Here are some packing tips from travel professionals to help you and your students prepare for your trip.       

Pack heaviest items first 

In the bottom of the suitcase, pack shoes, books, travel alarm, etc.   

Use Luggage space wisely

Stuff socks into the toes of your shoes. To protect your shoes, wrap them in T-shirts. Roll sweatshirts and undergarments to fill space.  A full bag helps keep the contents from sliding and wrinkling. 

Coordinate your wardrobe around one or two basic colors

This will automatically eliminate packing many items of clothing. Separates are best because they can be mixed and matched. 

Don’t pack too much

An old traveler’s trick is to lay out everything you’ll need, then pack half and return the rest to your closet.

Use lightweight bags if possible

Canvas or nylon bags are more economical than leather. Remember that most airlines have a weight  limit and they strictly enforce it during these tight economic times.

Minimizing wrinkles

Button shirts before packing and only fold clothes at the waist and seams.  Place plastic dry cleaner’s bags around clothes also can cut down on wrinkles.  Keep each layer as flat and even as possible.

Organize with zip-lock plastic food bags

Zip-lock food bags can be used to pack certain clothing items you want to protect, to organize smaller items or to keep wet bathing suits separate from other clothes. Bring extra bags because you never know how you may use them on the trip.

As you pack, make a list of the contents of your suitcase

Bring this with you in case your luggage is lost or stolen and you need to make a claim.

Be sure your baggage is clearly labeled

Remove old airline tags. Make sure your name and address is in a prominent place on the outside and inside of each luggage piece.

Carry fragile, valuable and perishable items with you

Money, jewelry and prescription drugs should be carried with you. Make sure you have at least a toothbrush in your carry-on bag.

Pack sample sizes of toiletry articles

Liquids travel best in plastic containers. Squeeze the air out of the bottles before you fill them up and don’t fill them to the top. Place the containers in plastic bags before you put them in your suitcase.

Carry-on restrictions

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration issued new regulations in September 2006 that said all liquids, gels and aerosols in carry-on luggage must be in three-ounce or smaller containers.  These items must be placed in one quart-size, zip-top, clear plastic bag, which will need to be removed from your carry-on items and placed on the conveyor belt for X-ray screening at check in. Containers larger than three ounces are not allowed (such as rolled up toothpaste tubes). Larger amounts of liquids, gels and aerosols such as toothpaste or shampoo, must be placed in your checked luggage.

There are no limits on the amounts of liquids, gels and aerosols you can carry if they are a prescription or over-the-counter medication or liquids or gels for passengers with a disability or specific medical condition. If these items are in containers larger than three ounces, you will need to separate these items from the liquids, gels, and aerosols in your quart-size and zip-top bag. Let the security officer at the checkpoints know that you have these items. 

New rules for passports

 In 2004, legislation called the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative was passed that requires all travelers to present a passport or other valid travel document that proves their identity and citizenship when entering or re-entering the United States. For complete details on the requirements, a good resource is travel.state.gov or you can call NTA Headquarters and ask for NTA’s Government and Industry Relations Department.

 Everyone traveling by air between the United States and Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and the Caribbean is required to present a passport or other valid travel document to enter or re-enter the United States.

 Related to travel by land and sea, currently, U.S. citizens need to present either a passport, passport card or other valid form of travel document, or a government-issued photo ID, such as a driver’s license, along with proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate.

 Beginning June 1, 2009, the U.S. government is implementing the full requirements of the land and see phase of WHTI. The proposed rules require more U.S. citizens entering the United States at sea or land ports of entry to have a passport, passport card or a WHTI-compliant document.

 However, due to efforts by NTA, children under age 16 will be able to continue crossing land and sea borders using only a U.S. birth certificate (or naturalization certificate) after the new law takes effect in June.

Other tips for students and student trip planners when traveling abroad:

• Verify that the tour company is a member of a professional association such as the National Tour Association.
• Ask questions before you go. Trip planners should ask the company for references, find out the adult chaperone to student ratio and how long the company has been operating in the destinations it features.
• Verify that the tour company has errors and omissions, and professional liability insurance coverage. Professional tour companies should have this coverage.
• Make sure your students have insurance that will cover emergency medical needs.
• Check for travel warnings and public announcements at http://travel.state.gov before you go. This is something your NTA tour operator will be very familiar with.
• Remind students to fill in the emergency information page of their passport and make copies of their passport data page and any visas. Keep a copy separate from the originals while traveling, and leave one at home with their families.
• Leave an itinerary with someone at home, and make sure that someone knows where you are at all times.
• Remind students to carry their hotel information, including name and address, with them. They also should include a phone number to reach the tour company in case of emergencies
• Avoid looking like a tourist. Try to blend in with your surroundings and never go off on your own.
• If possible, try to carry a cellular phone with you at all times.

