favorite, create a packing checklist.

Now I went through a lot of detail on checklist episode number five 39 of this podcast, and that was called full immersion.

How to overwhelm obstacles with abundant solutions.

That episode is about a different topic and yet somehow checklists were the best answer to that topic.

The same thing is true here, or this is about travel, but checklists are the answer.

It just is true over and over again.

If you're not as on board with checklists as I am, you may not have experienced the joy that they bring.

And so one simple example is that my family and I will travel to visit the grandparents every year in Missouri, many times a year.

And for my entire life, I have just packed based on memory because I've done this trip so many times.

Why would I need a checklist?

Well just earlier this year, I made a checklist for the very first time to travel to Missouri.

And it changed my life.

It was amazing.

For the first time ever, I had a comprehensive list of exactly what I wanted to bring and exactly what I was going to leave at home.

And even though it was basically the same stuff I usually pack, it still made the experience less stressful.

And the next trip we're going to take is going to be even better because of it.

Checklists give you peace of mind.

They give you a guaranteed solution to pull from to say, this is my plan.

It's on paper.

Therefore, I can breathe.

I can take a minute and just chill.

I don't have to be on top of every detail because the checklist already has the answer, even for things you already do a thousand times.

In fact, I would argue that things you do most often, you're going to see the most value from that because you're going to see it over and over again.

And then of course the checklist that play into those things you do less often, you'll need that checklist to make sure you don't forget because it's been a while since the last iteration.

So if you're not on board with checklists at this point, I would guess because you have not yet fully immersed yourself into the world of checklists.

So give that a shot.

Try out a checklist on your next trip, your next morning routine, your next repeated task, make a new system, use a checklist for it, and then repeat that process again and again, each time making the checklist a little bit better with each iteration.

It will change your life.

So excited about it.

Okay.

Now, along this idea of using a packing checklist, you may wonder like for a trip, what does that actually include?

And the answer is abundantly diverse.

You may have a lot of different variations on how you create an actual travel checklist.

What I just did my last trip, which is the most beneficial from my perspective is that I divided my checklist between which items I would pack in which bag I was bringing.

So for a simple example, I flew in an airplane, which means I had two bags, my backpack and my rolling carry on, and that was it.

And so for me, the question was, well, what stuff goes in which bag?

And so the checklist was simply a list of here, the backpack items, and here's the rolling carry on items.

And I made sure those aligned to the way that I wanted to travel with my suit that I needed, my technology for the speech, my, you know, cosmetics and personal items, everything was included.

And I just made sure I knew which bag had what you can pack in a lot of different ways.

But I think this really helps for future packing experiences, because then you know what goes where, which is very, very helpful.

Now one place to kind of get a sense of what you could pack on a trip is actually a bit unique.

I have for many years used a checklist from REI, which is the backpacking company, the outdoors company.

They have a checklist online, their website for camping, and that includes everything from the tent to the cooking supplies, your backpack, all these different pieces of gear you need to go mountaineering.

However, what I have realized is that that list is very comprehensive.

It covers lots of extreme weather, whether it's really cold or really hot or really snowy or really whatever.

The list has a lot of great ideas.

So even if you're not going camping, the REI camping checklist will give you a ton of ideas on things you can bring.

Yes, a lot of it is survival gear, but it could be the kind of thing you need as an emergency preparation perspective on your next trip.

So Google that REI camping checklist and start there.

I think it's a really good place to begin for a checklist.

My personal one's been customized so much now, I'm not sure it's that helpful to most people, but the camping one, that's a good place to start.

Now for strategy number five on our list of how to travel like a pro, the fifth strategy is to join TSA PreCheck and Global Entry and or any program available where you live.

So if you are a US citizen, TSA PreCheck is a no brainer and a must do.

It basically guarantees a very smooth transition through security at most major airports.

I have used this for years.

It does make a lot of experiences way less stress inducing.

It's not a guaranteed foolproof experience.

