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Cramming holiday baggage to the limit? Packing techniques from a pro.
From cycling in Europe on two panniers a day and other experiences, Anne McAlpin brings travel tricks such as threading a necklace through a straw.
By Jennifer Margulis | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the December 18, 2007 edition
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Ashland, Ore. - There are titters, actual titters, from the audience when Anne McAlpin models one of her favorite packing tips: Thread a necklace through a plastic drinking straw and pack it in a toothbrush holder to avoid kinks. I see several white-haired ladies in the packed downtown Ashland travel store fidget as if they want to go right home and try the idea. I know I do.
This is the Martha Stewart of travel – she can make you feel like a real lummox for arriving at your final destination with fold-marks in your clothes, for that last-minute shoe panic on the way out the door, for not having the sense to pack a toothbrush and underwear in your carry-on in spite of all the travel horror stories you've read about.
And yet, her solutions to these problems somehow (a necklace-stuffed-straw, for goodness' sake!) inspire you to think you can effortlessly hit the road perfectly unmussed – just like Martha Stewart's soothing ideas make slobs imagine they can reform.
"There are people here who have seen her five times," says Steven Frazier-Rice, Ashland's Travel Essentials store manager and host of her talk. "She has so much travel experience, she knows what she's talking about."
"I still get excited every time I get on a plane," Ms. McAlpin says. "That travel bug. It's just an inherent thing you've got in you. I'll keep doing this as long as I can keep moving.
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Much of her advice seems to verge on the obvious. Like the admonishment to familiarize yourself with the Transportation Security Administration website: www.tsa.gov, which is updated regularly, because regulations change so fast (3-1-1 is the new rule for liquids in carry-ons: no more liquid than can fit in 3-ounce containers, and as many containers as will fit in 1 quart-size ziplock bag, 1 bag per traveler). And some of her advice seems to verge on the impossible: The brilliant tip to pack women's shoes inside men's shoes sounds good, but how do you do it when your companion hasn't decided what to bring yet?
But somehow there's comfort in a list, a command, an innovation to make you feel "all set to go," whether you're headed to a tame but costly cruise or to an off-the-grid corner of the world.
One of the titterers at McAlpin's travel-store talk is 70-something Julia Burns who is on her way to Japan with a peace choir and came to find out how to make the trip go smoothly. "They have a lot of new inventions to make travel easier," she whispers as we watch McAlpin. "If you have the money to buy them.
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In a time of heightened airport security and changing regulations, McAlpin makes it her business to be on top of government requirements as well as the latest gadgets and gear that makes meeting those requirements easier.
When she couldn't find the travel gear she needed for her own voyages, she started a line of products that you never knew you needed – a change purse to hold three kinds of currency; a packing board to keep clothes unwrinkled; a travel towel that doubles as a blanket for the plane.
Her most important advice for holiday season travel, she says, is to check that TSA website. And don't wrap the gifts you bring in your checked or carry-on luggage, because airport security might unwrap them. If you're not a last-minute shopper (like me), McAlpin suggests sending gifts ahead by snail mail to avoid airport hassles. If you do travel with gifts, it's better to keep them with you in your carry-on. That way if your bag gets lost, you'll still have them. And on the subject of carry-ons, McAlpin tells the audience it's essential to have one on wheels. "We only have one back and one neck," she says. "We need to protect them."
Because passengers are allowed one carry-on bag and one personal item, McAlpin suggests making the most of the "personal item" by carrying a large tote (preferably one that can slip on top of the rolling carry-on bag) and stowing an even smaller bag inside the tote.
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