Working in IT made me a nervous traveller

As someone who also lives in Australia, OS travel is absolutely stressful, we don't do it as often like other countries and Europe, US are a long way away which makes it all the more stressful.

Absolutely, lots of systems need to interface and things need to go well to avoid friction, but often is the case that I have over prepared and I didn't need to worry.

I find comfort in that millions of people travel every day and problems will happen and there is usually always a way to solve it. As long as you have the basics, you've got to have faith it will work itself out.

Globally last year there were an estimated 1.4 Billion tourist arrivals. Besides the rare baggage issue (which has always been resolved for me within 24 hours), the systems are astoundingly robust. This is likely because these system have been battle tested for decades - and there is a manual resolution for all problem paths and individual staff have significant autonomy.

Passport, credit card, cash - that's all you truly need. No need to stress.

Not only for travel, but everyday chores I try to make sure I have fallback, i.e. lavishly printout everything and file the old fashioned way. When traveling I print everything and in duplicate which I put in each of our carry-on bags and sometimes a third into the laptop case.

There is a book "The Machine Stops" - and we see glimpses of the scenario, e.g. the couple of recent bank network failures which left point-of-sale systems inoperable as well as ATMs. Recently MyID.gov.au was down and locked out all who followed the security recommendation to remove all username logins on my.gov.au.

Our IT systems work most of the time, but they certainly don't meet the 5 nines criteria. It is not a technical issue, it is a management issue. Executive management should be personally liable for failures. The slap on the wrist corporate penalties don't address the core issues. And those penalties are ultimately paid for by the customers, the very people adversely affected in the first place.

My mitigations are to eliminate systems I don’t actually need. Baggage being the big one. I pack one small bag (19L) that can fit under the seat. I don’t have to worry about lost luggage or the overhead bins being full, leading to unexpected checked luggage at the gate. It also saves a lot of money.

Some people find this difficult or impossible, but two realizations helped me immensely.

First, I am nearly always going to places that are populated by people who live their life in this place. If there is something I didn’t pack that I desperately need, I can probably buy it locally. I nearly always buy toiletries locally to avoid dealing with liquid restriction and spill risks. The need to do this has been rare, and even with as little as I pack, things still go unused, or things I pack break, and it wasn’t a big deal (this happened with a travel umbrella I bought, now I don’t bother with one).

Second, if you stay anywhere for long enough, you’ll need to do laundry at some point. If you accept this as a reality, it’s just a question of how often you’re willing to do laundry. I usually travel with 4 days worth of clothes (what I’m wearing, and 3 days worth packed). With this I can stay somewhere for weeks or months, just washing stuff in the sink or shower every few days. Ironically, I tend to pack more for a week long local trip than a multi-week trip overseas for this reason.

I do agree with getting to the airport early. Just hearing people talk about getting to the airport at the last minute stresses me out. I often end up going 4 hours early just so I have 0 stress. I’ll even do it for domestic flights. I can either sit at home waiting to leave, or just leave and sit at the airport. Waiting is waiting. I usually take the time to have a meal and read a book. Once I’m through security I can relax. Maybe I watched Home Alone too many times as a kid, and never wanted to be the person frantically running through the airport or trying to cut the line.

Personally i print everything before going. Itinerary, hotel booking, ESTA/Visa/whatever.

I also keep those documents on my phone for convencience, and will happily checkin using an app 24 hours before arriving at the airport, as well as check in using Apple Wallet or whatever the Android alternative is, but having the documents in printed form gives a certainty when you're stuck in an airport going through security and the "system" breaks down.

I have no idea what the TSA would do if you came to them and their system was down, but i assume a printed ESTA would be good enough.

In cases where I had issues, printing anything would not help.

Once, they said that I haven't paid airline luggage fee for my bike.

Showing them emails with confirmation or bank transfer did nothing.

Second, my luggage was missing on a flight from US.