My last trip I just took going through the Nashville airport to leave for the trip.

TSA PreCheck was awesome.

Super simple.

On the way back through Wichita, Kansas, I had some hiccups and I got pinged for extra scanning and it took a lot longer, not a lot of fun.

That's part of travel.

I get it.

But the general flow is that that kind of a program will pre-scan you on an approved list and then you can go through security a lot faster.

It's a much smaller crowd to have to fight and it's just, it's a lot better.

Global Entry and the Clear program are also great global programs.

If you're an international traveler who frequently goes to new countries all the time, those programs are also fantastic.

Wherever you happen to live, look into programs that exist for you to have a very smooth international experience as well as a smooth security clearance experience because all of that is just noisy and stressful for a lot of people.

And if you can make that easy, it is fantastic.

And once again, TSA PreCheck, Global Entry, Clear, those are the best programs.

They do cost a little bit of money and they definitely take a while to get approved for.

Sometimes months, sometimes more than a year.

And so the best time to begin that process to apply is now in case it does take you a while.

But it is worth it.

Definitely do it.

It's great.

All right.

Strategy number six, and this one is possibly a bit controversial.

We'll see how this plays out.

Number six, don't check your luggage, but not for the reason you're expecting.

So once again, when I'm flying, I'm taking generally two pieces of luggage, my backpack and my rolling carry on.

And I'm typically not going to check a large piece of luggage I have in the past.

And I'm doing that a lot less these days.

Yes, you might lose your luggage.

That is possible.

But there's more to it than that.

So when I have this backpack and rolling carry on combo, I will have an Apple air tag in each of those to guarantee I have the location of them.

My backpack is less important because it's with me all the time, but the rolling carry on does tend to leave my vision and I need a tracker on it.

So let's tackle that one for a second.

Let's imagine that you are on board with the idea that checking your luggage does pose a risk.

You're going to lose it.

And you have figured out a way to be a minimalist and pack all your stuff into a backpack slash carry on two bag combo pack.

When you board a plane, those airplanes are not big enough for everyone to have a rolling carry on in the bin above your head.

And so as you're boarding the plane, at some point, they're likely going to cut it off and say, everyone from here on in the back of this boarding process will now have to check their rolling carry on, but you'll do so while you're boarding the flight.

So it's a non-traditional checking system where you're not going to pay for this, but they will check your luggage for you and then you pick it up and the flight is done.

On my last trip, this happened to me on all four of the flights that I was on because I had a connecting flight there and back.

So four different airplanes, all four times I boarded very late and my luggage was checked for me and I had to get it after the fact.

Now if you are a frequent traveler who uses business class, first class, early boarding, anything like that, you probably have access to the overhead bins right away and you can bring your carry on there and toss it above your head.

That is the first option, right?

Pay to board early and then guarantee a space for your carry on.

But you still have to fight to grab it afterwards and have the physicality to put the bag up and bring it back down.

I see people who struggle all the time on airplanes.

It's kind of a process.

So if you don't want to deal with that, if you're not a fan of trying to guarantee space for your bag or the physicality of lifting the bag up and back down as difficult, option number two is pretty great, which is to board late and do so on purpose.

I just did this four times on accident because I bought my flight late and when I did, I didn't have access to early boarding and frankly I didn't really want it because this is a weird pet peeve that I have.

I don't understand why people rush to get on airplanes.

I see it every single time.

People announce here's boarding group one and boarding group two and as they're announcing the boarding groups, people are frantically scrambling to get first in line and I think they're doing so to guarantee space for their bag.

But as I saw it time and time again, it's a real silly waste of time and very stress inducing for really no reason because you can, as I just did, wait to board last, literally the last person on the plane, which I was a couple of times.

And then you get to sit in your seat, which is already predefined, right?

This is not Southwest by the way.

This is, you know, airlines where you have a seat assigned to you so you know where you're going to sit.

So you go and you sit down in that, in that seat and my luggage is already checked for me.

The carry on's already gone.

