Episode Transcript
Intro This is words that move me, the podcast where movers and shakers like you get the information and inspiration you need to navigate your creative career with clarity and confidence. I am your host, master mover, Dana Wilson. And if you're someone that loves to learn, laugh and is looking to rewrite the starving artists story, then sit tight. But don't stop moving because you're in the right place.
Dana:
Hello and welcome back everybody. This is episode seven. Holy smokes. So much fun. Really digging the podcast, really digging, seeing what you guys are up to out there with your daily doing. Um, daily creativity is the name of the game. This episode, however, is going to focus on something that I get a lot of comments and questions about and that is travel. So moving but moving around the world, I get a lot of questions and comments from people asking for tips and tricks and how often I travel. Um, I would ballpark and say I travel, you know, probably get 20 to 40 ins and outs of airports every year, but that depends on my gigs. That depends on, um, if I'm on tour or working a really strong convention season or if I'm working on a film or something longterm, I'm probably not traveling quite as much, but ballpark 20 to 40 ins and outs of airports, that is a lot. This podcast in particular is going to focus on a convention weekend type of travel. That's a carry on. That's a couple of days. That is intense. Yes, I will be talking about things that I love for sure, but I'm mostly going to talk about the way that I operate and why, but for those of you interested in hearing more about specific items that I talk about in this podcast, go to my show notes for this episode thedanawilson.com/podcasts and there you will find links to my Words that Move Me Amazon shopping list where you'll find all of my favorite things and little comments about why I love them. Okay, so let's get into it. I like to travel light, but I really like to have all the things, so I wind up traveling kind of heavy. When I'm traveling for a convention weekend, I try to go carry on only, so that means I bring one roll aboard and one backpack. My roll aboard, by the way, is spray painted with my initials, REAL BIG because it's one of those roller boards that looks like everybody else's. So now mine has a gigantic D W on the front and on the back, which makes for very easy retrieval if it has to get checked. And I think it's super chic and funky, which pretty much explains my fashion and my function. Now on a travel day, I try to wear my biggest items that makes more room in the bag and more warmth on the plane. I'm one of those types that gets cold on airplanes. If you see me at an airport, you will probably see me wearing fatigues, like my big army cargo pants. Wearing those through TSA practically guarantees a pat down, which I'm so not mad at. It's kind of like a free shiatsu massage and no, I don't ever get a private screening, but I've essentially another carry on worth of stuff in my pockets. What's in my pockets? You might ask the essentials, you know, wallet, phone, AirPods, um, Burt's Bees pomegranate chapstick. I love a pen or a pencil, my fire incident report all weather notebook and floss. I cannot think or speak or dance. If I have something in my teeth. It's very important, always carry floss. And almost always pretty much always hand lotion because I'm really grumpy when I have dry skin and I prefer to not be grumpy. My favorite hand lotion by the way, does come in a travel size and it is called skin food by Weleda, which I think I'm saying that correctly. Not sure. Anyways, that's what's on me. Here's what's in my bag.
In my suitcase for a convention weekend, I will need to have two dressy outfits. For me, it's really the little things that make an outfit dressy and when traveling that is super convenient. For example, earrings, rings, scarves, lipstick, a headband, I recently got into headbands ever since I cut my hair. And as I say that out loud, I'm realizing those are almost exclusively lady type hacks. I would love to hear what my gentleman do for quick outfit upgrades. That doesn't require a garment bag. Seriously though, I'm curious. Leave me a message on Instagram or the website because I would love to know. Okay, so that does it for the dressy outfits. Let's talk sweaty dance times. Typically three classes a day for two days. I go through three shirts a day, so that's six shirts and then just pants, you know, standard pants. I can move in, which unfortunately are usually kind of big, so you'd be surprised. The carry on gets full fast. Okay. Then I'm going to need a dance shoe and a dressy shoe. Dressy shoes for me are anything from a loafer to a combat boot. On a weekend I'll probably wear my combat boots on a travel day and maybe I'll pack a dressy flat. I'm typically not found wearing heels on convention weekends. It's not because I don't love them, it's because they take up more room in a suitcase and because I don't really love ‘em. I mean they're okay. They really, they're good looking. But I'm not really about being good looking on convention weekends. I'm about being high functioning. Okay. So let's keep it pushing the socks get stuffed into the shoes and the shoes get stuffed into little plastic shower caps that they sometimes give you, um, for free at hotels. This is a hack by the way that I got.
