This post is based on the video – 11 Travel Tips for Men – Man’s Guide to Traveling With Style & Being Prepared Upon Arrival
Hi! I’m Antonio Centeno. I’m the founder of Real Men Real Style. Today, I’m going to be giving you 11 travel tips.
Now, I’ve got 22 more, but there in the article, you’re going to have to go check out. I linked to it down below.
That article has a total of 33 tips, so if you want more, if you enjoy this, then go check out the article.
Before I get started, really quick, I want to thank Lee Jeans. They made this video possible, and I need to point out that I am wearing their new modern series.
Now, one of the tips I’m going to give you, kind of the spoiler alert here, is to wear clothing that fits and feels good.
So in about 24 hours, I’m going to be on a plane to Australia and I’m going to be in three flights, about 24 hours in the air going to the other side of the world. You can bet I’m going to be wearing these jeans because they just got a little bit of stretch, which makes them incredibly comfortable.
When you’re traveling that long, again, you want to make sure your clothing is comfortable that there are no hotspots so that you don’t get to your destination and you’ve got some — you just want to feel good when you arrive, so go check them out. Okay guys, let me go ahead and dive right in this.
1. Dress sharp when they travel.
Now, why do you want to dress sharp?
You want to dress sharp because you want to send off a positive first impression. This is really important if you fly. I’ll just tell you a story.
I was in Chicago O’Hare the other day. I went through security, dressed nice, and everyone was very friendly with me, believe it or not, at Chicago O’Hare.
Now, Chicago has got great people, but a lot of people — I just notice — and maybe I’m always smiling and I’m trying to be friendly to people, but here’s what happened, is I left an item there.
I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it was something. I started to take off and one of the security guys basically — he came after me. He remembered who I was. He remembered what I looked like.
I thanked him. I was kind of surprised. He’s like, “Well, I just remembered you.” He didn’t say I was well-dressed, but he remembered me and he was kind enough to come over and to let me know. Later on when I walked by, the same guy, he was there. The people were just friendly.
Now, I have this happen to me all the time when I travel. People are friendly. People are open. People look at me and they trust whether it’d be a gas station that is about to close at 11:00 at night. I could tell you, if you’re dressed nice, if you’re wearing clothing that doesn’t make you look like you’re possibly going to rob the place, then — yeah, I know it’s not fair.
It’s not politically correct to say that, but people make quick judgments and they will either say, “Sorry, we’re closed,” or they’re going to say, “Well, this person sends a good signal. I’m going to want to help them.” So you’ll never know when it’s going to pop up, but you want to make sure that you’re always putting your best foot forward.
2. Wear clothing that is comfortable.
Some of you guys may have been saying, “Okay, Antonio, I’m not going to dress sharp because my clothing isn’t comfortable.” Well, I’m going to say that you’re wearing the wrong clothing because I advise to wear clothing that’s comfotable
I’ll be driving down to Austin, Texas here in about two weeks. I’m going to be wearing, again, probably a pair of Lee Jeans with Western boots.
I’ll have my sports jacket on, or I’ll actually have it off when I’m in the vehicle, and I’ll have a nice dress shirt, maybe even a sweater just like this, a nice pullover.
This is how I’m going to dress and I’m very comfortable in my clothing because it fits me, number one, and then number two, I’m used to wearing it. I practice wearing it.
Now, anybody that’s ever played a sport, especially protective gear, the first time you put it on, it feels — it’s not that it feels super uncomfortable.
It’s just you’re not used to wearing it, but after you wear it a few times, you actually like — in fact, when you go out on the field, you don’t feel right without that protective clothing. It’s the same thing for wearing the right clothing.
Initially, if you’ve never worn a collared shirt, you may find that you get a little bit of irritation here. Well, just practice wearing it or look for clothing that actually — make sure it fits your body. I’ve got an entire stuff, entire infographic on how clothing should fit, so just Google that and you’ll find it.
3. Wear slip-on footwear.
I mentioned that I’d be wearing Western boots. When I travel in the airplane, I wear slip-on dress shoes. The reason I do this is going through metal detectors, I want to be able to slip it on, slip it off. If I’m going to be driving in a car for a long time, I’d like to take my shoes off.
There’s nothing like hitting that cruise control, taking off my boots, and being able to relax a bit. So you want to be able for things to slip on, slip off, and not to be stuck there having to lace and unlace and all that not so fun stuff.
Related, this is number four, but you guys may be wondering on your dress shoes. Am I going to tear off the back of the dress shoe or the slip-on if I don’t have a shoe tree?
