Jet lag happens when you cross time zones while travelling. Symptoms of jet lag include headaches, insomnia, difficulty waking up, upset stocmach, loose of coordination and concentration and anxiety. This can truly ruin your vacation or your relaxing trip back home. To get the mostout of your flight, here are some tips on dealing with jet lag.

When you land, allow one day of rest per time zone crossed to recover fully from jet lag. Take into consideration the destination of your trip. Traveling eastward is much tiring than travelling westward since you are pshing your body clock ahead. Adjust th rest time accordingly.

Consider how jet lag can affect you when booking your flight. It is advisable to book an early morning flight when travelling eastward while a late afternoon to evening flight is recommended for westward travel.

Have a good night’s sleep during a long flight or once you have reached your destination. This will help readjust your body clock to the destination timezone. If you cannot sleep during the flight, have some prescription sleep pills with you during the flight.

Prepare for the shift in timezone days before your flight. Consider going to bed at a different time depending on the time zone of your destination. Have a watch that is in sync with the time of your destination and try to schedule your activities around that time.

Camping is a great activity that can be enjoyed by both kids and adults as long as they have the adventure streak and the adrenaline rush to pull it off. You may be well-prepared for the trip complete with the outdoor activities and the emergency supplies but it can all be wasted with a poor campsite. After all, the campsite will determine how much well-rested you are during the trip. For a more enjoyable camping experience, here are some tips in choosing a campsite.

Check your campsite option for any warning signs of poor living conditions. If a waterline exists near the campsite or there are less vegetation in the area, relocate to a potentially drier location. Even if the skies are clear, unexpected rainfall can immediately turn your campsite to an underwater base camp. Also, avoid meadows and mossy areas for your campsite. Water usually collects on meadows and moss usually absorbs water like a sponge.

Confirm with the local weather report if there’ll be any thunderstorms and heavy rainfall on your chosen campsite on the day of your trip. You can opt to move your trip to a latter date but if postponement is not an option, be ready to make your tent more water-resistant for the heavy rainfall. As for thunderstorms, ensure that the campsite is not the tallest object within the vicinity.

To decrease the chances of insects and bugs on the campsite, avoid pitching tents near lakes and ponds. Setup the tent before evening since this is the time when insects are most active. You’ll be able to locate the highest density of insects at this time. Also, choose a location where you can dispose of left-over food immediately and with less hassle so that insects will not be lured in to your campsite.

Traveling by car with infants, toddlers or children are not an easy task. Seatbelts are not enough to secure the safety of the young ones especially even on bumpy roads, sharp turns and near accidents. Because of these hazards, car safety seats are invented to ensure the safety of your children whereever you go. However, not all cars and safety seats are created equal. Here are some tips on care safety seats.

Acquire a car safety seat even if the baby is not yet born. A safety seat should be available on the very first car ride of an infant. Hospitals usually provide car safety seats to their pregnant patients. These free car sfety seats are either free or purchased at a lower cost. If your hospital does not have this service, buy a car safety seat immediately before your infant’s first car ride home.

When canvassing safety seats, bring your car and your child along to test the possible candidates. Or better yet, ask the salesperson if you can return the safety seat if your child cannot fit into the safety seat or he is not comfortable while seated on it. Make sure that the car seat that you’ll buy is appropriate to your child’s height and weight and can accommodate thick coats and other clothes.

When out buying a new car, bring the safety seat with you. Opt for cars that allow provisions for your baby safety seats. If you are going to rent a car, call in advance if there are car models that adjust to the car safety seat. Don’t ever force the safety seat to the car and vice versa.

Remember this seating arrangement for your child: always have your child seated at the back seat. Infants less than a year old should face backward while older babies and toddlers are seated forward to avoid motion sickness. Have at least one other adult seated at the back to watch over the child.

Healthy food can be hard to find while on vacation especially if you haven’t visited the vacation spot before. Most of the readily available food are fast food. And we all know these are not exactly the prime example of healthy food. For a more healthy eating experience even while on vacation, here are some tips that you should keep in mind.

If your baggage permits, bring lots of water, fruits and low-calorie snacks with you during your trip. This will prevent you from potentially snacking on junk food when you feel hungry in between meals. Load up on water, fruits and fruit juices, pretzels and crackers. You can stop over at any supermarket while on the road if ever you forget anything.