Thanks to my mom. Shout out mom. Mom, you're going to get a shout out on every episode. By the way, my mom was a flight attendant for many, many years. She started training with United airlines three days after she turned 20, which was in 1972 and then she retired in 2015 so math, that's several trips she knows what she's doing and she introduced me this little shower cap, shoe bag hack. Now I do want to say I try to not use all the plastics out there, but when I do, I re use them, as shoe bags. Almost always. Sometimes I use those weird grocery bags as shoe bags too. Anyways, the socks go in the shoes, the shoes go in the shower caps. Sports bras get tucked in between items and undies go in their very own mesh bag because God forbid I am living a movie and my zipper breaks open and my intimates go flying all over the airport. It could happen but it won't because mesh bags.
All right, final note on what's in the roll aboard. I just have to say, cause I know there's a lot of conversation about this out there. Always be rolling. If you listened to episode two I mentioned always be rolling in terms of recording, like capturing with a camera. Always be rolling, but this applies here too. A fold is a waste of space, trust me, always be rolling. Okay. That's what's in my roll aboard. Let's move on to the backpack. You can probably hear in my voice, I have feelings about backpacks. I could talk about backpacks for a very long time. I could probably start a spinoff podcast where I just talk about backpacks. I'm trying really hard to keep this not a backpack review. This is a travel podcast. Please. Dana, please don't spend the whole episode talking about your backpack. I really could. We're just going to talk about what's in it. What is in my backpack is all of the stuff that I cannot live without, my computer, my favorite cameras, which are at the moment, a DJI pocket Osmo, which is essentially a steady cam that fits in your pocket, especially if you're wearing fatigues, but don't get me started on the lack of pocket in lady pants. It's inexcusable and really frustrating. Why can't we just have pockets that run the normal depth of a normal pocket or normal human hip? It's ridiculous. Okay. Moving on my Canon VIXIA mini, which I also mentioned in episode two and my Insta 360 if you only have time to take one photo, it should be a 360 degree photo because it captures everything. It's really the best. Okay, so I've got all my favorite cameras. Of course. Then I have to have all of their charging elements and batteries, card readers, adapters, et cetera. By the way. I have a lot of that now since I upgraded my computer, which was like 104 years old, so now I have the new MacBook pro and now I need a USBC adaptor for literally everything. Also frustrated. Wow. I'm getting really heated about my everyday carry. Oh! speaking of heated, also in my backpack. Baby Tabasco sauce, baby meaning travel sized, not baby meaning hot sauce for infants. Right now. My husband and I are very into hot sauce. Shout out Sean Evans on hot ones. Man, you are good. That show is so good. YouTube series. Check it out. Favorite episode, probably Paul Rudd with runner up Charlize Theron. Hope I'm saying that right. With second runner up. Probably Shaq. Maybe tied for, tied for second runner up with Gordon Ramsey. He was a hot mess. No pun intended. Okay.
Other stuff that I have in my backpack staying focused here. KT tape. Kinesiotherapy tape. Wow. I really cannot say enough about KT tape. There are days when it is the difference between dancing in pain, and dancing completely pain free. I'm really, really a big fan of KT tape. You do need to be sure that you're taping correctly though. I'm going to link to my favorite knee taping method for knee stabilization. Uh, okay. So on the subject of pre-hab rehab and in general pain management, I travel with a 14 inch Tigertail which is a rolling massage stick. Um, I'm going to link to that in the Amazon cause it's kind of hard to explain, as well as a travel sized foam roller. The one that I use is by a company called go fit and it looks like they don't make the one that I have anymore. Mine is red and it's hollow, which means I can actually put the tiger tail and anything else inside of it makes it much more travel. Um, and it's, it's small. It's uh, 12 inches I think. So that one fits in my backpack. The other travel sized ones from go fit that I'm seeing online right now are not hollow. They have some sort of HDPE which is high density polyethylene, some kind of plastic on the inside so you can't stuff them, which makes them w like basically useless as far as I'm concerned. Let's see what else, what else? Um, Kay moving right ahead. What else? What else? Oh, my favorite role on fragrance because these weekends can really bring the funk out of you in more ways than one. My favorite role on fragrance is actually the only one that I've found that doesn't leak when I travel. And that is Aesop’s Marrakech intense. Not cheap but lasts for ever and doesn't leak. So come on. Win-win also smells fantastic.
