CRP's Blog

Author Joey Green is a lifelong world explorer and life hacker extraordinaire. His newest book tackles the travel industry: Last-Minute Travel Secrets: 121 Ingenious Tips to Endure Cramped Planes, Car Trouble, Awful Hotels, and Other Trips from Hell (on sale in May 2016).  In it, Joey reveals his best travel tips and hacks for weary, frustrated travelers. Nearly all of them sound goofy—discover how to improvise noise-canceling headphones with a tennis ball, for example (see photo at left)—but they really do work! We asked Joey to choose his favorite tip from the book, and here’s what he said.

“My favorite tip from Last-Minute Travel Secrets, aside from all the great ways to save money, is one I made up myself: “How to Fashion a Sleep Mask from Maxi Pads.” To take photos for the book, I made one of these sleep masks on my tray table while aboard a flight, put it on my face, and asked my wife to take a few pictures of me.  I had a window seat, my wife Debbie was in the middle seat, and a complete stranger sat in the aisle seat. So imagine me sitting there with a maxi pad over my eyes, Debbie snapping off pictures, and the woman sitting in the aisle seat just sitting there reading her book. She never flinched. I guess that means you can wear a maxi pad sleep mask on your face with no problem whatsoever.”

How to Fashion a Sleep Mask from Maxi Pads

What You Need: 2 maxi pads, 2 shoelaces

What to Do:

1. Place one maxi pad (adhesive strip up) on a flat surface and peel off the paper protecting the adhesive strip.
2. Locate the midpoint of the first shoelace, and then carefully place the midsection of the shoelace lengthwise along the adhesive strip on the maxi pad.
3. Locate the midpoint of the second shoelace, then carefully place the midsection of the second shoelace lengthwise (¼ inch below the first shoelace) along the adhesive strip on the maxi pad.
4. Peel off the paper protecting the adhesive strip from the second maxi pad.
5. Line up the second maxi pad (adhesive side down) to cover the first maxi pad (adhesive side up) and the attached sections of the shoelaces.
6. Press the second maxi pad firmly in place to attach it to the first maxi pad, with the attached sections of the shoelaces sandwiched between them.
7. Place the maxi pad mask over your eyes, and tie the shoelaces behind your head to hold the eye mask in place.

How It Works: The adhesive strips hold the maxi pads and shoelaces together, and the resulting sleep mask is both comfortably padded and thick enough to block out surrounding light.

-Caitlin Eck

For more ingenious tips, check out Last-Minute Travel Secrets—it officially publishes in May 2016 and will be available wherever books (and e-books) are sold.

[Get it now $17]  [Request a review copy] 

Always wondering how you’d survive the (zombie?) apocalypse? Joey Green’s previous book, Last-Minute Survival Secrets, is also available.