By many people’s standards, I travel a lot for work. If I count both bigger international and domestic interstate trips as well as travel within my own city and state for work, the amount of travel I do gets even bigger. And while most people wouldn’t count not leaving the city as business travel - I argue that when you have to cart yourself and your props to somewhere new - that is a mini travel trip in itself.
Which brings me to sharing the top 10 things I’ve learned that can turn a travel trip from a disaster-unfolding-before-my-eyes experience to barely a blip on the radar of a well-organised life. And had I known some of these five years ago, I may have saved myself quite a few painful experiences.
1. Get a backpack
They may not look super trendy, and can be especially difficult to pull off in business attire, bit I promise, those free hands and unburdened shoulders will thank you for it.
2. Get a paper diary
While technology has transformed my very unorganised life (Google Maps, I owe you in particular), there are times when you’re in a rush, you’re in the middle of nowhere, your phone battery is flat, you have no reception etc etc etc when you’ll wish you had just written it down. So save yourself some misery, and just write it down. And carry it with you everywhere. Keep the addresses, times and phone numbers you’ll need for every trip, and your travel will become more stress free.
3. Pack a water bottle
Because you’ll be thirsty, and there won’t be water anywhere, except the nasty kind in plastic bottles.
4. Reading material is your friend
A kindle, a magazine and a book are my three stalwarts, but I’m more and more often leaving the book behind. A mix of technology and paper means I’m not caught out by flat batteries or no-technology time on planes.
5. Pack a snack
Whatever it is - a snack in your bag could mean all the difference between fainting on arrival, or actually being an engaging human being. Really.
6. Freshen your breath
Tic tacs, gum, mints, whatever your preference, always have a way to freshen your breath handy. No one wants to smell your last meal.
7. Earplugs
Never leave home without them. Ever.
8. Your smartphone
I don’t care if you think you don’t need one, you’re misguided. You can check e mail on this thing. Look up maps. Set alarms. Do your banking. Call your kids. Take pictures and share them with your loved ones. More meaningfully shrink the distance between you and where you’d rather be.
9. Use wheels when you can
Those small wheelie bags are your friend. Your best friend even. Especially at the end of a long day/week/month when you’ve got no energy, it’s raining on you, you’re not sure you’re even walking in the right direction (though if you’ve got your smartphone this is not a problem, is it?) and the last thing you want is your laptop hanging off your body somewhere. Even if it’s half empty, take it.
10. Get to the airport early
It has taken me far, far too long to accept this rule. It doesn’t matter if you’ve checked in online, or on your mobile, if it’s only a day trip, if you only have carry-on - just get there early. You will be a much better person at your destination with a coffee in you, breakfast even, and a stress-free start to the day. This way traffic won’t thwart you, arriving at the wrong terminal, the wrong end of the terminal, the wrong carrier (but I was sure I was flying Jetstar…?) - none of that will derail you and result in the dreaded missed flight scenario.
What are your trips for business travel? Have I missed any obvious ones?
Autumn in Adelaide
In my day job I talk quite often about the grinding nature of poverty, the sheer struggle of getting the basics that must happen Every Single Day. Food. Shelter. Water. Clothes. Sleep. Day in and day out, for people living in extreme poverty in informal cities around the world, this is their daily reality. It has always been a bit tricky however for me to really explain what this means to my audiences in Australia
But now comes a fantastic contribution to helping those of us more fortunate understand what this means to actual people. Katherine Boo’s incredible book (and I don’t use that word lightly) Behind the Beautiful Forevers is a narrative non-fiction of life in Annawadi Slum in Mumbai. Through telling the stories of rubbish pickers, slum lords, young girls and boys, teenagers coming of age and more, Katherine Boo exposes us to the fragility of life, and hope, that is life for these slumdwellers.
Of particular interest to me was the complex system of corruption people have to navigate to get anything done: to vote, to get an education, to run a small business, to negotiate with police and the justice system, and to access services and land rights. In short - everything official revolves around an informal bartering system of power. It was this aspect of the book, as well as the personal stories of the people themselves, that sets this book out amongst the crowd.
