Top 10 Travel Tips

I was going to call this post "Tour Planning Tips" but I realized that most people aren't planning trips for large groups. However, many of you will probably take a vacation at some point, so I thought I would share these tips. And on the subject of vacations, they are really important! Our bodies and our minds were not meant to work constantly 24/7. This is something I keep re-learning as I forget to take breaks. So whether you are a freelance contractor, like me, or an employee, manager or student make sure you plan a rest for yourself. If you don't plan it, it won't happen, and then your brain will switch off or you'll have to run away to Europe (not the worst option).

Planning the trip is half of the fun! And will instantly lift your spirits as you look forward to it.

Heidi's Top 10 Travel Tips

1. Do Your Homework. There is something to be said for the backpacking trip where one books a round trip plane ticket and leaves the rest up to chance. I hope to take that kind of adventure someday. However, most times you will be planning more aspects of your trip, so step one is do do some research. Get to know the area you are visiting, lookup other traveller's reviews on TripAdvisor or other websites. If you are booking a hotel, TripAdvisor Room Tips are great to help you pick the newest, quietest space. Turn on Private Browsing on your internet browser as you compare hotels, flights, and car rentals. Often the prices will go up if the websites track you searching the same parameters.

2. Talk to a Real Person. This may seem obvious for those of you who grew up before Google, but for those of you who didn't, listen up. Often I find it's faster to get the information I need about a hotel or flight connection by calling directly. It's also easier to ask a real person if they have any discounts or special offers. Some hotels have phone-only discounts available, and others will be able to tell you that the rooms on the first floor have been recently renovated. Clarify fees over the phone, and ask to get emailed a copy of the quote if you are not booking right away.

3. Plan Your Meals. One of my favourite parts of travelling is discovering new restaurants. The website/app Urbanspoon is particularly helpful for this in larger cities. Sometimes it's nice to stumble across a gem of a restaurant, but other times you will be hungry and just want to eat. Plan a few go-to meal places so you're not stuck at the hotel restaurant or with pizza delivery. (This is especially important when your dance company is in small-town BC and needing dinner at 11pm).

4. Get the rewards. It's free to join most frequent flyer and hotel rewards programs. Even if you don't fly often, the rewards often last for 5-10 years, so small trips can add up. Any international flights will give you a huge amount of points, which can often be used for rewards such as cameras, groceries, clothing, etc. And you can earn things like Air Miles and Aeroplan points through day-to-day purchases anyways. A hazard of signing up for every program is that you'll end up with a few extra wallets, but I think it's worth it. (If you travel for work, make sure that you or your company is adding frequent flyer numbers to the bookings. You can still earn the points when someone else pays for the flight)

5. Pack well. There are lots of articles on how to pack well for travel, so I won't repeat them. Again, a little bit of planning will save you stress and overweight baggage fees. I have recently started using packing cubes to organize and love them. I bought the Onsight Clothes Box from Mountain Equipment Co-op.

6. Don't go into debt. Part of planning a vacation or a trip, or a dance tour, is budgeting. If you can't afford a vacation, don't put yourself into debt to go. Look into other more affordable options or use some or all of your rewards points. House-sitting or volunteer trips can be good ways to see a new area, take a break, and save some money. That said, make your budgeting realistic and set aside enough money to keep it low stress. If your vacation budget means you have to eat at McDonald's every day just to get to Prague, you're not going to enjoy the trip. And if you have more than one bag plan to take a taxi to the airport instead of trying to take the Canada Line. Your travel day will be much more pleasant.

