Katie Peterson spent more than 30 hours in airports last year.
The single item she now refuses to fly without isn’t a charger or noise-cancelling headphones. It’s a pen.
The travel content creator, 36, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has built her tips the hard way, through what she calls “years of mistakes.”
With the World Cup spreading matches across the US, Canada and Mexico, terminals are about to fill up with football fans who haven’t.
So she’s shared what works.
The item nobody packs
Plenty of countries still hand you a paper form on arrival.
Plenty of travellers still assume someone else has brought something to write with.
“I can’t tell you how many times the one person with a pen on the plane is a hero,” Katie told CreatorZine.
“When you have to fill something out, you’ll want that pen.”
It costs nothing. It weighs nothing. It is, she reckons, the most underrated thing in her bag.
Sort it before you leave home
The first app Katie wants on your phone is your airline’s.
Gate changes and delays land there before they reach the departures board, which means you’re moving while everyone else is still squinting at a screen.
“You’ll be ahead of the crowd,” she said.
“You can head to the new gate first, or know if you need to get to the ticket counter to change your flight.”
She also screenshots her boarding pass rather than trusting airport WiFi to load it at the worst possible moment.
Anyone who has stood at a gate watching a spinning wheel knows why.
The terminal survival kit
A few of Katie’s tips are about not being caught short.
Carry an empty water bottle through security and fill it once you’re airside.
Pack a portable charger in your hand luggage.
Bring a power strip or extension lead, because the working sockets in a busy terminal are always taken by someone who got there first.
Her packing trick is less obvious. Wear your bulkiest clothes instead of cramming them into a case.
Your suitcase thanks you. Your dignity, queuing at the gate in a winter coat in June, does not.
And once your seat is booked, she says there’s no rush to board.
“If you already have an allocated seat, board near the end,” she said.
The reward is less time sitting on a stationary aircraft watching the rest of the plane file past.
When the flight falls apart
This is where Katie gets tactical.
A cancellation or long delay is the moment to study the departures board for other flights heading the same way, sometimes cheaper, sometimes earlier. Spot one, open the airline app, switch.
She checks in exactly 24 hours before departure too.
Without a seat already, that window can occasionally turn up a cheaper one, or even an upgrade if the timing falls right.
“Doing these things just make my travel days easier,” she said.
“Travelling can be stressful, so these things help me tackle the unexpected hiccups.”
Then a reminder she clearly means: “Always remember, travel is meant to be fun.”
Why it matters
Travel advice is one of the few creator niches where the audience can test the product the same week they watch the video.
A pen tip either saves you at passport control or it doesn’t.
That accountability is rare online, and it’s exactly why service-led travel creators keep growing while the aspirational stuff plateaus.
The timing helps. Tournament travel pulls millions of people who fly maybe twice a year into airports built for people who fly constantly, and they go looking for someone who’ll tell them what to actually do.
Katie is positioned for precisely that search.
Expect a wave of World Cup travel content over the coming months as creators chase the same fans across three countries.
The ones offering a pen will do better than the ones offering a vibe.
READ MORE: I flew to Milan for the day and was home by bedtime – the whole trip cost £115