Source:  NTA (National Tour Organization)

When I was younger and working at my first job at the hotel Las Vegas near Venice, the chef in charge of the kitchen had me enter a bean soup contest,” Francesco recalls, “We won it because I used dry pasta not fresh.” Francesco breaks the spaghetti into small pieces by wrapping it first in a napkin, then running the package over the edge of a counter. And he finishes the rustic, traditional pasta and bean soup with hot olive oil infused with herbs and garlic. “That trick is as old as the pyramids,” he says. He also advises preparing the soup the day before it is to be served, for better flavor.

INGREDIENTS

1 1/3 cups (250g) dried borlotti (cranberry) beans 
2 ounces (60g) slab bacon, in 1 piece 
1/2 cup (125 ml) extra virgin olive oil 
5 cloves garlic, unpeeled 
1/2 stalk celery, coarsely chopped 
1 carrot, coarsely chopped 
1 small onion, coarsely chopped 
1 plum (egg) tomato 
5 cups (1.25 L) water 
4 ounces (125 g) dry spaghetti 
Salt and freshly ground black pepper 
6 cloves garlic, crushed 
2 sprigs each: fresh oregano, rosemary, and thym

Place the beans in a bowl, cover with cold water to a depth of 1 inch (2.5 cm) and allow to soak for 4 hours or overnight. Drain the beans. Heat the bacon and 2 tablespoons (30 ml) of the oil in a heavy 4-5 quart (4 to 5 L) saucepan. Add the unpeeled garlic, celery, carrot, onion, and tomato, cook for a few seconds then add the beans and water. Bring to a simmer and cook, partly covered, for about 1 hour, until the beans are tender. 

Skim the surface from time to time. While the beans are cooking, bring a pot of water to a boil for the spaghetti. Wrap the spaghetti in a cloth towel or napkin and, holding the ends of the cloth closed, run this “package” of spaghetti over the edge of a counter to break the raw spaghetti into small pieces. Drop the spaghetti into the pot of boiling water and cook it about 8 minutes, then drain it and set side. 
When the beans are tender, remove the bacon and the garlic cloves and, using a slotted spoon, remove about half the beans. Puree the remaining bean soup mixture in a blender or a food processor. Add up to a cup of water if the mixture is too thick. Transfer the pureed soup to a saucepan. Add the cooked spaghetti and reserved beans. 

Reheat and season with salt and pepper. Just before serving, heat the remaining olive oil in a skillet and add the crushed garlic cloves and the sprigs of oregano, rosemary, and thyme. Cook for 5 minutes, then strain the hot herb oil into the soup. Serve immediately. 

RECIPE COURTESY OF FRANCESCO ANTONUCCI

Makes 4 to 6 servings

I punch the number into the Italian cell phone, wait for someone to answer, gird myself for disappointment. I’m trying to help a traveling companion with restaurant reservations for the following week, when she’ll still be in Italy but I won’t. And I’m too accustomed to, and beaten down by, the way things typically go in Manhattan to believe this will all turn out smoothly.

A few rings, and then I’m on the line with Santopadre, a Roman restaurant I’ve always adored, and I’m asking about dinner for two on a night just a half week away. I’m also asking — gulp — for 8:30 p.m.

“Certo!” says the voice on the other end, meaning: sure thing. No problem.

I call a restaurant in the south of Italy about a Saturday night, just eight days away, and about another prime meal time.

“Va bene,” says the voice on the other end, meaning: OK. Done.

And so it goes, with restaurant after restaurant, whether I’m asking a full week or just two days in advance. And each restaurant asks for a surname only, and never for a contact number. There’s no suspicion that a diner might not show up. There’s no 24-hour confirmation rule, no edginess and cynicism.

Do Italian diners just behave a lot more reliably than we Americans do? Have they earned restaurateurs’ trust? Or are Italian restaurateurs just much happier to roll with the punches and be relaxed?

