Ellen Byron

5 Handy-Dandy Travel Gadgets

Over the last few years, I’ve found myself on the road or in the air a lot for various professional and personal reasons. Since March, I’ve been in Wisconsin, Phoenix, New York, and Seattle. I leave a week from Thursday for Maryland and Malice Domestic.

Given how stressful traveling can be, I’m always on the hunt for gadgets that will the journey make easier. Since it’s convention season for us mystery writers – as you read this, I’m in Seattle marking time until my flight home from Left Coast Crime – I thought I’d share five of my top travel gaget go-to’s with you today.

1. Carry-on cup holder.

Have you ever found yourself in the annoying position of not having a free hand for your tea or coffee at the airport? This cup holder slips over your carry-on handle and not only offers space for two drinks, it has a pocket where you can stick your phone or paper ticket so you don’t have to search for either when you board the plane. Once you’ve boarded, you can slip the holder off, fold it up, and stick it in your carry-on. I saw one on a flight attendant’s carry-on and tracked one down for myself. (Note: flight attendants are a great source for useful travel gadgets.)

2. Luggage straps.

I usually travel with a backpack but sometimes at the end of a trip I find myself with a tote as well. That’s when I put the luggage strap I keep tucked away in my backpack to use. BTW, if you’re thinking, “Wait a minute, that’s more than the airline-mandated number of carry-on items,” you’re right. I’ve become an expert at condensing when I’m at the gate but if I can’t, I opt for the free gate check option. With so many travelers pushing the carry-on limits to avoid luggage fees, most flights are happy to gate check one of your bags.

3. Flexible phone stand.

I received this as a gift from a friend. It’s very bendy, so you can use it as a stand, then flatten it for easy storage in a bag. Handy on a plane or in a hotel room! Check it out here.

4. Spare tote bag.

Lovebags.com makes the most beautiful and useful bags. They’re crafted from 100% recycled plastic and come with a lifetime guarantee. I’m so addicted to their grocery bags I give them as gifts, and every lucky recipient has raved about them.

They call their portable totes Stash-its because you can stash them easily – they take up no room at all – and call them up for duty when required. You never know when you’re going to need an extra bag on the road and these are beyond portable. I can’t tell you how many po’boys have made the journey home from New Orleans in my Stash-it.

5. Portable luggage scale.

Behold the latest addition to my travel arsenal. I bought this because I needed to transport a few heavy pieces from my late mom’s condo via suitcase, not shipping. It also occurred to me the scale would come in handy for packing at the end of a con when you’re loaded up with books – or in my case, making sure the suitcase stuffed with promo materials for Left Coast is at or under weight. Thanks to the scale, I knew my promo suitcase clocked in at 29.9 lbs.

If you’re at Malice or Bouchercon and fear you’ve maxed out your airline’s luggage weight limit, give me a call and I’ll pop over to weigh your suitcase!

A few final travel tips…

Always pack doubles of your meds and keep them in your carry-on bags. I was so glad I followed my own rule when Hurricane Ida up-ended all my travel plans and I wound up in Texas way past my original departure date. As to keeping meds in your carry-on, remember that giant Southwest Airlines baggage snafu a few years ago when luggage piled up by the ton in airports across America? People who’d packed their meds in checked baggage found themselves in big trouble.

Think twice about using third-party travel websites. I’ve only used a site like Expedia once and it was a hundred percent not worth the hassle. First of all, if you have a problem, you can’t deal with the source – airline, hotel – directly. You have to go through the site where you booked. Plus, airlines and hotels have wised up. Nine out of ten times they offer the same prices on their own websites as the travel sites do. In fact, you can often find cheaper prices booking directly from a source’s site. On my recent hotel stay in New York, I heard a desk clerk trying to help a customer on the phone with what the traverl thought was an overcharge. The clerk wound up directing the man back to the site where he’d booked the stay and then confided in me that the charge was the “resort fee” his company charges the third-party apps. This was for a hotel in Midtown Manhattan – there was no resort in sight for miles.

One last thing… if you’re looking to book through a source’s website, make sure you’re actually at that specific site. Companies spend a fortune to optomize their position at the top of a search, so you may find that instead of booking at beautifulhotel.com, you’ve booked at beautifulhotel.reservationcounter.com.

Readers, do you have any travel tips? Share them with us!