Opt to eat big meals at midday instead of dinner time. This will keep you recharged and refueled for the day’s activities. Also, it will give you a chance to ditch the hot midday sun.

Keep your itinerary full and avoid very long breaks. Long periods of inactivity promotes boredom and this makes eating more inviting than just sitting still. Bring along books, magazines or small puzzles that can keep you entertained if you don’t have anything planned or if you are still in transit.

You can still sample the local dishes without having to forego your diet. Share an entree with a travel companion if a dish is high in fat or calories. You can also ask the restaurant for a smaller portion of the dish you ordered. As another alternative, take some small packets of herbs with you and ask the server to prepare your chosen food without the salt. Season your dish with the packet herbs to your desired taste.

Thanks to a history of unions and labor laws, companies today provide at least a week of vacation time a year. However, if you’re like most stressed out people, you’d probably want just a bit more downtime to recharge and relax. Here’s how to ask your company for more.

Timing is key. You wouldn’t want to ask for it after a poor performing year for the company or if you messed up. The best time to ask for it would be after a winning year for the company, after a solid performance review or after a key accomplishment on your part.

Set a meeting with your manager. Most forward-thinking managers are open to rewarding their better performing employees. An additional week of vacation isn’t too much to ask if you’ve put up uncharged overtime hours to work on a successful item for your project or key assignment (and your manager’s aware of it). Use the list of excellent reasons to persuade your manager why you deserve the extra time off.

Keep in mind that this may be a trade off. Since this is basically negotiation, you might have to enter the discussion with some form of ante. Be prepared to give up some other incentive (a bonus or even a raise) to get extra time off since all incentives cost your company money. So make sure you know what you’d rather have.

Cite what’s in it for your company. Since persuasion often calls for citing what’s in it for the other party, cite  what further benefits can you give to the company after an extended time off.

Motion sickness can be a real downer especially during long road trips. Good news is, you can prepare your body to become familiar with motion so that you can enjoy your trip more. Some simple exercises and movements known to prevent dizziness can also prevent possible motion sickness. Before your next trip, try these simple exercises to get your body accustomed to movement.

Play with a tennis ball or any other round object. Toss it from one hand to the other hand and let your eyes follow the movement of the object. This will help you be familiar and comfortable with moving objects in repeated circular motion. Also, this will help prevent any uneasiness when you quickly shift your vision from one side to another.

Try this exercise as a variation to the first one and if you don’t have any small object to toss around. Look up for a few seconds and then down. Repeat. Start slowly and then pick up some speed. After you have reached a fast and steady pace, do the exercise again — this time looking from left to right.

Sit comfortably on a chair and then stand up straight. Repeat this several times until you get hang of the feeling. As soon as you get used to this repeated movement, challenge yourself and do this exercise while keeping your eyes closed. Hold on to the arm rest if you need support until you don’t need to any longer.

On a clear 10-foot path, walk back and forth frst with your eyes open and then eyes closed. Do this beside a wall or a sofa so that you can hold onto it for support.

As the old cliche goes, the more the merrier. This also holds true even while traveling. Not only will you get to enjoy the new sights around you, but you can also take pleasure in the large company that you are with, whether they may be work colleagues, friends or extended relatives. Of course traveling with a large group can also have its challenges and pitfalls. Here are some tips on traveling in lare groups to ensure a successful vacation.

Meet together before the vacation and agree on a rough itinerary. If your vacation’s only for a few days, decide on a prioriy list of all the tourist spots and activities that you should see and do. This will ensure that all of you will get to see all the places that you plan to visit in the first place.

Book your tickets and hotel reservations early. The idea is for all of you to travel as one big cohesive unit. It will be pretty disorienting if one has a latter flight than the others or if someone will be staying in a hotel that is a few blocks away from the majority. It will be difficult to coordinate with everyone if you have to always wait for an outlier. To ensure that everyone will be traveling on the same time and staying in the same place, book everything as early as possible. You might even score a substantial discount as an added bonus.

Consider pooling in an amount of money for your meal pot. This will be the money used when eating in restaurants where menus come in group meals and large ala carte dishes. All of you will not have to worry on how to divide the expenses equally and who should pay for a particular share. This can also be used to buy snacks for everyone in between meals. It can also come in handy in foreign trips since most of you might not have change in that particular currency to divide the price of the meal equally.