7. Allow for contingency time. Most of these tips seem to have to do with the planning side of things, which if you know me should not be a surprise. I love having the key things planned and orderly, so that I can relax and enjoy myself. Things go wrong with travel, flights are delayed, bags are lost, or the Santa Claus parade delays the airport shuttle. Allow yourself extra time in your travel plans, whether you be driving, busing, or flying. If you ever think to yourself "that connection is a little tight, but I can make it" the connection is too tight. Remember that with any travel you also need time to eat, visit the bathroom, and navigate a new space. Better to have an extra hour enjoying a leisurely lunch that to be running across O'Hare. (This tip should be #1 if you have children or people with mobility challenges with you)

8. Bring things to travel well. Travel days suck the energy out of you, even if you are excited and are going somewhere warm. More so if you are on a red-eye from Vancouver to Charlottetown at the end of November (ask me how that one goes next week). Bring along things to make you comfortable and happy. My essentials are: gum, full water bottle, book or magazine, podcasts, and snacks. Other things that are awesome: neck pillows, earplugs, sleep mask, crosswords, iPad. Make sure you bring some entertainment in case the TVs cut out, or if you are flying in the US where many planes don't have TVs. If travelling with kids, bring toys and books! Don't forget to plan your meals and hydration, as most airlines charge ridiculous amounts for an average sandwich once you're in the air.

9. Don't over-schedule.  This is one I keep re-learning, in all aspects of my life. I like to fit as much as possible into a day. But you're on vacation, and the Louvre will still be there next time you're in Paris. Whether you're on vacation or travelling for business, you still need to have some restful "me" time scheduled in. It might be doing some exercise, or going for a walk, or getting room service instead of going out for food. Make sure you don't overextend yourself (and remind me to take my own advice).

10. Enjoy Yourself! Have fun! And let me know what your best travel tips are, or when a trip went horribly wrong!


Links:
Lifehacker.com has lots of great articles on travel, efficiency, and packing. Just set yourself a time limit or you could spend all day there.

How to Fit Two Weeks of Luggage Under the Seat In Front of You (also from LifeHacker)

Report from Northern BC

Hello Everyone!

It's been a little longer than I planned since my last blog entry, but the days on tour fill up quickly. Today is Performance Day in Prince Rupert. Amber and I treated ourselves to room-service for breakfast this morning, and then went for a little walk to get tea and coffee at Cowpuccino's Coffee House which was full of parents and babies this morning.

I have a whole bunch of photos from the Golden Civic Centre, which is a really unique venue. In the next few days I will post those and write a little bit about that venue's story and what it was like to put up a show there.

A week ago we spent Saturday driving back to Vancouver from Golden, through fog that was so thick we couldn't see more than 100m ahead of us at points. On Sunday we met at the airport at 7am to fly up to Kitimat (via Terrace), where we stayed at Minette Bay Lodge.

If you every have the chance, you should visit the Lodge. It was the most beautiful, idyllic place. The Lodge was  built by a British couple and is a Bed and Breakfast with fishing trips, bear sightseeing tours, and a gorgeous property. Dr. Howard and Ruth Mills are very sweet and so welcoming. Their property has trails, stables, a suspension bridge, water access, and horses. We were treated to delicious home-made breakfasts everyday, and spent our last night there on the beach watching stars. One morning I was up early and got to watch a beautiful sunrise over the mountains outside my window. Here's a photo of the sunrise that Jeff took:

Kitimat itself is not very big, and it took some effort to plan meals since there is not very much selection. Our hosts, the Kitimat Concert Association, provided us with wonderful hospitality at the theatre with lots of fruit, vegetables, sandwiches, and snacks. The Mount Elizabeth Theatre is quite nice, especially for a theatre situated in a high school. It's a standard proscenium stage, approx 40' across at the proscenium opening. Lots of wing space and good dressing rooms. I had fun working alongside some of the stagecraft students who helped us with load-in and strike.

We drove to Prince Rupert on Thursday (Halloween) and I am struck by the beauty in this part of the province. I would like to come back to Prince Rupert for a vacation to actually see the town, as most of my time is spent at the theatre, restaurants, or the hotel room. On Thursday night we went over to the community centre for Halloween fireworks but it started hailing and we all got pretty soaked. We ended up watching them from our minivan, before retreating to the hotel. The whole company got together to watch The Conjuring.

