Jim’s Travel Tips

Hotel alarm clocks can be a source of traveler frustration. I have seen tips about checking the alarm setting so you don’t get rudely woken up at 5:00AM. There is also the AM vs. PM issue on some clocks that needs to be checked. One tip I do not usually see is probably the most important and probably most overlooked. TIP: Check to see that the time is set exactly the way you want it and are used to – 10 minutes off in the wrong direction and you could just miss that airport shuttle bus.

A colleague and I were traveling to Taipei for the first time and had arranged a hotel car to take us from the airport to the hotel. As we traveled through the darkness the driver turned off the highway squeezing through two cement barriers and on to some not so great streets. We thought we had been had and would end up being a story in the paper. We did arrive at our hotel safely and we quickly gave the driver some US money. We were relieved to be checking into the hotel. During the check in process my colleague noticed a man smiling at us with a camera around his neck. My friend said “That looks just like my camera” – it was. It was our car driver with my friend’s expensive camera which was left on the back seat of the car in our haste to get out. We learned that tips can pay unknown dividends! As my post on tipping in foreign countries says – when it doubt - tip!

There are many theories on this topic – My philosophy is, when in doubt - tip. It is also good to ask the locals what the custom is. USA Today had a good article on tipping recently. Here is the link to the foreign tipping guide (I don’t know how long it will be active): www.usatoday.com/travel/world/2007-09-10-tipchart_N.htm