There and Back Again — Our best transportation tips

The good news for VaVenturers is that today, not only is the world is more accessible but every other aspect of your trip is more flexible and easier to plan, compare, book and cancel then ever before.

You’ll discover that overall, there are more and more interesting, newly accessible places to visit for the VaVenturer — where you don’t need a backpack, a Youth Hostel membership and cans of tuna and where you’ll find hotel and airbnb options, good food and a satisfying sense of breaking new ground without roughing it. Check out our destinations section.

Planes

Chances are, pretty much anywhere you want to go is at least one plane ride away from your home. At the same time, as airline booking algorithms get better, its getting harder to book cheap seats at the last minute.

So — the annoying reality is you’re increasingly going to end up locking in a destination and ticket, long before you do any other planning.

But its not all bad news.

New tools are making it easier then ever to think and plan outside the destination options you already know.

Kayak, for example, now has a pretty cool “explore the world” feature on the home page. It shows you on a real time map, best fares for a selected date range to anywhere in the world. Its a great way to find somewhere new.

VaVenturing Tips — Travel Tech

Headphones — whatever you do, don’t fly with wireless pods — we’ve been on too many flights where passengers and crew are frantically ripping out seat cushions and looking under seats for lost buds. Bottom line — wireless buds and crowded economy cabins don’t mix well!

• For those flights where you really need to get some quality shut eye — we’ve come up with a neat earphone trick that lets you continue to use your favorite wired buds (which we far prefer for sleeping over headphones) even if your new smartphone no longer has a headphone jack. You can buy a $15.00 clip on bluetooth adapter that lets your buds operate wirelessly over a bluetooth connection with your phone and, in our tests, easily holds 6 — 8 hours juice. The sound is great, you get all the benefits of not having wires trailing around your seat — and you can continue to use your perfectly fine $20 earbuds.

Scouted and purchased at the New York Times Travel Show — The Dream Sling — a new kind of travel pillow that incorporates an arm sling to perfectly position the headrest portion and keep your arms in a sleeping position away from the armrests.

Seems like a really cool idea. Feels like a hammock. We’ll be testing and reviewing on our next flight!