During winter vacation, or travelling to a cold country, may mean that you spend more time in the sun. So remember to take along sunscreen and moisturizer. Exposure to the sun, wind or cold can really dry out the skin and can even cause irritation and sensitivity. So, moisturizers, hand creams, lip balms and nourishing creams are important. If you have long hair, take along a headband and hair clips, to keep your hair tidy.

FOLLOW THESE 7 ESSENTIAL WINTER TRAVEL TIPS FOR SKIN AND HAIR

1. Apply anti-tan sunscreen 20 minutes before sun exposure. If you are out in the sun for more than 30 minutes, re-apply the sunscreen. Apply moisturizing cream or hand cream on the hands two or three times and massage it into the skin. Moisturize your skin daily too, so that you replenish the moisture loss.

2. Remember to take a scarf or hat along to protect your hair from over-exposure to the sun, as well as from wind and dust.

3. A pick-me-up face mask can leave your skin clean and glowing. It is a simple way to remove fatigue and refresh the skin. You may not have time to mix ingredients, so take along a peel-off mask to add a touch of brightness to the skin. Ready-to-use peel-off masks are easily available.

4. For the hair, take along a mild herbal shampoo, conditioner or hair serum, a plastic shower cap, towels, and a comb with large, wide teeth. First, wash the hair with a very little shampoo. Dilute it with a little water and then apply. Rinse thoroughly with water. For more convenience, you can take along a Dry Shampoo or even a leave-on conditioner or hair serum.

5. If you are flying, there are more chances of the skin becoming dry and dehydrated. So, drink plenty of water during flights to maintain the water balance of your body. It also helps to keep the skin hydrated. You can have fruit juices but avoid aerated drinks.

6. Avoid alcohol and too much coffee during the flight, as these can also cause dehydration.

7. Take your moisturizer along and use it during the flight. It helps to prevent moisture depletion and is actually a protection. Moisture is actually the skin’s basic need. This is more so during winter.

Fall is the perfect season for photography thanks to its unique color cast. These tips will help you take amazing shots in the fall.

Fall is one of the most picturesque seasons, and many photographers eagerly await its arrival. The colors can completely transform how landscapes look, and the lighting is often softer than during the summer. And, of course, getting out and enjoying those crisp mornings is not the worst thing in the world.

You can point your camera at almost anything autumnal, and it’ll look pretty. But if you want to capture amazing shots that stand out, you’ll need to think a little harder about what you shoot. Here are our top tips for taking beautiful pictures during the fall.

1. Emphasize the Fall Colors

Fall is arguably the most unique season of the year thanks to the beautiful colors it produces. Depending on where you live, you might be able to enjoy forests and the countryside transformed with a tint of orange.

As a photographer, you should do your best to emphasize these colors. You can, for example, learn about color theory to help you capture more eye-catching shots. And during the post-production phase, you can use editing software to draw the viewer’s attention to these.

2. Prepare for All Weather Conditions

Although fall is one of the most beautiful seasons, it’s also one of the least predictable. Sun can quickly turn to rain, and—if you live really far north—you might need to prepare for unexpected snow.

Getting caught in weather you hadn’t predicted is, at best, an inconvenience that might ruin your shoot and your day. At worst, you could find yourself in danger. Before going out to shoot, think about everything you might need. Weather-sealed camera bodies and lenses are a good starting point.

As for yourself, consider taking a waterproof jacket. Layer up to keep yourself warm if you’re going into the mountains. You should also let others know your itinerary.

3. Focus More on Nature

Cityscapes are fun to photograph, but fall is a great time to try out landscape photography. Even places frequented by tourists can look completely different, and you’ll often have to deal with much fewer crowds than you would during the summer.

Forests and parks make for excellent photography locations during the fall. But beyond the slowly-shriveling plant life, you might also want to think about capturing images of wildlife. Many birds begin to migrate when the weather gets colder, for example. If you’re lucky enough to see them, you might get to capture an amazing show in the sky.

4. Get Up Early

Fall mornings are more pleasurable than most other seasons. The air temperature is normally cool, and you can capture beautiful sights like fog covering cityscapes. Even if you’re not usually an early riser, try waking up earlier.

If you live in a busy city, waking up earlier will also help you avoid most of the crowds when going out to shoot. One benefit of the fall months is that sunrise often happens a bit later, meaning you don’t need to get up unreasonably early.

5. Use Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority Mode

Once you’ve moved beyond the beginner photography phase, you probably won’t use auto mode much. If you typically use manual mode, you might want to think about switching things up a little during the fall months.

