The ending of this year has gone by really quickly in the past 2 months, and plenty of people are exhausted by the holiday festivities with New Year's Eve tonight, in no mood to travel. In this case I recommend some cozy activities at your destination from my own personal experiences. Off the grid, I recommend roasting some marshmallows for smores or just off the skewer and drinking some hot cocoa seasoned to your taste and I like little marshmallows in mine with some whip cream on top. For people who want to spend a few hours detoxing from tech and love to chat, I recommend singing some songs the old fashioned way and maybe telling fun stories of winters past. In the youtube video browsing category, I recommend binge-ing a few Britain's got talent acts, a few comedians/magicians/musicians from hearsay, and brainstorm what kinds of things inspire you to go out and do something. If you have time before going back to school or work after new years, I suggest trying something you haven't tried yet to a reasonable degree. In an urge to try more physically fit activities, my top 3 things I would try are bouldering, walking to any destination within an hour, and dancing. For the critically inclined creative outbursts of inspiration, I would try creating something that definitely requires thoughtfulness like a game, a story, or a new business idea. I wish everyone has a wonderful new year, because where I'm at, it's in 5 hours, so good luck everyone and stay cozy!
Thank you for reading Cozy Transit, article 3, and please recommend in the comments your own personal cozy touches and tips to your travel experiences in the Bay Area of California.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Saturday, October 20, 2018
Review of a Buzzfeed article featuring Travel Charts - Packing edition
I feel like this month, people are definitely transitioning over to holiday travel, which means more commuters who want a stress-less vacation and I have plenty of commentary on this Buzzfeed article featuring charts for travel tips, but this edition will focus on packing for just the first 3 charts for short-term travel. See the original Buzzfeed article here, for reference to accompany my commentary.
The first chart features the weekender/duffel bag to be used for 1-3 days, the carry-on for 3-14 days, and the extended trip for 15+ days. Now, in my experience, the weekender is larger than you give it credit for depending on the size, but sometimes you'd want to take advice of the second tip of deciding what to pack. If you want to try bringing maybe another two days worth of clothes, consider lighter hot weather clothes but for colder areas just bring heat packs that stick on the inside of your clothes or something similar you can get at Japanese stores like Ichiban kan, or Daiso and one warm jacket. Or to save on bringing another shirt bring a dress, and if that's not your style, try limiting your denim pants and thick materials and/or rolling your items separately, as mentioned from our third tip.
The next tip is don't over-pack, but as I see on this chart most of the questions are pretty much referencing non-clothes items, but are reasonably vague about it. If it's a gift, I would suggest shipping this back home or to the recipient instead of packing it in your bags. I do like the fact that they mention the fit inside the bag, where I would recommend vacuum bags where you can roll them up and compress them that way for clothes to make additional room, though the weight will still get heavier. The usefulness, and whether you can buy it in your destination, and whether its heavy and bulky is always good to think about, especially if its a perishable item like skin care, or bathroom products because the containers will always take up more room than what is inside them. The reason why the weight of your extra items are important is because in a weekender/duffel bag, the weight is constantly on your shoulders, and in a carry-on, when you drag it onto a rack, or up and down stairs, it will definitely make carrying it difficult. The bag fees most likely apply to more international travel, and for valuable or expensive things, I think following the advice for keeping them safe versus packing it is the best thing to do.
This third tip is teaching you to pack your luggage, and their main ideology is heavy things at the edges and bottom and lighter things gradually towards the center and the lightest would be layered on top. This is the tip that literally suggests using your clothing and soft items as rolled up packing material essentially between your shoes and jackets (your heavier items). It's not a bad idea in theory, but for people who use packing cubes to separate their items it's not practical to always fit the heavier cube on the outer edges, and people may not be comfortable with their clothes near their shoes in travel, and like to be sanitary. Packing cubes are a good alternative to not let things mix around during travel, though, vacuum bags may not always fit inside them, so try to look for fitting measurements first if you want to try that. If you're really tightly packing, and want to try this tip, be wary that things will still move around when you start to put on the clothes you've packed, and you'd want to put the laundry in a separate bag anyway and shuffle it into the free space. Also when deciding to tightly pack, the previous chart mentioned making space for souvenirs and other shopping, so it's helpful to keep that in mind.
Thank you for reading Cozy Transit, article 2, and please recommend in the comments your own personal cozy touches and tips to your travel experiences in the Bay Area of California.
