Travel Tip 48
How to prepare your home for travel.
My tips will work for any home, even a treehouse. (Read about this treehouse here).
My top four tips for getting your home ready for your trip.
I obviously love travel and I do it so often that all of this is now automatic for me, but it wasn’t always.
1. Tell a trusted neighbor your travel plans
This is first because I think it’s the most important. I always tell a neighbor when I’ll be gone, so they can keep an eye on the place. Of course, you don’t want to broadcast to everybody that you’re gone because that can invite thieves. Make sure they know when you’ll be back, so they don’t call the cops on you, thinking that you’re the burglar.
If you don’t want to ask for help, downsize your plants to a few cacti and you won’t have to worry about them. This is what mine looked like when I got home from a 4-week trip.
2. Get help for pets and plants
Finding somebody to care for a pet, or a reputable place to board them, is the most stressful part of travel for a lot of people that I know. Not all pets do well when left home alone, but if you have a friend who will feed them, or a neighbor kid who will play with them, go for that before you spring for the cost of boarding.
When I lived in Seattle and had two cats, I would board them if I was out of town for more than a week. I didn’t want to ask somebody to clean their litter box every day and they tended to take revenge on my furniture if I didn’t clean the box every day. (I didn’t tell their new mom that when she adopted them. Sorry, Amy!)
If you can’t find somebody to water your plants, there are lots of gadgets to water them for you. I admit I haven’t tried any because I have a collection of cacti and one geranium. I take the geranium upstairs to my landlord’s mother if I’m gone for more than a week and leave the cacti to their own devices. My longest trip last year was six weeks and they all survived. Just search for “gadgets to water plants” and you’ll find lots of options.
3. Make the place look occupied
If you have a yard or driveway, make sure somebody mows the lawn, rakes the leaves, or shovels the snow for you. The kid in Home Alone really took it to an extreme when he staged a party, but you can simply get timers on your lamps.
4. Take the time to clean up
It’s so nice to come home to a clean home, especially since I usually get home exhausted and am in no mood to clean. The day before a trip I do laundry and clean out the fridge. I clean the kitchen and stovetop. I like to change the sheets, so I have fresh sheets when I get home. I take out the trash at the last possible minute. It’s a hassle, but so worth it to come home to a clean place.
Even better, if you have a housecleaner, make sure they come while you’re gone.
Plus, if you live in a country that has mail service to your home, make sure they’ll hold the mail till you get back. Considering how much I travel, Peru’s lack of mail service doesn’t bother me as much as it used to.
In a region of amazing hikes, Inti Punku takes the cake for the best views from the top.
Blog
This is the hardest hike I’ve done in the Sacred Valley but also the most rewarding. The views the whole way up are amazing and from the top they’re truly spectacular. This blog has everything you need to plan your hike.
Ollantaytambo is third on my list of my fifteen favorite Inca sites in the article below.
Article
15 Inca Sites that Aren’t Machu Picchu
There are so many Inca sites around Cusco that this list doesn’t even include Inti Punku. Ten of the fifteen not hikes, for those of you who are tired of me always telling you to go for a hike. I have two friends coming soon (separate trips) and each has opted to skip Machu Picchu. I’ll blog their itineraries soon!