It’s one of the many questions that keep flitting through my mind as I flit through Italy, eating and then eating some more.

Here are others: why do my American friends and I love the Autogrill so much? Why am I bummed when I’m on an Italian highway that isn’t a veritable autostrada and doesn’t have an official Autogrill, and why do I find myself stopping at the Autogrill more often than I need to stop for food and fuel?

The Autogrill is what Italy has in place of the oddball combination of fast food restaurants under one roof that we have at Jersey Turnpike rest stops. In that way the Autogrill isn’t a bad metaphor for differences between the Italian approach to food and the American approach. The Autogrill doesn’t throw a cacophony of options at you. It sticks with the tried and true: usually a bit of pizza and a bunch of panini, or sandwiches, that tend to showcase a few familiar and high-quality ingredients: prosciutto crudo, arugula, mozzarella, etc.

On the Jersey Turnpike, we now have Starbucks franchises, which means we can get what is framed as good coffee (let the debate begin!) for rather high prices. The main feature of the Autogrill is a long, long counter — typical of an Italian bar — where people stand to drink espresso and cappuccino. A shot of espresso is usually 80 to 95 cents, and here’s the thing: it’s often as good as espresso at a conventional bar in the heart of Rome or another Italian city.

As my friend Sylvie said to me in a recent e-mail exchange about our Autogrill fondness: “You’re on the autostrada, the Autogrill is the only option you have for caffeine and calories, and yet they don’t take advantage of you by ripping you off for mediocre product.”

In many an Autogrill, after you pass the long bar, as you head toward the exit, you encounter an area, no doubt aimed at tourists, where food is for sale. But as you look at what’s displayed — shrink-wrapped sausages, cured meats, cheeses — you can easily imagine yourself in a corner of Whole Foods. And yet you’re in many senses in an Italian roadside version of a Seven-Eleven. And it says a lot about the way Italy exalts and embraces food.

Sylvie adds: “I also just love the community of motorists that comes together at the Autogrill. It’s more intimate and democratic than an American truck stop. An Armani-suited business man sidles up to the bar and exchanges pleasantries with a coarse-tongued Hazmat truck driver.”

It’s true. I’ve seen this sort of thing myself. And I’ve seen young Italian men make eyes at young Italian women, and I’ve heard old married couples bicker about how long the remaining stretch of driving will be. That long bar draws everybody together, and the Autogrill becomes a piazza of its own.

Sylvie was my traveling companion for my first week in Italy, when we bopped around Puglia. In this blog I haven’t mentioned much about my eating down there, or about time I spent in the Italian north, because I don’t want to preempt stories I hope to write for the newspaper.

But here are some quick, scattered impressions. Guide books and food books didn’t say a lot about pomegranates in relation to Puglia, and yet we repeatedly came across antipasti dishes that combined pomegranate seeds with mozzarella or with cured meats, where they provided a bright, bracing contrast to their companions.

Those same books didn’t prepare us for how frequently we’d run across horsemeat in Puglia. It happened on Night One, when we were served a dish of orecchiette in a meat and tomato sauce. We asked about the meat, and the server uttered a word I didn’t know.

I looked questioningly at Sylvie, whose Italian is fluent.

“Pony,” she said, wincing just a bit.

Orecchiette, which means little ears, are one of the most prevalent kinds of pasta in Puglia, where the wispy noodles of some other regions give way to denser, more substantial forms of pasta — pasta that has a weightier presence and doesn’t defer as readily to whatever’s saucing it.

As is so often the case with historically poor versus historically rich regions, the meat course of a meal in Puglia was never as impressive as the meat course of a meal in the north. That’s also partly because Puglia, with its long coastline, has always had a trove of fine seafood.

Speaking of meat and the north, there was a moment in a restaurant in Bologna that spoke volumes about some of the faulty assumptions we all make when we romanticize a country or a region and its food.

In Italy’s case, we often pay loving tribute to the freshness of locally sourced ingredients. And we extol Italians for the pride they take in nurturing and using those ingredients.

So when I lavishly complimented one of the restaurant’s proprietors on the tenderness and flavor of the beef in a gorgeous carpaccio, I expected her to crow about a special local breed of regional cattle.

“Of course it’s great!” she said of the beef.

Then she added, “It’s from Brazil.”