Traveling for business is something that many people enjoy a great deal, from the special assignments and meetings right down to traversing the airport. Airports are, after all, essentially giant shopping malls with airplane terminals throughout so how you feel about shopping malls often will determine how you feel about walking through a crowded airport. However, no matter how much you love to travel, there are always dozens of big and little events that could go wrong along the way. From your suitcase popping a strap to getting thirsty while waiting for your luggage, when you’re absolutely prepared you can arrive at your destination with an un-rumpled aplomb no matter how crazy the flight was. Here are 12 travel hacks:

1. Roll Your Outfits Together

There are a lot of ways to pack a suitcase but one thing that’s agreed among the travel pros is that rolling is far superior to square-fold stacking. Rolling not only saves space and makes it easier to pack things tighter, it can actually help you prevent wrinkles as well. Rolling your outfits together ensures that you never have to think about how to combine the pieces and always have enough pairs of socks. That said, pack extra socks.

2. Pack Things Inside Your Shoes

Most traveling professionals end up packing at least one pair of shoes, if not two for different anticipated occasions during the trip. However, if you’re tight on packing space or simply want to be optimally efficient, don’t forget that shoes are their own containers and when packed, they’re not holding your feet. You can then pack other things into your shoes to save room like more rolled up socks, bottles of toiletries or medicine, or a handful of small items that you’d like to keep together in their new shoe container.

3. Bring a Backup Set of Chargers

If there’s one thing that can and will go wrong at some point during your trip, it’s device charge. Whether you use a laptop, tablet, phone, or all of the above at least one of them is bound to die an inopportune moment and that’s when you’ll realize that a zipper ate your charger or it got left on the plane or some other inconvenient accident. To prepare for this, always have a backup set of chargers for each device just in case. This seems like one of the obvious travel hacks in this day-and-age, but sometimes people forget.

4. Backup Packet Food

Over the course of your business trip, you will probably have plenty of time to enjoy the local cuisine at restaurants and snagging takeout with or without the people you came to see. However, that first night in the hotel room, you may want to make your own food without calling up room service. The best way to plan for this ahead of time without hitting a grocery store is to pack some packet food that can be made with the boiling water from your hotel room coffee machine. Ramen, cup noodle, instant oatmeal, and other tasty dried dishes might be exactly what you need in the few moments between kicking off your shoes and passing out.

5. Scan Your Travel Documents

Always have your ID, bank cards, passport, plane ticket, boarding pass, and any other important travel documents on you at all times. That said, just in case you lose track of one, take a picture of them with a tablet or phone and keep the pictures in offline storage so you can access and display them just in case.

6. Always Have a Water Bottle

You never know when you’re going to be thirsty or need to wash your hands with no sink, water fountain, or retail snack vendor in sight. Carry a large reusable water bottle in your carry-on and fill it once you get past the security checkpoint so that there’s no ‘unauthorized liquid’ in it. This way, you’ll always have something to drink on the plane without having to bother anyone or later on between the next airport and your destination.

Find More Travel Hacks

Join us next time for the second half of this list of ways to make sure you enjoy your next trip for business or a distance interview. For more great tips, contact us today!

For more tips, check out our second installment of travel hacks for business trips and distance interviews here.