4. Use impromptu shoe trees.
Whenever I’m going through airport security, if I have a belt on, what I’ll use is the end of the belt as a shoe horn. If I don’t have that, then I can pull out a plastic card — not a credit card, but a plastic, maybe a membership card, or I don’t know, one from your local food store, and you can use that as a shoe tree as well.
I also do this when I’m traveling or I’m in a hotel because you don’t want to ruin the back of your shoe, so a little quick ninja trick there.
5. if you’re driving for a long distance, make sure to use the hook in the back.
I always take some hangers with me and I hang up my sports jackets. I do not wear my sports jacket when I’m sitting and driving in the car for a long distance.
Maybe from just around town, I’m not going to bother taking it off, but most of the time, if I’m going to be driving for more than a few minutes, I’ll take my jacket off and I’ll either hang it on the back or I’ve got a hanger there in which I can put it right on.
6. Carry and to use well-made luggage.
Now, why is this important? Because your luggage is protecting your clothing.
I’m a big fan of Blue Claw and Blue Claw, I think it was the story that — I’ve used this in one of my other videos.
We were crossing the United States and I had all of my clothing in a garment back made from ballistic nylon from Blue Claw.
No one shot at us or anything, but we did spill — we basically had a jar of maple syrup bust open and it was right there.
If it would’ve gone through my clothing that’s just been lying there, it would have ruined thousands of dollars worth of clothing.
Now, everything was protected because the garment bag was water-resistant, and so it just rolled right off. I didn’t have a problem. I let it dry and I was able to scrape it right off, so make sure you use luggage which will protect your clothing.
7. Luggage identification.
You want to make sure on the outside and on the inside you’re using some type of identification for your luggage. I don’t know if any of you guys have flown many times.
You’ve probably had your luggage lost and you want to give it as good of a chance — and I know some of you guys are thinking once that stuff is lost, it’s never going to be found. Well, I’d like to believe that having a good piece of identification on the outside and on the inside is going to increase the chances.
In fact, I’d like the outside identification tag to be brightly colored, the reason being when you see all of these dark luggage out there, you’re able to look for those bright identification pieces and you can zero in and identify your luggage from a farther distance off.
8. Carry on your luggage.
Now, a lot of us have started to do this because of the airlines charging baggage fees, but even before it was cool to do this.
I’ve always been a light traveler and I try to have everything in one bag so when I touch down, I’m not having to find the carousel or anything where the luggage is coming down.
I have possession of my bag, I can take it with me, and boom, hit the ground running.
So in order to do that was go to number nine, pack light.
Most of us don’t pack light. We think we are, but we’re often taking things that we don’t need to or we’re trying to wear a different set of clothing every single day. Instead, look to have an interchangeable wardrobe.
On this trip to Australia, I’ll be going for eight days. I can tell you everything is going to be on a midsized carry-on.
I’m going to take three jackets, three pairs of shoes — no, probably only two pairs of shoes, probably around five shirts, three pairs of trousers including the ones I’ll be wearing, and this includes actually everything I’m wearing.
The reason I’m able to do that is because everything is interchangeable.
Therefore, I’m going to show up there with about 25 to 30 different outfits that I could put together, and yes, I would probably wear the same jacket twice or the same trousers twice, maybe even the same shirt twice, but that’s fine.
No one’s going to notice. Just bring in a few extra pocket swears, a few ties and other accessories, and you’re going to be golden.
10. Learn how to pack your clothing properly.
A lot of people are always asking me, “How do you fold a jacket?” Well, you can fold a jacket, but that puts a hard crease on it.
I’m a big fan of rolling your jackets and rolling your shirts. Another quick little tip, which I won’t even count in there, is don’t iron your shirts before you go.
Actually, that leads to number 11.
11. Give yourself margin.
This is a new traveling tip that I have been using for the last year with great success, and that’s arrive at your destination early, leave late. Set it up so that you arrive 24 to 48 hours early and you leave 24 to 48 hours late. I know some of you guys are imagining like, “Well, I don’t have time for that.”
Well, you know what happens? Many of us, when we travel especially for business, we get back home and we work and we try to catch up, and that’s really to the detriment of our family, our kids who want to see us, or our wife.
Instead of doing that, how about you show up early, get work done so when you’re at the conference, you’re not constantly having to go back and check emails and do everything, but you can actually enjoy yourself at the conference.
And then when the conference or the event is completed, you stay for another day, possibly two, and you get all the work done that you missed so when you arrive home, you’re actually home, all right?
Those are the 11 tips. Hopefully you enjoyed them. Again, I’m going to link to 22 more, so go check out the article and definitely check out Lee Jeans, great company. I’m really proud to have them as a supporter of Real Men Real Style. That’s it, guys. I’ll see you in the next video.
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