Green - Last-minute travel secrets : 121 ingenious tips to endure cramped planes, car trouble, awful hotels, and other trips from Hell

The author has conducted all the travel secrets in this book and has made every reasonable effort to ensure that the travel secrets are safe when conducted as instructed. However, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any liability for damages caused or injury sustained from conducting these travel secrets.

A responsible adult should supervise any young reader who conducts the travel secrets in this book to avoid potential danger or injury.

Copyright 2016 by Joey Green

All rights reserved

Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 978-1-61373-504-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Green, Joey, author.

Title: Last-minute travel secrets : 121 ingenious tips to endure cramped planes, car trouble, awful hotels, and other trips from Hell /Joey Green.

Description: Chicago, Illinois : Chicago Review Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015049814 (print) | LCCN 2016004778 (ebook) | ISBN 9781613735046 (paperback) | ISBN 9781613735053 (PDF edition) | ISBN 9781613735077 (EPUB edition) | ISBN 9781613735060 (Kindle edition)

Subjects: LCSH: TravelMiscellanea. | BISAC: TRAVEL / Reference. | REFERENCE / Handbooks & Manuals.

Classification: LCC G151 .G735 2016 (print) | LCC G151 (ebook) | DDC 910dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015049814

Cover and interior design: Andrew Brozyna, AJB Design Inc.

Cover and interior layout: Jonathan Hahn

Printed in the United States of America

5 4 3 2 1

Love many, trust few, and learn to paddle your own canoe.

Unknown

W hen my wife, Debbie, and I backpacked around the world for two years on our honeymoon, we learned to travel with two aerosol cans in our backpacks: disinfectant, to freshen the air in the musty hotel rooms, train compartments, and ship cabins; and insecticide, to ward off any six-legged pests.

One night, after a 10-hour bus ride across the Indonesian island of Flores, we checked into the last available room in Hotel Lila Graha, a dismal budget inn that our guidebook called the saving grace of the town. Debbie immediately misted the room with disinfectant, and I sprayed insecticide under the two single beds and into the drain in the middle of the bare concrete floor in the bathroom. We went out for dinner, and upon returning to the room, Debbie opened the bathroom door, flicked on the light, and discovered more than 30 cockroaches flipped on their backs across the floor, some dead, others flailing their legs. How could we possibly sleep in this room?

We pushed the two beds together in the center of the room and set up our self-standing igloo tent on top of the mattresses so we could sleep inside it, elevated from the floor, in the comfort of our own sleeping bags.

While our night in Indonesia might seem extreme, nothing tests your ability to live by your wits like travel. Even if youre traveling just for the weekend to a resort hotel, youll still be confronted by unexpected challenges. But with a little ingenuity and resourcefulness, you can put everyday items to use in unconventional ways to prevail over any unforeseen travel contingency, like how to find your car in a parking lot with a water bottle, fix a broken luggage wheel with duct tape, and incapacitate a hijacker with a pot of coffee.

In this book, youll discover how to make a pair of slippers from maxi pads, improvise noise-canceling headphones with a tennis ball, and seal hotel curtains shut with clothes hangers. Youll find step-by-step instructions on how to waterproof a map with hairspray, store valuables in a shaving cream can, and lock a suitcase with a paper clip. Youll learn how to hide valuables in a comfy chair, turn a trash can into a toilet with a pool noodle, grease a car axle with vegetable oil, uncork a wine bottle with a sneaker, and heat up a frozen TV dinner on a car manifold.

How did I come up with these unorthodox travel secrets? While backpacking around the world, Debbie and I repaired the mosquito netting on our tent door with dental floss. During our seven-day train journey from Moscow to Beijing aboard the Trans-Siberian express, I mastered the art of giving myself a shower using a water bottle. While hiking through the Andes Mountains in Peru, we lubricated the zippers on our sleeping bags with lip balm. While driving across the United States, I cleaned our cloudy headlights with toothpaste and scraped ice from the windshield with a spatula. Weve snuck liquor aboard a cruise ship using food coloring and an empty mouthwash bottle. While driving an RV down the east coast of Australia, we cleaned road grime from the windshield with a can of Coca-Cola. Ive insulated camper windows with Bubble Wrap, washed my clothes with a salad spinner, kept toilet paper dry with a CD spindle, silenced a dripping sink in a creepy hotel room with dental floss, dried wet hiking boots with newspaper, improvised earplugs with tampons, and slept in a corner of an airport waiting area with a newspaper. When the going gets tough, the tough get inventive. As Teddy Roosevelt said, When youre at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.

Incidentally, we never informed the Indonesian hotel owner about the swarm of dead cockroaches on the bathroom floor. When we checked out the next morning, Debbie noticed a teenage houseboy entering our room to clean it. Perturbed, he fetched the owner to show him the murder scene. The owner merely shrugged his shoulders and nonchalantly returned to the front desk of the saving grace of the town.

While preparing to travel to the Amazon jungle, I asked a Vietnamese emigrant working in a camping store in New York City if the store sold mosquito nets.

Buy it when you get there, he advised.

But what if they dont sell mosquito nets in the Amazon?

He laughed. Believe me, he said, the people in the Amazon dont like mosquitoes any more than you do.

• Safety goggles
• Can of shaving cream, 10 ounces
• Work gloves
• Safety can opener
• Water
• Sandpaper, 220 grit
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun
• PVC coupling, 1-inch ABS DWV H H
• Sheet of foam rubber with adhesive backing

Wearing safety goggles, empty the shaving cream and as much pressurized gas as possible from the shaving cream can by pressing the nozzle until the can is completely empty. Do not attempt to cut into the can if it contains shaving cream, otherwise the pressurized can may explode, producing metal shrapnel.

Wearing safety goggles and work gloves, and working outdoors, use the safety can opener to carefully open the bottom of the empty shaving cream can. Make the initial puncture at the back of the can, in case the can opener makes a small dent in the metal. When you first puncture the can, the remaining pressurized gas in the can may squirt a small amount of shaving cream from the hole.

Carefully rinse out the can with water,