And then when the flight is over, I simply pick it up and I leave.

And it was very efficient.

It did not take a lot of time.

I didn't miss any flights to connect to.

It's a great process.

I know this is a bit of a rant and a tangent for me, but if you've been at an airport and you've seen people being weirdly stressed out to get on the airplane, just realize you're not one of them.

You don't have to be.

You can actually be a calm person who boards a flight like a regular day.

And then you just have your experience and you pick up your bag afterwards and off you go.

That's it.

Not complicated, stress-free.

You travel like a pro.

And now for the seventh and final strategy for you to travel like a pro is to bring your best technology.

Now I'm definitely a tech guy.

You've seen my podcast studio.

I've got tons of tech everywhere.

And so I love having the best possible tech, especially when I'm traveling and need a sense of bringing my best, but doing so in a portable way.

And so the very first thing to bring that I think is a necessity now for travel are noise canceling headphones.

The brand that I use is Sony and the model number, this is a bit complicated.

WH-1000XM4.

Shorthand version of that is the XM4s.

XM4s is the older model.

There's a new XM5 that Sony has available.

I think the XM4s are better.

So I bought two of them.

Now there's lots of brands out there to choose from, but those are definitely some high quality noise canceling headphones that'll make your travel a lot smoother and definitely a lot less noisy.

Second great tech is a portable battery charger.

There are charging stations at a lot of places and train stations and airports and lots of places that will allow you to charge your phone, your tablet, your computer.

Generally speaking, you don't want to deal with that.

They're very crowded.

There are potential security issues with them I've heard as well.

And it's frankly just unnecessary when you could have your own battery charger with you to charge your most important devices, namely your phone.

And so you need a backup battery that is large enough to power your phone for at least two full charging cycles in a day.

The day you travel, you're going to use your phone more than any other day of your life.

And so you're going to need extra power.

My backup battery can charge my iPhone four separate cycles all the way through from dead all the way to a hundred percent four times.

It's a pretty large battery.

It's extra heavy.

It's probably overkill.

You really could get a smaller one and be totally fine, but shoot for a great battery charger you can bring to power your devices because it will be necessary and you're going to love having it.

And the third piece of tech, which for me is brand new that I just used in the last trip is a portable wifi router.

Now this is not one of your standard pay a service fee and bring your wifi with you type devices.

This is one of those that will boost the signal for any wifi network you happen to be attached to.

So for example, when I was at the Hilton hotel that I was just at, their wifi was okay.

Not terrible.

I've seen that before.

Not great.

It was kind of middle of the road.

I use this portable wifi router to attach the hotel's wifi signal to this device, which then boosted the signal.

And I had a stronger, better, more consistent wifi experience in the hotel.

You can do the exact same thing to boost your cell signal service as well through a personal hotspot.

So I have a limited data with my cell phone.

And so if I'm able to then boost that signal from the phone to my laptop, which is what I do at hotels, then I've got a stronger, better wifi network that my phone is actually providing the data for.

Now that could be an issue with your data usage.

You don't have a limited, and if you do have unlimited, you can still max that out.

So you'll be careful on this, but it does work really well and we'll give you more of that guaranteed wifi.

You expect the device that I bought is called the TP link ultra portable wifi six, a X 1500 travel router.

That's a mouthful.

Just play that again.

You'll hear it a second time.

But basically that provides this amazing ability to have better wifi while traveling, which as a tech guy, once again, wifi runs my life.

If I have great internet, I can do the things I need to do like work in my hotel room without having to struggle to connect to the internet.

And I cannot tell you how many hotels have terrible internet.

Oh wait, but I can, it's all of them.

They're all terrible.

You need the best wifi you could possibly get.

And this device that I just bought was 60 us dollars.

So not that expensive and definitely worth it if you value fast internet, which I definitely do.

Okay.

I've got one bonus tip for you this week.

You thought a seven was enough.

No, no, no.

We've got one more.