Having worked with slum dwellers in Bangladesh, and having visited Mumbai (where I managed to pick up the worst food poisoning of my traveling life to date), I found this a great balance between readability (if I was traveling) and informative (if I was working).
A must read for: People bound for India, anyone curious about the impact of global markets on the world’s poorest, and international development workers everywhere.
I have been writing less and less on the blog lately – obviously. Basically, this corner of my life has not been a priority lately, as I learn to fit in a more and more demanding day job, and try not to spend all my waking hours thinking, reading, and obsessing about development. I think it’s called work/life balance? Whatever the label, it is important to me that I don’t become so tightly wrapped in one issue (with a multitude of issues wrapped within it, granted). It’s also important to me that my friends, family, and the Mr in my life still find me interesting and not one endless tirade of ‘but we all have it so good, y’all!’
But that’s not the thing I care most about today. What I care most about today is contraception, and the fact that So. Many. Ladies. Can’t. Get. It.
Effective contraception has been around for a decent period of time now. In the West, women have been using it for decades even. Women like me (thank you nuvaring). Over 60% of women ‘of child-bearing age’ (ugh, hate that term) use it. It’s great stuff. It means women, and families, can choose when they have children, and how many they have. It lets women space their babies, which makes pregnancy and birth safer for mum, and improves the life prospects of the child. It means women can plan their lives. Get jobs and keep them. Manage household resources better. And so much more. Here’s some stats:
o Approximately 10 million women suffer injuries, infection or disease from pregnancy or childbirth every year,
o 200 million women and girls in developing countries currently without access to contraception want access,
o 600,000 babies are born to women who did not want to be pregnant die in their first month of life, and
o 100,000 women per year die in childbirth after unintended pregnancies.
Which adds up to a lot of avoidable pain, distress, and risks to life.
And now it’s time to hand over to Melinda Gates who is making the bold move of standing up in public to talk about the non-controversy that is contraception. It’s a great of the next 20 minutes of your time, and you’ll earn unkown-but-massive amounts of karma by spreading the word that is Contraception is not a controversy.
Next week’s cover, up online now. Get the story from the artist who created it.
Love
Currently reading: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran-Foer. Oh how very, very glad I am that I don’t contribute to the factory farming industry.
Although the first book to open my eyes to the horrendous practices of factory farming remains my favourite on the topic - The Ethics of What We Eat - I am finding it really confronting all over again to consider the permission we give corporations to f*ck with our food, our environment, and the animals we consume.
Truly. Scary. But its also very, very empowering to become informed.
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Taking a local bike for a spin in Tanzania - a big thank you to all my Walk In Her Shoes sponsors, I have raised $700! (And yes, you can still donate to me, but not for long).
Photo by Josh Estey
Do you have a superannuation fund of some kind? An investment fund for when you retire, which will hopefully set you up for a comfortable life-after-work? I do. It’s compulsory in Australia, and back when I was 24 years old (I’m 31 now), I had to pick a fund for the money my employer has to pay into a superannuation fund on my behalf.
When I was 24 I was very worried about how I was going to pay for a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. I worried about whether my clothes were appropriate for my new government job (mostly, they weren’t). I worried about paying rent, buying a car, and how to get a wardrobe up the curly staircase of my new inner-west share house. I was not very worried about the money I am going to need when I’m old and grey and hopefully wearing fabulous purple hats.
So I chose my super fund based on ease-of-use (i.e. the one with the easiest forms and the catchiest marketing) and promptly forgot all about it. Until I read Damned Nations by Samantha Nutt. This book peeled back yet another layer of ignorance and made me confront something I’ve been steadily ignoring: I don’t know where my super money is invested.
Which means I don’t know if I’m making money from war. But now I know I probably am.
This is because most investment schemes invest in companies which make money from the lucrative sale of weapons, big and small. The world has never ever ever spent as much on weapons and militarisation as it does now, which sadly means it’s very big business. With big profits. Which are attractive to investors. Like your super fund, and mine.
Fortunately other wise people have been on to this horrible practice for a long time and publish lists like the top 100 companies that produce arms so you can find out if the money you have invested is making its way into nasty places like this.
