Most tubes of toothpaste, hair gel, and lotion have sharp corners on the crimped end. The sharp corners easily slice through the plastic bag I keep my gels and liquids in when flying. I started snipping the corners with nail clippers. I even fillet the corners of tubes at home, to prevent them from jabbing my fingers when I reach for them in a drawer. Just be careful not to cut the corners so much that it causes a leak. — MF

On a recent trip to Tokyo, I brought along the Sea to Summit Travelling Light Day Pack ($33). It weighs 2.4 oz (my iPhone 6 Plus weighs 6.2 ounces) and zips up into a bundle smaller than my fist. But it holds 20 liters of stuff, and I used it every day to carry water, snacks, sweaters, an iPhone charger, a portable wifi, groceries, and things my wife and I bought while walking around. The material feels indestructible. — MF

You aren’t allowed to bring a bottle of water past airport security, and the bottled water sold at airport convenience stores is expensive. But many airports now have filtered water dispensers. I keep a collapsible water bottle in my travel bag. It rolls up to a tiny size and weighs nothing. Free water, what a concept! — MF

This car pillow makes long drives, slow traffic, and neck pain more tolerable. The material is so soft and it’s so nice to lean my head back on this after work. When my husband drives he can easily adjust it to his height. — CD

I recently visited my grandmother in Mexico and the first thing I packed was my pStyle, which helps women pee while standing. It was the perfect travel tool for Mexico, where most public bathrooms have no toilet seat and you have to pay for toilet paper. There was no mess, easy to use and I just attached it to my purse in one of these discreet carrying cases. — CD

This eBags toiletry bag is the perfect size to fit all essential travel toiletries plus a lot of my makeup. It has four compartments and stays pretty flat, so I can slip it into my large tote if I need to. My favorite feature is the hook for hanging which is great for hotels with little counter space. — CD

What3Words divides the world into 3 x 3-meter squares and gives each square a unique, unalterable sequence of three random words. For instance the location of my writing desk is “smile.rocket.gates”. This global address is really handy for sending a delivery person to the right part of a building, or meeting someone on at trail head, or locating a home in the large parts of the developing world that have no operational address. It’s better than a lat/long sequence because you can remember it. Works in multiple languages. The phone app version integrates into Google maps, etc. — KK

I’m not surprised that Google has been tracking my every move since 2009. I’m sure I allowed it when I accepted its terms of service at some point. What is surprising is being able about to browse this timeline of my location on a world map. This Google page has day-by-day reports of you where you where, the paths you traveled, the restaurants and stores you visited, and any geotagged photos you took on any given day. You can even edit the information if its incorrect. Wow! — MF

Here are 12 really great tips for using Google Maps on your phone. How to share your current location, or share your trip progress, remember a parking space, invoke street view, estimate trip duration by departure time, or send a map search from your computer to your phone. I had no idea I had these powers. — KK

Part 1: Here’s an easy way to approximately convert Centigrade to Fahrenheit: “double the Centigrade temp, subtract the first digit of the result from the result and add 32.” Example: 16 C = (32-3)+32 = 61 F. (This tip is from Fodor’s Travel website.) — MF

Part 2: Recomendo reader Don wrote to tell us, “Your Centigrade to Fahrenheit conversion works ‘sorta’ as long as the result of doubling the C number is a two-digit number. I’ve always doubled the C number and subtracted 10%, then added 32. Most folks can figure out 10% and subtract it. Also, this doesn’t result in an approximation, but the correct result.” — MF

Part 3: The US is basically the only country in the world not using metric. It’s not that hard to learn a rough sense of how many kilometers in a mile, or pounds in a kilo. But it is very hard to convert temperatures between Centigrade and Fahrenheit. The solution is to convert all your thermometers to Centigrade: on your phone, in or outside of your house, on websites. Have any digital device display only Celsius, so you can’t cheat. In about a year, you’ll have a reliable and native sense of what’s cool and warm in degrees C. This is supremely handy if you travel anywhere outside of the US. — KK