Yesterday, Friday Nov 1st, was Load-In day. The dancers had the day off, except for Josh and Lisa who taught community outreach workshops in the evening. Jeff (TD) and I were at the theatre from 9am to load-in and setup. Yesterday was a pretty typical load-in day, except that there is no local tech crew here - just James, the TD for the Lester Centre. 

On a load-in day Jeff and I arrive at the theatre and unpack our gear from the minivan. We tour with a yellow linoleum floor that travels in two six foot ski bags, a black scrim in a backpack, a projector in a hard case, our lighting console in a hard case, and Jeff's yellow tech suitcase. All this gear is small enough to travel as checked baggage when we fly, which is a lot cheaper and more convenient than shipping it. Jeff will usually start the day by assessing how much of the lighting hang has been completed, and then by finishing that with the local crew. While he does that, I inspect the dressing rooms, greenroom and laundry facilities and start unpacking.

Once the stage is ready, Jeff and I make a grid with chalk lines for Lighting Focus. The yellow linoleum floor at the centre of the stage has 20 to 25 lighting areas on it, depending on the venue. Once we have made the grid and marked the corners with spike tape, the technicians can use this to finish focus. In Golden the local crew is all volunteer, so I assisted Jeff with lighting hang and focus. In the larger venues, such as Toronto and Nanaimo, we have union local crew to do this work.

I went back to unpacking costumes, and setting up the greenroom. Yesterday I did a lot of tour planning tasks while Jeff and James finished lighting focus: booking our airport shuttle in Toronto, confirming workshop details with the next tour spot, replying to interview requests, and updating schedules in the Tour Book. 

The Tour Book is the master copy of all the information related to the tour. The tour "bible," if you will. Performers get a copy of parts of it - a schedule overview, the day-by-day information pages, contact list, and travel summary. Some parts of it are useful for myself and the artistic directors in planning the tour, such as a spreadsheet of hotel costs or flight costs. Some sections are for my use only, as the tour coordinator, such as a checklist of correspondence with each venue. All the big things such as when we arrive, depart, or when our shows are, have been confirmed way ahead of time, but smaller things, such as whether we will be doing a post-show talkback, are often decided within a week of arriving at a venue. And, of course, plans often change. Tweaking the Tour Book will continue to be part of my duties until the day before we fly home at the end of the tour.

I will be heading to the theatre in a few minutes with the dancers . Jeff went in at 11am to finish up some lighting and projection notes. Performance Days are fun, and of course what we are here for, but they tend to be long. While the dancers warmup, I will iron the costumes that hang-dried overnight, and then we will do a quick spacing and a run-through. We take a dinner break next, but some of the dancers elect to remain at the theatre and just snack, instead of having a heavy meal before dancing. Next will be warmup and the performance! Prince Rupert has a post-show reception in the lobby that we will attend, and then the company will go out for second dinner, then back to the hotel to pack and to bed. So that's what I'll be doing today!

Oh, the Lester Centre for the Arts, here in Prince Rupert, is a fairly nice venue. It was designed by the same architect who planned the Vernon and District Performing Arts Centre, which I love. The Lester Centre is about 15 years older than the Vernon Centre, and has older technology, but the structure of both buildings is very sensible and makes it easy to work there. The dressing rooms have countertops and chairs that are both a horrible orange colour, but those surface elements are easy to change. The layout of a theatre, access to catwalks, the grid, dressing rooms, etc is much more important that what technology it has or the colour of the chairs. Those things can be changed, but the structure of the building is less malleable. Working in the city of Vancouver is very interesting because most venues are converted spaces, and were not originally conceived as theatres. Think of the Firehall Arts Centre, the Waterfront Theatre, Little Mountain Studios, or the Roundhouse, just to name a few. 

Time to pack up my laptop and head down to the lobby.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this. Send me any questions or comments!

Love from the road,

Heidi