What else? We have, oh, a personal reading light because I have tried to get more in the habit of reading pages, not pixels on airplanes. And I don't like to interrupt my, um, airplane neighbors with my bright, bright light. So I keep a personal reading light. Also, a lot of colored pens, uh, rarely use them, but I've got them. Also really old tea. I guess I'm a hoarder whenever I see interesting tea, I just grab it and put it in my backpack. I've got like four or five different tea bags in there, but they're very thin and they're individually wrapped and you never know. You can find hot water just about anywhere and then all of a sudden you've got a cup of tea. Okay. Also, Oh, in the same pocket that I keep my tea, I keep my glasses. They're in their very own hard case because you know, accidents happen.
Speaking of accidents happen. I also carry ibuprofen all the time. And um, for the emotional inflammation, a bar of dark chocolate almost always have dark chocolate on me. 85% or higher preferred. Um, I like things that tastes like asphalt it turns out. Trader Joe's has a 100% dark chocolate bar called Montezuma's absolute black. Um, it is exquisite. Really, really love it. A warning though, it is not for the faint of taste buds. Pretty heavy duty, that guy. So that pretty much covers the packing element. Now we're at the airport. Let's talk TSA for a second. Woahhoo. Favorite subject. Really quickly. I want to do a compare and contrast of TSA precheck versus clear versus priority boarding versus global entry. I'm excited about this.
They don't have clear at every airport, but when I lived in the Bay area, SFO and SJC San Jose both had it and Denver has it as well. That's where I'm from. I'm in and out of there a lot. So I was a clear member for a couple of years. With clear and I don't remember how much my membership was. Darn it. Darn it. Maybe a hundred bucks. ** (Edit note its $179 for 12 months) You go straight to the front of all lines. You just become the first person. You walk right up to the agent, you give him your phone and your ID and you're through. Oh, but you do have to give them also your fingerprint and I don't know what they're doing with that information. Full disclosure. So that's clear.
TSA precheck. You would think that I actually liked the feeling of watching all my friends fly by in the TSA line while I wait for a long time in general boarding. I have never had TSA precheck and that shocks everyone because I travel so often. Here's the thing, I tried to get it once I missed my appointment, complete fumble and I just never recovered. So TSA precheck, which is $85 for five years, means that you don't have to take your shoes off. You don't have to take out your liquids bag or your computer. Um, and you get to take the shorter line. Although I have noticed at least of late, there are so many people that are TSA precheck. I've found once or twice that the general boarding line is shorter, but most often they're about the same. It's just the TSA line moves away faster cause you don't have to take your shoes off. You don't have to take the stuff out of the bag, you don't have to take your computer out. So on and so forth. So that's TSA precheck.
All right, moving on to global entry. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't know a lot about global entry, but I just signed up while I was preparing for this episode. Global entry means $100 for five years. It comes with TSA precheck and you get expedited entry at customs in foreign countries, which is definitely part of my plan in the next five years. Also, my capital one venture card covered this fee for me, so yahoo, free global upgrade. Super, super cool. I find this to be way better than simply paying to upgrade through your airline. In other words, if I buy a general faire when I check in, some airlines will let me upgrade for $70 or something like that and that means I get more leg room priority boarding and occasionally at TSA you'll get your own premium boarding lane occasionally. So first that's expensive. Second, it's not consistent. I really think this global entry thing is the jam. I'll let you know. Stay tuned.
All right, so now I'm up to the TSA podium. I have to say my TSA choreography is very refined. My shoes, the bins, the water bottles empty. I left all my knives at home. I am very well rehearsed. The hardest thing for me about the whole TSA system is being patient with people who aren't as well rehearsed as I am or with the occasional grumpy TSA agent. And by occasional I mean frequent, but yo, I get it. We all have our days. My husband actually gave me the best tool for coping with my, um, we'll call them mood swings as I go through TSA. It is truly the funnest game ever. So here's the game. My toes inside my shoes will either Yahoo like cheer or boo people based on their etiquette going through TSA.
