21 Travel Hacks You Need to Know Before You Go From the secret to snagging an entire row of seats on the plane, to rigging your suitcase so it (hopefully) appears at the baggage claim first, here's a bunch of clever little tricks that make traveling much less of a crudstorm.

By Kim Lachance Shandrow Jul 28, 2015

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The best part of traveling is arriving at your destination. All of the other stuff that comes before is typically a drag. Overpaying for airfare. Check. Cramming your life into a suitcase. Check. Sitting uncomfortably close to strangers in a winged tube in the sky. Ugh, check.

Also on your pre-flight checklist: Jumping through the TSA's anal-retentive hoops (barefoot). Packing no liquids, gels, aerosols, creams or pastes over 3.4 measly ounces per itty-bitty container. Then plopping them into quart-sized, clear plastic Ziploc bags. Oh, and ditch the shoes. You have to prove they're not dangerous.

Bon voyage, baby. Isn't traveling fun? With a few simple -- and sneaky -- travel hacks up your sleeve, it can be. Or it can suck less, at least.

From snagging an entire row of seats on the plane, to rigging your suitcase so it (hopefully) arrives in the first batch of bags at the baggage claim, the quick travel tricks detailed in the infographic below can help make getting there and back much less of a headache. It comes to us care of the globetrotters over at Hassle, a London-based startup that matches busy traveling professionals with home cleaners.

Pack a few of these helpful travel hacks for your next trip and happyish trails to you.

Click to Enlarge

Kim Lachance Shandrow

Former West Coast Editor

Kim Lachance Shandrow is the former West Coast editor at Entrepreneur.com. Previously, she was a commerce columnist at Los Angeles CityBeat, a news producer at MSNBC and KNBC in Los Angeles and a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times. She has also written for Government Technology magazine, LA Yoga magazine, the Lowell Sun newspaper, HealthCentral.com, PsychCentral.com and the former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Coop. Follow her on Twitter at @Lashandrow. You can also follow her on Facebook here.

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