39 thoughts on “5 Handy-Dandy Travel Gadgets”

  1. I have become quite adept at packing the same amount of clothing into my smaller suitcase as my large, old one. Roll anything that doesn’t wrinkle – don’t fold and stack it. You don’t think it saves space, it does.

    My airline of choice is Southwest and I always book through their site.

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  2. I love that carry-on cupholder! I am afraid I don’t have any tips because actually packing everything on my list seems difficult enough for me lol. The organization gene seemed to skip me somehow.

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  3. El, what a perfectly timed post! I plan to order a few of these handy items–the drink holder and bendy thing for sure! (I’m already a fan of those expandable totes. They’ve saved my life on multiple occasions.) Before every trip, I swear I’ll pack ahead of time–but you can always find me late the night before–and sometimes hours before I leave the house–throwing items into my bag(s) willy-nilly. (Shoes–aargh!!) To make things more fun, I also often travel the East Coast via Amtrak (that’s how I’ll get to Malice from NH after a bus to Boston). Have to admit, when booking flights lately, I’ve checked to see if I can get an Airbus instead of Boeing. I know, that may be overboard, but it makes me feel better.

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        1. Jen, I do try to create a list before I start dragging stuff out of closets and drawers. It’s the “what-ifs” re: weather that always get me, I think. But also…I need 100% focus when I’m packing under pressure. Otherwise…sigh.

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  5. Such great tips, Ellen! I especially love that cup holder!

    My travel tip is that once you’ve decided on all the clothes you’ll need for your trip, remove at least a third of them and put them back in the drawer or hanger: you can get by with a lot less clothing than you think you need.

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    4. For our upcoming trip, I booked a hotel that has do-it-yourself laundry facilities for guests. We stayed there 2 years ago, and if I had known, I could have reduced the amount of clothes we had packed. This hotel I booked directly, since we had stayed before and liked it (a budget chain, but decent, and in a good central location for reaching our friends and family).

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  6. Love that carry-on cup holder! With as much traveling as I’ve done in my life, I should have a ton of tips, but I only have one: travel light.

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  10. Aaaaaaaaaaand…add to cart.

    Such great ideas, Ellen! And I literally added that cupholder to my cart. GENIUS idea.

    Lots of great travel tips here. I used to bring clothespins if I knew I’d be doing a few hand-washables and wanted an easy way to dry. I could clip several items onto hotel room hangers and voila!

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  12. Money belt – just like Rick Steves advocates. Worn under your clothes. Only keep a small amount of cash out of the money belt and in your pockets or another convenient location for quick access.

    Not a gadget but advice: Sometimes there are signs posted that say “Beware of pickpockets.” Oftentimes those signs are posted by pickpockets. Most people read the sign and then reach to verify that they still have their money. Now the pickpocket knows exactly where your money is kept and you’re an easy mark.

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  14. All of these tips are great. One I’d add is that large freezer (think heavy-duty) ziplock baggies can be used instead of storage cubes. You can put anything in them (dirty shoes, a wet bathing suit, your tees, all your socks, etc) and then just zip leaving just a little opening and then suck out all the air. They keep things organized and save so much space. And you can throw in a few extras just in case!

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  15. My favorite is my portable safe. It has a combination lock and a kryptonite cable that I usually connect to the bed frame (not a leg of the bed), so it can’t be removed. We store spare cash, passports, etc. in it.

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  17. I always book directly at the hotel I am going to stay at or on the airline. I had issues with one of those sites, so I just quit using them. Usually, you can say to the hotel (after they give you a price), well kayak or whatever can do it for this, and they usually match it or do better. I also have AAA or AARP that gets discounts. The latest trick that I use is I pack all of the things I am taking for the trip and not going to need right away in a box and mail FedEx directly to the place I am staying–hotel or friend’s house. It costs less than checking a bag and gets there in two days. Then I mail it back the same way. If you can’t mail it back and now you don’t have a suitcase, go to a goodwill store and pick one up cheap or buy an igloo ice chest and pack it and check it as baggage if need be. I carry a small bag on with essentials, meds, my laptop, kindle, etc. I always have a backpack and put my purse in it with whatever else I need and that way I don’t get caught with too many bags. My luggage came with extra straps for hooking extra things. I also always pack a tote if needed.

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