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Travel Tips for a Butch on the Go

9/22/2011

10 Comments

 
It's tough to be a traveling butch!  Often we don't know what the clothing norms in our destination place will be like until we get there.  I recently participated in the Butch 360 post on traveling, and it inspired me to come up with some quick tips for jet-setting butches.  (By the way, I love Can I Help You Sir.  Check out this post for a terrific insider's view of DADT.)

  1. When packing clothes, choose a black or brown color scheme.  This means that you'll only have to pack one pair of dress shoes, one belt, one watch, etc.  Grey and black pants go with a black scheme; brown and khaki go with a brown scheme.  Olive, navy blue, and jeans go with black or brown (though with navy pants, choose dark brown shoes).
  2. Pack your dress shoes and wear either tennis shoes (for comfort) or boots (which are heavy and bulky to lug around in a suitcase).
  3. If you're bringing ties, roll them up and put them inside your packed shoes.  This way, they won't get wrinkled or smushed.
  4. Bring a mini lint roller.
  5. If I'm traveling with my DGF, I make it very clear to small hotels and B&B's that we are dykes.  I do this by referring to her as my girlfriend and requesting one bed.  This way, I can suss out whether the person on the other end of the line is uncomfortable.  If so, I stay elsewhere.  This also allows me to avoid awkward check-in conversations.  ("Oh--I have you booked in a one-bed room...  but I guess you'll need two, right?")  This precaution is usually unnecessary with large or chain hotels, where no one cares who you are or who you'll be sleeping with.
  6. In case you haven't flown lately: what passes for a carry-on these days is crazy, a trend I attribute to ridiculous price that most airlines charge to check even one bag.  I recommend packing one large backpack or messenger bag and one medium suitcase.  Unless someone tells you that you can't carry it on, attempt to carry it on.  If it won't fit in the overhead bin, they'll check it for you at no charge!  Just get it past security and you're home free.
  7. Find out ahead of time whether you'll have access to a washer and dryer (a laundromat doesn't count--too time-consuming).  If so, pack half the number of clothes you otherwise would.
  8. I'm a reader whose eyes are bigger than her brain.  Somehow I anticipate devouring a book a day on vacation, and I used to pack accordingly, stunning flight attendants with the weight of my carry-ons.  Now, though, I use a handy formula: One book for every three days of a trip, plus an additional book if a plane flight's involved.  No hardbacks.  And plenty of audiobooks pre-downloaded onto my iPhone.
  9. Unless you have an emotional or psychological need to do so, I recommend not binding or packing if you'll be boarding a plane.  If you set off an alarm, you don't want any confusion about who's frisking you.
  10. Be prepared for some people to act like jerks on the plane.  I haven't had the kinds of terrible experiences that some people have, but people do look askance at me, particularly if I'm with my DGF.  Occasionally, they are downright rude, which I enjoy exploiting by acting drippingly, sarcastically polite.  (Um, except for one time when a guy said something  rude to my girlfriend--not gender related, just travel-related--and I, uh, loudly called him an asshole.  Don't do that.)
  11. Before you go, or as soon as you arrive, find out where the following places are: closest bank, dry cleaner, and coffee shop to your hotel.
  12. Packing dress shirts without wrinkling them is close to impossible, and the "hang them in the bathroom and let the steam unwrinkle them" trick never seems to work.  Ways to deal: (1) get your shirts laundered when you arrive; (2) have the dry cleaner box your shirts instead of hanging them.  (I am a recent convert to having shirts laundered.  At $1.45/shirt, it's often worth it.); (3) pack shirts that are actually wrinkle-free, not just wrinkle-free wannabes--I've had good luck with Kenneth Cole, L.L. Bean, and Covington.
  13. Pee at the airport, before you get on the plane.
  14. I consider the following items essential for a carry-on: iPod or iPhone, Power Bars so I won't end up paying $7 for stale Cheetos, hand sanitizer, a bandana (can be used as a napkin, tissue, whatever), headphones, Chapstick, shoe polish, and a notebook and pen.
  15. Plan for things to go awry.  Flights will be delayed, trains will be missed, shows will be cancelled, and tidal waves will flood out luaus (true story).  As long as no one is hurt, there is almost always something funny or absurd about travel mishaps--your goal is to find it.

What are *your* go-to travel tips?  What has surprised you the most about traveling as a butch?  What odd situations have come up?

10 Comments
Justa Notha link
9/21/2011 10:47:13 pm

Good tips! Idk about packing ties in my shoes, though, although that may say more about the state of my shoes than anything else! I usually roll them up and pack them in my bras.

Reply
Adrian
9/22/2011 01:17:53 am

Great tips!!! Kudos to you for mentioning the overhead bin/check bag free of charge! I had no idea until it happened to me.

Also, I didn't know this either until it happened recently, and I'm not sure if it applies to other airlines, but I traveled with Jetblue and during the booking process, I skipped the part where you pick your seats. When I received an email prompting me to check-in and choose my seat, I still skipped ahead and didn't choose a seat. I did this because, well, I didn't want to pay $45 extra for the "extra room" seats, which were the only seats left.

