Getting Ready for the Big Trip

There is always a lot to do in the week leading up to a trip to Disney World. There’s trying to finish up projects at the office, getting all of the travel sized bottles together, and checking weather.com to see just how hot it’s going to be in Florida. I don’t know about the male readers, but I’m sure all of the women will agree that packing can be a daunting task. My lists of stuff to pack starts to take shape a couple of weeks in advance, but I don’t start to throw anything in the suitcase until a few days before taking off. Last week, I got all of my toiletries together to see if there was anything I needed to pick up. Since I make multiple trips every year I keep all of my travel sized toiletries together in the linen closet to make for quicker packing. But that’s the only quick part about my packing! Everyone has there own list of must bring objects for their trip so I won’t tell you what you should take on your trip. I have no doubt I will wind up bringing too much, but I’ll feel prepared for just about anything.

But, packing isn’t the only thing on my to do list. I live alone so there is plenty to take care of around my condo before leaving it vacant for 10 days. For example, for such a long trip I want to stop mail delivery. The US Postal Service makes it pretty easy to put a hold your bills, magazines, and junk mail. Just log onto their website and you should be able to make the arrangements within a few minutes without having to stand in line at the post office. Also on the home front, I’ll have to clean out my fridge and make sure to take all of the garbage out. I don’t want to come back to a smelly apartment! I’ll also be sure to set my thermostat and turn off my water at the last second before I lock up the apartment for the big trip.

I also have to figure out how I’m getting to the airport. The cost of parking and Newark International is insane so I never drive myself. Fortunately, I live close to my parents and I work for my family business so my dad usually gets the job of dropping me off and picking me up (thanks, Dad!). But it’s not always so cut and dry. On my last trip I had to be at the airport at 5:30 a.m. and I just couldn’t ask him to get up so early. Like I said, parking is expensive and the airport’s website told me I would have to allow an extra 30-45 minutes to get from the economy lot to the terminal. At that hour an extra half hour feels like an extra two hours. I called a few car service companies, but they wanted a crazy amount of money too. We decided that I would drive myself then call the office and leave a message telling my dad where to find it. Later in the day the Helmstetter men retrieved it and brought it back to my condo.

All this to and I don’t even have any kids to prepare! It’s going to take me a month to get ready once I get to that phase of life. Just another reason to enjoy being a 20 something, childless traveler while I can!

Well, I’ve been talking about this big trip all month and it’s finally almost time to depart! During my trip I’ll try to blog a bit, but I’m not making promises of any sort regularity. You see, we are generally up at the crack of dawn and out until the wee hours so it doesn’t leave a lot of time for blogging. But, I’ll twitter, tweet, or whatever the right term during the trip to you can keep up on my whereabouts. I’ll be doing lots of “research” (if you can call drinking around the world research) so keep a lookout for fun topics in the coming months. Stay tuned from April 30- May 9th to see how my trip is going!