I was standing in a foreign land, tall blonde in a crowded airport, bustling people beyond exhausted scrambling around after a long day.

I looked GREAT (sarcasm noted) with my black plastic glasses, matted airplane hair and the comfiest clothes I could find in my closet.

And they lost my luggage.

I approached the counter; very cute latino dude about my age walked up.
He spoke English; I spoke Spanish. I think we both had something to prove.

He had a promising smile and was extremely helpful, pulling up a lost luggage form he was going to fill out.

“What color was your luggage, mam?”

Ummmm…

“I literally have no idea.”

He gave me a very interesting look.

“You don’t know the color of either of your bags?”

Nope.

I assured him I packed it myself, but it was dark and who pays attention to the color of luggage anyway? It wasn’t hot pink, to be sure… it was grey, or brown, or dark purple or some weird variation of one of those, maybe green…

“Mam, do you have an address of where you will be staying?”

“…No, not really.”

My phone was about to die, and even if it wasn’t I didn’t have data or wifi or anything.

“Is there a phone number we can contact you at?”

Again, my U.S. number wasn’t going to work and I didn’t have my Ecua chip yet, my dead phone wasn’t serving to look up any friend’s number.

So I asked if there was a number I could call tomorrow with all my information once I got my life figured out.

So see, you can be crazy and disorganized, and it will all still turn out fine.

Or if you’re organized, even better.

Thus leads me to my tip of the day:

Always have a few emergency phone numbers and an address written down on paper, not your phone… and know the color of your suitcase.

It can be helpful to screenshot information you might need on your phone in case you don’t have connection. Even more helpful is to have it written down, in case your phone dies, best would probably be both so that you have a few options.

And that is my Travel Tip Tuesday for today.

What travel tips have you learned?