This bonus tip, the first part, the two parter here, the first one's fairly obvious, which is to download any entertainment to your devices that you want to have before you leave.

So for example, you may download movies, music, podcasts, audio books, anything you want on your phone or your tablet or your laptop when you're not going to have access to the internet and you want to have guaranteed entertainment, education, work materials, whatever you need is downloaded to your device ahead of time.

This is a very common thing now, especially because airplanes and train stations will not provide entertainment for you.

Although some of them will provide that on your device.

So I just recently flew United and I was able to tap into their entertainment through my phone and then watch movies there, which actually worked out pretty well.

But that's really the goal is to download what you want for yourself before you leave.

Now the second part of this one, and this is what changed my travel, honestly, probably more than anything else on this trip.

And this is actually tied to the next episode you're going to hear next week in this podcast, which I'm going to do a deep dive into meditation.

I have been toying with meditation for my entire life and never fully committing, never seeing success until recently.

And I cannot even begin to express what power this next strategy had for me.

It changed the game.

What I did was I, number one, I have access to the YouTube premium service.

So I pay, I think it's $15 a month or somewhere close to that, uh, to get the ad free version of YouTube, which gives me access to downloading YouTube videos.

So what I did was I downloaded meditation videos from YouTube to my phone before I left.

And these are long tracks.

We're talking full hour, five hours, eight hours, 10 hours of meditation music and these individual video files.

And then what I did throughout this trip, especially in the airport, while I was flying, taking off during turbulence landing was listening to this extraordinarily calm meditation music on my amazing Sony headphones.

The experience here was game changing for me because what I found myself doing was listening to this very chill music and a very meditative, calm state in each of these experiences where I typically might experience anxiety, where I typically might get myself a little worked up a little bit nervous, a little on edge, a little too much caffeine, maybe a little too much nervous energy, right?

If you travel and you're the kind of person who doesn't do well with Heights or motion, maybe your motion sick, maybe you don't like to be in airplanes.

Maybe you get nervous around large crowds.

Any of these things are going to play really well to this strategy, which is to listen to music that allows you to just kind of tune out, but do so in a way that you're still present.

You're still there.

You're just chill and there's no medication required.

There's no supplement here.

This is just audio and it changed everything for me.

This was the thing of all the strategies I tried on this trip.

This one was it.

And I say that because I come from a background of, I had panic attacks almost 10 years ago for about a year in my life.

I am definitely the kind of guy who drinks too much caffeine.

I am definitely a higher, more anxious oriented type person type a to the max.

And so because of that, I need strategies to bring me down.

You could hear it in this podcast episode this week.

I am on, I'm firing on all cylinders here.

I need to be brought down sometimes a lot of times, all the time.

And so this strategy was epically valuable for me.

So if you're anything like me, or you find yourself in those scenarios where you just want to be able to tap into a chiller experience, number one, you're probably gonna have to practice meditation beforehand.

That's going to help a lot.

But then of course, in the moment, just let it be, let it be chill, be in the moment, but do so in a way you've never experienced before.

It's going to be great.

It was great for me.

And I'm excited for you to try that on your next trip.

So find access to the best, most chill audio tracks you can find.

There are probably way better sources than YouTube, but I did find some great ones there, ones that were very powerful.

And so if you have access to that, it's going to be great.

For the action step this week, let's go create your packing checklist.

You know, of all the things you could do to reduce your stress for your next trip that's coming up, making a packing checklist is the best first step.

It's really hard to explain how much I love checklists and especially reminders that prevent unnecessary chaos while traveling.

So make your first checklist today or take some time to improve the one you already have.

Either way, you're going to love being prepared now for the next events on your calendar.

Of course, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and your favorite podcast app, or become a VIP member of the 5am Miracle community by getting the premium ad free version with exclusive bonus episodes at 5ammiraclepremium.com.

That's all I've got for you here on the 5am Miracle podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life and all that fun begins bright and early.

---

© 5 AM Miracle Media, LLC