SciFoo and thoughts about conferences and travel

I'm off to California on Friday for SciFoo 2007.

Pierre Lindenbaum has done a hilarious series of cartoons on SciFoo nervousness that I can really identify with - Scifoo 07: anxiety from a homebody.

My experiences in California have been generally good,

© 2001 Richard Akerman

© 2004 Richard Akerman

except the time I went to San Diego in 2003 and it was on fire

USA Today - 2003 California Wildfires

I still can't believe they flew us into the middle of that.  It was like arriving in Mordor.

I like to travel although I have grown increasingly to dislike airports.  Fast trains are the way to go.

This is a miscellany of things I have learned about conferences and travel, perhaps it may be of some use.
It is for me anyway, as I like to plan things out in great detail in advance.

Regardless of whether it's going to be hot outside, bring a sweater or some warm top you can pull on, because conference rooms are often air conditioned to freezingness.

Air Canada will let you change your seat reservations online repeatedly.
If you haven't gotten a seat at time of reservation, or you want to change, you just need your reservation code and you can log in starting 24 hours in advance of the flight.
If you're reserving seats a day before, a new block of seats may open in the morning.
(I know this because I found myself booked into a centre-of-plane seat for a transatlantic flight, and after trying without success to find an open, better seat repeatedly during the day before, I finally got a much better seat when I logged in the next day.)

If you don't have regular Internet access in your hotel etc., you can still check in online from a net-enabled cellphone.

British Airways will only let you pick your seat once online.

You can check out seating charts at SeatGuru but you have to guess a bit with Air Canada since they are flying multiple versions of the same aircraft on long-haul flights.  There is also a mobile version of SeatGuru.

Remember to plan for multiple stages of delays (which is why I now dislike airports):
- if you haven't printed out your boarding pass in advance, you may have to wait in line at the kiosks
- also the kiosks may not open before a certain time (the BA kiosks at London Heathrow didn't open until after 04:30)
- if you're checking bags, you may have to wait in line to drop them off (even if you've already checked in online)
- you may have to wait in line for customs
- you will definitely have to wait in line for security
- you may have to wait in line and have take some time to take a bus or shuttle from one terminal to another
- depending on your transit airport / airline you may have to get your checked bags and re-check them in, and/or you may have to check in again at some airline desk
- you may have to go through security AGAIN when you transit, this can be particularly long in Heathrow

There's not a lot you can do about the above, other than:
- print your boarding pass at home / in advance
- only have carryon luggage
but a) be aware that some airports, in particular London Heathrow will only allow you to transit with a single, fairly small carryon b) even if you're allowed, please don't try to get on the plane with some giant overstuffed carryons, it just inconveniences all the other passengers
- wear shoes that easily slip on and off, as all US security checks and most or all UK ones will require you to take off your shoes
- don't wear your belt through the metal detector since it will just set it off - if you need a belt, just slip it off and stuff it in your bag before security - err, unless you need it to hold up your pants
- don't try to carryon liquids and the various other items from the large list of prohibited items
(you can still get water after the security checkpoint - and yes, this means you can have the scenario of having to discard water before security, buying it after security, and then discarding it AGAIN at transit security)

UPDATE 2007-08-02: Another lesson I learned from a friend at a conference - live in the time zone you're in, don't keep checking and thinking, it's such-and-such time at home now.  I switch my watch to the new zone on the plane, and keep to it - this can be hard because for logistics purposes sometimes the plane is operating on different hours - for example on the overnight flight to London they will want to serve you a meal at something like 2 AM London time.  I just wear my sleep mask and ignore them.

Incidentally, Samsonite makes a nice dark sleep mask.  They look kind of silly but it's a good way to try to adjust your internal clock.  ENDUPDATE

Print out info on your conference and in particular on your hotel.
Don't expect cab drivers to have any idea where anything is.  Have a map with detailed directions on how to get to the hotel from the airport.  In London with The Knowledge at least they know where streets are, but even then there are far far more hotels than a cabbie has ever heard of.  In other cities it's much worse.  Also communication with cab drivers can sometimes be challenging, so it's nice to have a written address and map you can show them.  Airports are often far from the city centre and often don't take cards, so bring lots of cash, like at least US$75 just for the cab ride (in some cities such as London, Stockholm and Paris you can take a train downtown instead).

Make sure you get a real cab at a taxi stand at the airport, and not some random guy who will "offer you a deal" (often right outside the airport exit, whereas the taxistand may be some distance to your left or right).  They're usually not dangerous, they just rip you off by charging a lot more than a real taxi.

Have a detailed map of the city.  Old cities in particular can play amusing tricks on you that won't show up on a Google Earth high-level overview printout, like changing street names for the same street every few blocks.  For example, in Nancy France you might think you can just take Rue Stanislas to get to Place Stanislas, but at the train station this street is called Rue Raymond Poincaré.

You can get some great laminated city maps for various major cities, I find these invaluable.  Lonely Planet makes ones that I like a lot.  They have one for San Francisco.

http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/Primary/Product/Destination_Guides/City_Maps.jsp

Cheap ziplock bags can be a great way to create extra storage and organisation space particularly if you pack very small and light.  Can be used for everything from keeping different currencies separate to protecting you from the chance of leaky toothpaste.

Check your cellphone plan and make sure you don't get nailed with crazy roaming voice and data rates.  If your phone isn't unlocked, you can buy or rent one for travel fairly inexpensively in many cases.  For example RailEurope will sell you a phone for US$39.

http://www.raileurope.ekit.com/ekit/MobileHome

Even if you don't have a fancy elite travel status, you can pre-book lounges in some airports.  This can be a welcome respite from the crowds and noise (you are planning at least 2-4 hours between connecting flights, right?).  Plus which it's worth it to me just to have a semi-private bathroom.  For Heathrow I use

http://www.simplylounges.co.uk/  http://www.gosimply.com/airport-lounges/

Anyway, hope these points are useful.  I have a much more detailed checklist that I use, if there's any interest I suppose I could share it (it's in Google Docs).

You can buy carbon offsets for your travel from various vendors, I use MyClimate

https://myclimate.myclimate.org/calculate_flight?locale=e3-CH

Yes, I know there are lots of issues with offsets, you can see my Carbon Offset category for more discussion of this topic.

There's also various other info and reports in my Travel and Conference categories.