Sometimes I do this with hairstyles as well. I'll just like my, my little toes will give like jumping in and out of their seats like yahoo. Um, lots of vertical hops, hands in the air. My, my toes by the way, have hands now or they'll give like big thumbs down to people with poor etiquette or people with crazy hair. So now you know what me and my feet are going through while I'm going through TSA and for all of you infrequent flyers out there that my toes might be booing at, please check out and I avoided doing this, but I'm glad that I did. Please check out tsa.gov/travel/traveled-tips/travel-checklist. Whoa, a lot of really good pointers about traveling and exactly what you'll get stopped for and what will slow you down going through TSA. Okay, I know that was a lot. It'll be in the show notes. Check it out. Also, do not forget to remove your theragun from the backpack. Did I tell you that I have a third gun in my backpack? I think I left that out. I travel with a theragun now. It was an awesome Christmas present. Shout out SIS. So I keep that their gun on me, not because I'm going to use on the airplane, but because the battery doesn't come out and I don't want that to be in my checked bag if I do actually have to check my roller board. So don't forget to remove your theragun when you're going through TSA. It is an electronic device larger than your cell phone and it also happens to have gun in the title. So TSA, a no-likey
Once we are past TSA, your travel experience all really depends on the airport and the terminal that you're at. I want to quickly shout out lax terminal one for now having an urth cafe that's urth with a U. “U R T H” cafe at terminal one. best. coffee. EVER. It is really the only argument for flying Southwest out of lax instead of Burbank. Also shout out Burbank airport. You're the best. I don't want to get too graphic here with this next bit, but sometimes travel can really mess up my digestion and by that I mean put my digestion on hold and I know I'm not alone. I've commiserated over this with so many people. Um, I have found that fasting on a travel day or at very least not eating airport food has really, really helped the way that I feel and the way that I flow on travel days. Okay. Speaking of flow, let's get into my weekend survival flow.
My biggest rule on these convention weekends is that I drink a ton of water. I travel with a 25 ounce fluorescent orange vacuum, insulated swell water bottle. Number one, it's fluorescent so that I don't lose it. This is my seventh reusable water bottle and , again, really trying to do my part to save the good old planet. I love my reusable water bottle. I love it so much because it's bright, reusable and I don't lose it. Number two, because on weekends I prefer to drink warm water for my voice and I don't know something about it just feels better than cold water. Um, I do try to drink like four of those per day, if not more. So keeping the body hydrated, very, very important. I also hydrate my face. I travel with face masks. They are one of the like simplest and lightest traveled treasures that I could imagine. If you really want to take your spa game to the next level, keep your face masks in the little mini fridge or put them on ice. Oh, so good. I'm going to link to my favorite face mask, um, on the Amazon shopping list. It's by KORRES and it's like Greek yogurt face mask or something. First of all, I don't think you're allowed to eat this face mask, but I bet you could if you had to. You just might get sick and it would mess up your travel day fast. So forget about that.
Also, hugely essential to my weekend survival. I've started traveling with an electric heating blanket, a very small one. It's like maybe a little bit longer than a foot, maybe it's a foot and a half. Um, and I use it to stay warm in between classes. I don't teach straight through during the day.
Uh, and the warm up, cold down, warm up, cold down can really take a toll on the body after a while. So I love using this heating pad to stay warm in between classes and at the judges' table for those long judging shifts. Good for the hips, good for the low back. Good for the neck. Oh, so good. Okay. I did mention the theragun a second ago. This one's self-explanatory and such a game changer. Love it. Um, let's see what else. Ah, here's another one. I am not afraid to ask front desk staff for a room on a floor with the ice machine and a room with a bath tub. If they need some coaxing. My sports medicine doctor has given me permission to use him as scapegoat. And I tell the front desk, I've got patellar tendonitis, which is true and I have to ice frequently and take Epsom baths. Ah, that reminds me. I travel with reusable silicone food storage bags. One of them comes in the suitcase full of Epsom salt so I get a couple couple of good bats out of it and one of them comes empty. And I use that to fill up with ice because if you know hotel rooms and ice machines, you know that those little baggies they give you for the ice there are certainly not meant for icing body parts. Leakage. I'm going to link to my favorite reusable silicone food storage bags on the words that move me Amazon shopping lists because they don't leak and they are great and colorful and also save the planet. Okay, so I ice, I Epsom, I thrive. On the subject of thriving. I have gotten in the habit of no booze on Saturday nights. Now, after a long day of classes and a long night of judging competition, I'm not gonna lie a glass of wine sounds pretty good, but I've noticed that it makes Sundays way more difficult. So instead of having that glass of wine, I have a face mask or a bath and wow, that is discipline, right?
Okay. There you have it. My convention, weekend travel hacks, short and sweet. I hope that these hacks are helpful for you. Whether you travel for conventions or not, please be sure to check out the words that moved me shopping list on Amazon and of course, leave a comment and review. Share it with your friends. If this podcast is helpful, let's make it easier for other people to find and let's keep it funky. UH. It's getting more natural now. The more I say it, have a great day everybody. I will talk to you next week. Bye.