The first chart features the weekender/duffel bag to be used for 1-3 days, the carry-on for 3-14 days, and the extended trip for 15+ days. Now, in my experience, the weekender is larger than you give it credit for depending on the size, but sometimes you'd want to take advice of the second tip of deciding what to pack. If you want to try bringing maybe another two days worth of clothes, consider lighter hot weather clothes but for colder areas just bring heat packs that stick on the inside of your clothes or something similar you can get at Japanese stores like Ichiban kan, or Daiso and one warm jacket. Or to save on bringing another shirt bring a dress, and if that's not your style, try limiting your denim pants and thick materials and/or rolling your items separately, as mentioned from our third tip.
The next tip is don't over-pack, but as I see on this chart most of the questions are pretty much referencing non-clothes items, but are reasonably vague about it. If it's a gift, I would suggest shipping this back home or to the recipient instead of packing it in your bags. I do like the fact that they mention the fit inside the bag, where I would recommend vacuum bags where you can roll them up and compress them that way for clothes to make additional room, though the weight will still get heavier. The usefulness, and whether you can buy it in your destination, and whether its heavy and bulky is always good to think about, especially if its a perishable item like skin care, or bathroom products because the containers will always take up more room than what is inside them. The reason why the weight of your extra items are important is because in a weekender/duffel bag, the weight is constantly on your shoulders, and in a carry-on, when you drag it onto a rack, or up and down stairs, it will definitely make carrying it difficult. The bag fees most likely apply to more international travel, and for valuable or expensive things, I think following the advice for keeping them safe versus packing it is the best thing to do.
This third tip is teaching you to pack your luggage, and their main ideology is heavy things at the edges and bottom and lighter things gradually towards the center and the lightest would be layered on top. This is the tip that literally suggests using your clothing and soft items as rolled up packing material essentially between your shoes and jackets (your heavier items). It's not a bad idea in theory, but for people who use packing cubes to separate their items it's not practical to always fit the heavier cube on the outer edges, and people may not be comfortable with their clothes near their shoes in travel, and like to be sanitary. Packing cubes are a good alternative to not let things mix around during travel, though, vacuum bags may not always fit inside them, so try to look for fitting measurements first if you want to try that. If you're really tightly packing, and want to try this tip, be wary that things will still move around when you start to put on the clothes you've packed, and you'd want to put the laundry in a separate bag anyway and shuffle it into the free space. Also when deciding to tightly pack, the previous chart mentioned making space for souvenirs and other shopping, so it's helpful to keep that in mind.
Thank you for reading Cozy Transit, article 2, and please recommend in the comments your own personal cozy touches and tips to your travel experiences in the Bay Area of California.
Monday, September 17, 2018
Samtrans has an App?
Every so often, I find there are special things that make your ride(s) anywhere all the more better for it, so be it traveling music to fun events to ride perks, I will recommend at my own discretion.
Yesterday, I found out there is a special promotion throughout the month of September 2018 (ends September 30th), to buy two tickets for the price of your first ticket from your credit/debit card paid to your phone and you just need to show your phone to the driver. Details are in this link: http://www.samtrans.com/fares/howtobuy/SamTransMobile.html
The promotion is useful if you only need two different buses to take for the day, or for two people one-way for any local areas serviced by Samtrans buses. In the long run, this is probably so everyone doesn't have to worry about losing their clipper card/getting extra money stuck on the card or not having exact change on them. I would also not say this retires the clipper card, because it still guarantees whatever change/cash you had on hand could be deposited onto the clipper card, but not waste all your money because the discount still applies to the clipper card, not the app. I personally wish all Caltrain stations would allow cash deposits onto your clipper card not just 4th/King station and Millbrae station.
Thank you for reading Cozy Transit, article 1, and please recommend in the comments your own personal cozy touches and tips to your travel experiences in the Bay Area of California.
Yesterday, I found out there is a special promotion throughout the month of September 2018 (ends September 30th), to buy two tickets for the price of your first ticket from your credit/debit card paid to your phone and you just need to show your phone to the driver. Details are in this link: http://www.samtrans.com/fares/howtobuy/SamTransMobile.html
The promotion is useful if you only need two different buses to take for the day, or for two people one-way for any local areas serviced by Samtrans buses. In the long run, this is probably so everyone doesn't have to worry about losing their clipper card/getting extra money stuck on the card or not having exact change on them. I would also not say this retires the clipper card, because it still guarantees whatever change/cash you had on hand could be deposited onto the clipper card, but not waste all your money because the discount still applies to the clipper card, not the app. I personally wish all Caltrain stations would allow cash deposits onto your clipper card not just 4th/King station and Millbrae station.
Thank you for reading Cozy Transit, article 1, and please recommend in the comments your own personal cozy touches and tips to your travel experiences in the Bay Area of California.
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