Of course there are ethical investment funds which provide options for doing the right thing with your money, and I plan to investigate these as well. But the problem with these is that they are niche, and will never appeal to the mass market (ok, maybe not never, but I can’t see it happening in my lifetime). So the real challenge is to hold the big guys accountable.
Now I intend to find out if Virgin Money are investing in any of these nasty companies (and expect the answer to be yes), and plan to find a fund which doesn’t make money out of war and the horrible carnage it brings.
It’s straightforward, I don’t want my money funding wars – it makes me furious that finding out if my money is funding wars is so hard.
“Most of us come into this world amidst a frenzy of pain and emotion and unpredictability, and too many of us leave in the same way. If between the two certitudes of birth and death lies a generous period of love, family, and friendships, free from the shackles of violence and poverty, it is a life to be coveted.” — Samantha Nutt in her must-read book ‘Damned Nations: Greed, guns, armies and aid’
It’s not popular to say this, but I’m ambivalent about International Women’s Day. The problem is that I wish we didn’t have to have one. I wish I didn’t go to work every day and advocate for the rights of women. It seems ridiculous to call at least half the world’s population a ‘minority.’ I hate it.
But what I absolutely love love love about International Women’s Day is that for at least one day of the year, people talk about the range and depth and breadth of issues that women in particular face around the world, whether discriminatory, positive, awful or wonderful. It’s the one day of the year when I feel like the word “feminist” won’t send people scurrying into corners to pick their toenails rather than tackle this tricky word.
Not today. Today is a good day to be a feminist. It’s a good day to be trying to get stories about women in the media. It’s a good time to be speaking to around 1,000 people about the specific problems that face women and girls still living in poverty - which is what I’ve been doing this week.
And while it’s true that men and boys do live in extreme poverty too, the fact is that of the 1.1 billion people living in poverty, 70% are women and girls. That’s seven out of ten.
Too often, the face of poverty is a woman’s. Women and girls, more than men and boys, miss out on crucial education, opportunities for employment, healthcare, and are denied the right to make decisions over their own lives and bodies.
1,000 women die every single day due to pregnancy and childbirth. 99% are in developing countries.
In the Asian Tsunami, two thirds of the people who died were women and girls. They are often weaker, too afraid or forbidden to leave their homes, or heavily pregnant, and they get left behind.
So today, while half of me wants to celebrate the huge progress which has been made for women in countries like Australia, a bigger part of me can’t help but stop and think of all the women and girls who have missed out on this progress. For them, there is no such thing as International Women’s Day at all.
But don’t let me spoil your fun, to read more about what is happening this IWD, check out the links below:
Are most farmers men? - The Guardian
150 women who shake the world - The Daily Beast
The BEST VIDEO EVER about girls? - The Girl Effect
Why not Walk In Her Shoes - CARE
21 women to admire - Daily Life
Mini Jaffa Cakes (vegan, gf) all ready to rock, recipe from Janella Purcell’s excellent cookbook ‘Eating for the seasons’
“Probably the biggest change is going to come from the changed definition of what we’re reading. More and more, texts will evolve the way Wikipedia entries evolve; the idea of a finished text, where all the words have been locked down, will start to seem a little less orthodox—something you’d expect from a novel, but not from a magazine article, say. And that open-endedness will likely mean that the reader is capable of participating, adding links, commenting, suggesting new avenues for exploration, fact-checking. So we’ll have to read in an even more focused way, I suspect, knowing that we can have a say in where the text eventually goes. So there you go: ebooks and digital text are keeping us from skimming and forcing us to engage with the text more directly. Who would have thought it?” — Steven Johnson on the future of reading. (via explore-blog)
Fascinating
(via emergentfutures)
I’m currently reading Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, which happens to be very timely, given I also visited the Mad Square exhibition at the NGV last weekend. I’m definitely getting a taste for how grim life was in Germany around the time of the two world wars. Grim grim grim.
The exhibition was very confronting, and if you’re in town I highly recommend going to see it before it finishes on the 4th March.
As for the book? So far, so good.