Allot around two to three hours or individual sight seeing and shopping. Not everyone would want to shop for the same thing at the same stall at the same time. Just decide on an exact meeing time and spot and let everyone roam around to their their own personal thing.

Air travel should’ve been one of the landmark developments in modern life. It meant that going to places far away (overseas) doesn’t mean spending weeks floating around the ocean. However, modern air travel sure caused another set of problem – booking, flight schedules, airports, and airport security. Air travel has become so complex that you’d wonder if turn-of-the-century sea travel was better. Here are some ideas on how to make air travel just a bit less stressful.

Plan for your destination. Book your flight early to avoid the hassle of not getting seats. If it’s overseas, then make sure you have all the proper documentation and identification.

Wear comfortable clothes. You will be standing in line for the many routine processes and checks in the airport so try to be more comfortable with what you wear. If you need not be in business clothing, go for comfortable casual wear, especially with the shoes.

Pack to get through security. Make sure you avoid bringing anything that will arouse suspicion of aviation security. Airlines have different policies regarding check-in baggage sizes and weights so know those too and make sure that your luggage are within the specified sizes and weights.

Arrive at the airport early. You’ll be going through a lot so you don’t want to gamble on missing boarding your flight just because you decided to take your sweet time getting there.

Bring something to amuse yourself. A book is always a good thing to bring. Many airports now have wi-fi. If you have digital devices that can connect to the internet via wi-fi, feel free to use them to pass the time.

Kids tend to be exceptionally restless during flights, boat trips and road trips. No one could really blame them, though. Some of us would really be bored out of our wits if we sit in the same seat for hours and looking at the same scenery as they go by. Travel games can be a great way to keep everyone distracted from the dull and boring travel. Here are some ideas for travel games for the kids and the young at heart.

Have a pre-determined object or animal that each of you will count for the whole duration of the trip. The person that end up with the highest number wins. Add an challenging twist to the game by allowing each one to “steal” a point from the other if they see the object that the oter is supposed to be counting. This game will force everyone to be observant on the scenery outside.

If you are cruising along the highway with other vehicles, think of words or phrases using the letters and numbers of the license plates that you see. For example GRP 808 can either stand for grapes of Great Rich Pirates. You can take about 10 to 15 minutes just making a list for that one single license plate.

Guessing games are always a sure way to pass by the time. One person can think of a place or an event and everyone will guess which one he is thinking about by asking random questions. Make the game more difficult by only asking questions that are answerable by yes or no or limit the number of questions to be asked.

You can hold another guessing game wherein everyone will guess the reading on the odometer once you reach the final destination. You can even add some mini-destinations to the guessing game so that there can be more winners and others can freely change their guesses before the final odometer reading.

Vacations may not come as cheap these days with the accommodations and travel expenses that go with it. The drawback is that you only get to stay for a few nights and for many who are looking for a real getaway, a few nights isn’t enough to recover from it all. The solution? A vacation rental.

While a longer stay would definitely mean more expenses in total, going for a rental rather than staying in a hotel would be considerably cheaper especially if you have the whole family in tow.

You have to definitely research beforehand. Check your destination. Are there residential areas in your area of interest? If so, what kinds of neighborhoods are they? Do you have to take transport? What kind are available? What are the schedules?

Check out places for rent. Just like hotel-hunting, apartment hunting would depend on your budget. Most places for tourism have furnished places for short-term renters. You’d be surprised that a lot of companies own properties in these areas for their own seasonal use that they rent out during their off-seasons.

As for internet postings, don’t trust the pictures. Most people post the best looking photos (or old photos) to attract renters. If it’s impossible for you to actually visit (and it’s most likely impractical), call the lessor/property manager up and ask if you do a video call so you can get a virtual tour.

Know the costs. Usually you’d be asked to pony up a deposit since you’re basically renting. If you’re renting overseas, be prepared to pay using local currency so factor in exchange rates as well.

Factor in the housework. Since you’re renting, you might have to do some of the chores on your own. Ask your lessor if there would probably be cleaning and cooking services. Those would be added expense so better factor those in.