I stow PDF scans of my passport, visas, itinerary and key travel docs in my Dropbox, which show up in the Dropbox app on my phone so I always have them in case of loss while traveling overseas. — KK

The cheapest bargain of any overseas vacation is the $25 for the travel guidebook, so I always get the latest version. And I have no qualms about cutting it up. I get the large country-scale guide, and then with a razor blade knife I excise only the portions I could possibly use. Then I staple and bind with clear packing tape for very durable, and lightweight, thin booklets. — KK

Guides by Lonely Planet was so helpful on my recent trip through Central Europe. I had no cell service, but through the app I was able to download offline maps and navigate to points of interest (bars, shops, sights) while learning more about the cities I visited. Also invaluable was the currency converter, tipping etiquette, and local phrasebook. — CD

Before I travel to a new city X, I search for “street food tour for city X.” Almost every interesting city these days has someone offering this inside look. I find it a quick, fun, inexpensive, exhilarating way to get to know a place. — KK

I used the Red Bike service when I was in Cincinnati recently. A 24-hour pass costs a measly $8. You just grab a bike at any of the dozens of stations (an app shows you how many bikes are available on a map) and start pedaling. The bikes have baskets and locks. It’s a lot more fun than Uber! — MF

Japan is one of the most convenient places in the world to travel. Public transit — both local and long distance — is ubiquitous, frequent, fast, insanely prompt, safe, and reliable. However its ubiquity means there is a labyrinth of so many routes that your journey can be an impenetrable puzzle — not to mention the real hurdle of the language barrier. To the rescue comes Google maps. If you chose the transit option for directions it will provide you with brilliantly designed color-coded instructions on which subway/bus/trains to take, exactly where to catch each leg, which line, how many stops, how many minutes you need to walk between, the price, and all the alternative routes, in English. Since Japanese transit runs like clockwork, all this precision turns you into a relaxed native traveller. (Google maps provides similar instructions all over the world, but for Japan’s maze of transit, this is game changing.) — KK

I spent almost five weeks in Japan this summer. My T-Mobile plan includes international data but it is pretty slow so I rented a Pocket WiFi from eConnect. I ordered it in advance and picked it up at the post office at Narita Airport. I bought the 50GB plan for about $125. When I came close to running out (our traveling party of five used it pretty much non-stop on their phones and laptops) I bought more data for about $1 per GB. It was very fast and worked everywhere we went, including the remote mountain town of Koya-san. At the airport on the way home I put it in the return mailer and dropped it off at the post office. — MF

Japan has had a network of extremely high-speed bullet trains for 50 years. (The US has zero.) China now has an even more impressive network of high-speed bullet trains that cover great distances and are easy to ride. A popular route is Beijing to Shanghai in 4 hours, going 350 km/h (217 mph). Another great long trip is Beijing to Guangzhou (near Hong Kong) in 8 hours (averaging 305 km/h the whole way), which is the longest high speed route in the world, a trip I made with joy recently. Flying is faster and, depending on class, cheaper, but you get an intimate and revealing glimpse of this vast country slicing through at ground level. Booking tickets online is complicated but doable. As always, head to the Man in Seat 61 for the best advice on how to do this. — KK

While traveling in China, the government will prevent you from accessing Google, Gmail, Google maps, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, The New York Times, and many other news sites. If any of these services are important to you, you need to use a very good VPN to circumvent the censoring. (China is able to block some VPNs that work elsewhere). The best VPN for China is the ExpressVPN app, which you can load on your phone and laptop. Once loaded it’s pretty seamless and unnoticeable. You can reach any site with fine speed. There’s a monthly subscription of $8.32, but it’s worth it compared to cheaper and free VPNs. It’s useful anywhere in the world sites are blocked. Even in the West, if I am accessing a public wifi spot for my mail I’ll turn it on as an added layer of privacy. — KK

China is so vast that the only way to get around is either by high speed train or plane. But because of its language barrier it’s really hard for foreigners to book tickets for either. The best way to book a flight in China is via the English language site Trip, which I use. Easy to make reservations, changes, refunds. I can skype a call to them if needed. For trains I use the English language site Travel China Guide. — KK