When I got to the airport, they called my name and asked me to come up to the desk at the gate...and woohoo! they assigned me an "extra room" seat at no charge!! So, you might be like me and get lucky if you don't assign yourself a seat online when you book a flight.

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Edison link
9/22/2011 02:47:04 am

Great tips! One that I do every time I fly, even with other first time fliers, is use the business line through security that a lot of airports have now. This lane is for experienced fliers and signs often say so. I'm not sure if people find this intimidating or if there really are that many newbie fliers but the business line is typically much shorter (the longest I've waited in a security line has been about 7 minutes using this line and that was during a rush time through Atlanta Airport.)

That being said, people don't take kindly to those that gum up the works by being unprepared going through this line so you'll want to be ready. Take your shoes off, belt off, have your wallet, keys, change, jewelry (especially anything steel because it will set off the detectors and result in a pat down, found this out the hard way when I didn't take off a cuff I was wearing) etc in a ziploc that you can drop in the bin without digging around in pockets, your clear quart bag full of liquids out of your carry on and your ID and tickets in hand. drop everything except your ID and tickets (and any e-readers that you may have- the scanners can screw with some of them) in the bin, go through the scanner, grab your bin of stuff and move thy booty away from the end of the conveyor before putting belts, boots and gear away. Your fellow fliers will appreciate your courtesy and you've just made it through security in 5 minutes!

Another thing I do is check to see if there are any shows, events or restaurants in the area that we will really want to check out. If there are, I get the tickets in advance and I make reservations for the restaurant (if they accept them). This eliminates the disappointment of sold out shows, booked restaurants and the classic 'Damn, I really wanted to go to <insert location here> and I didn't realize they were closed today!' incident.

Travel with a basic plan, don't overbook yourself (especially that first day) and leave yourself some time for relaxation and impulse trips to that little hole-in-the-wall place you didn't read about online.

Reply
cris
9/22/2011 04:33:41 am

since i was homeless and share a small suitecase with my sister for several years. i am very good at packing. rolling items is always a space saver. also pack 1 extra day of everything just in case.

Reply
Kai
9/22/2011 06:08:14 am

Any tips on how best to pack toys or the packer you've decided not to wear on the flight? Especially in carry-on. Shouts of "whose bag is this" and random bag searches through the security line can turn even me, the most unabashedly sex lovin' queer, a little bit red in the face.

Btw, I think you should change "stewardesses" to "flight attendants" in tip #8 =)

Reply
Caro link
9/22/2011 12:48:02 pm

Sooo with you on the books. Even on cycling holidays when I'm pedalling tent and cooking items uphill I would still end up with multiple novels in my panniers. Then I bought a Kindle - Bliss!

Great tip about putting ties in shoes. I'd have never thought of that!

Reply
Dara
9/22/2011 02:51:17 pm

Great post, thanks for the tips. I have to second changing "stewardess" to "flight attendant" in #8. That term has pretty misogynistic connotations.

Reply
Butch Wonders link
9/23/2011 11:04:33 am

Okay, "stewardesses" is now "flight attendants" (I didn't mean to offend anyone, just liked the alliteration).

And thanks for the additional tips!

Reply
Jen
9/24/2011 06:09:25 am

My wife and I lived in Dublin one summer. We went to a social night at the local (and awesome and unfortunately named*) Outhouse LGBT community centre. Great to have a crowd of nice folks to give us tips on good clubs and pubs, friendly areas and dodgy neighbourhoods. Plus we had a good group to share a few pints with over the summer that weren't our work colleagues. We've since done this in other major cities with shorter periods of time with mixed results, but the Dublin experience was so positive we'll keep trying in the future.

*An outhouse in Ireland and the UK isn't a privy/ latrine but a shed or small barn or other out buildings that aren't the main house. So, a good pun for the LGBT community relative to "mainstream" heterosexist society. Even if it sounds weird to North Americans.

Reply
G link
9/25/2011 01:57:12 pm

First of all, thanks so much for the mention! The appreciation is certainly mutual.

Traveling as a butch is always interesting, but I don't know that it's any different from my every day life; some people stare, some people don't. i always have this thought in my head that goes something like this: "People may not like me because of my butchness, but they'll never be able to say I'm a bad traveler."

I agree with Edison that one of the biggest tips for traveling is just to be prepared. Get the $20 in nickels out of your pockets, consider that your keys are made out of metal and will set off the alarms if they're in your pants, etc.

And in my opinion, it's important to look nice. I continually marvel at the people who wear sweats or muddy boots or torn-up jeans, almost as if they didn't realize they'd be out in public that day. It doesn't have to be fancy, but something that is clean, wrinkle-free and looks like you put some thought into it will do very nicely. Also, airlines are more likely to upgrade people who look like they belong in first class seating.

Re: ties - one thing on my wish list is a travel case for ties. One of these days ....

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