Aperture priority mode and shutter priority mode are incredibly useful features, and most digital cameras have both. When using either of these, you won’t need to worry about toggling your settings—enabling you to focus on capturing the perfect shot instead.

Remember that when you use either, you’ll still need to consider the other two components of the exposure triangle. Make sure that everything is as balanced as possible.

6. Toggle Your Camera Profile Simulations

When you first bought your camera, you probably used the default factory settings for your images. However, most modern devices give you incredible flexibility. Toggling your camera profiles is a good idea if you want to capture unique pictures of the fall where you live.

You’ve got several options when choosing film simulations. Many manufacturers have a wide selection of color profiles, but you’ll also find various monochromatic ones.

Many camera profile simulations will automatically apply to JPEG file images, but you’ll need to add them in your editing software for RAW ones.

7. Visit Somewhere New

Except for warmer weather, summer often isn’t an ideal time to travel. Accommodation and transportation prices are high, and airports are often busy. And once you get to wherever you’re traveling, you’ll usually need to deal with bigger crowds than you might have wanted.

Some people can’t travel outside the summer months, but if you have the option to do so, visiting somewhere new in the fall can give you a fresh bout of creative inspiration.

You can travel abroad, but you don’t have to. Is there a national park in your state that you’ve always wanted to visit? If so, figure out the logistics and head on over there with your camera.

8. Play Around With the Foliage

Few sounds are more satisfying than the crunching of fallen leaves as you walk on them. But have you ever stopped to think that you can utilize them in several interesting ways for your photography?

You’ve probably seen portrait shots of people picking up a batch of leaves and throwing them. If you’re into that style of photography, try it for yourself and see what you can create.

But even if you’ve got nobody to photograph, you can still have lots of fun with foliage. For example, you can try macro photography and capture a leaf’s details close-up.

Fall Is One of the Best Seasons for Photography

While the days aren’t as warm as the summer, and you’ll often have to deal with challenging weather, fall is a fantastic time for photography. You’ve got plenty of options to capture unique shots, even when visiting somewhere that has been photographed many times before.

You’ll need to think a little about logistics, and in some instances, waking up earlier is necessary for photographing unique moments. But if you’re willing to experiment, you can capture images that others wouldn’t have thought of.

At the onset of summer travel, cancellations, delays and long lines have plagued airports in Europe. In Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Madrid, thousands of passsengers have missed flights in recent weeks due to long queues at security and check-in desks, with some passengers in line for hours just to get inside the terminal buildings. With strike action scheduled for the summer across the European aviation industry, it’s unlikely the situation will improve anytime soon.

While some airports have introduced new queue management systems to deal with the issue, passengers continue to face significant disruptions due to staff shortages and increased demand now that most COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted. In Lisbon, the union chief for Portugal’s border and immigration service SEF, told Reuters that the long lines are unlikely to ease into the main tourist season, even though the airport plans to double border control staff.

Why are airline passengers in Europe facing disruptions?

Staff shortages

Security agents, baggage personnel, cleaning, catering and ground staff were all laid off during the pandemic when flights were grounded and people weren’t traveling. Now airports and airlines are struggling to find more workers as travel rebounds. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects total passenger numbers in Europe to reach 86% of 2019 figures in 2022, before making a full recovery in 2024. But it seems many companies were not anticipating travel to return so fast and are scrambling to recruit and train new hires.

“Demand has been coming back… much faster than the ability of the industry to scale up,” John Holland-Kaye, chief executive of London’s Heathrow airport, told the Financial Times last week. Holland-Kaye warned the problems facing Heathrow in particular could last for 18 months. “With no revenues [and] very high fixed costs… Building that capacity back again is very hard.”

Madrid’s Barajas Airport has gone on a hiring spree to recruit new staff after Spanish airline Iberia reported on Monday that 15,000 passengers have missed their flights since March due to long lines at the airport. But hiring is just the beginning. The positions that need to be filled are highly regulated and require specialist training that could take months to complete. There have also been reports that new contracts being offered to airport staff across the industry are below par. New security staff in Dublin Airport, for example, are only guaranteed 30 hours per week but are expected to be available for 40 hours in new contracts on offer with an entrance rate of pay of €14.40 ($15.15) per hour.

Speaking to Lonely Planet, SIPTU – the union that represents Dublin Airport staff – suggested the hourly rate of pay may be a deterrent in recruiting new staff. “The €14.40 is a composite rate of pay which includes shift pay (20%). The hourly rate of pay is only €11.31 per hour when adjusted for the shift premium, which is only 8% above the national minimum wage of €10.50,” SIPTU Aviation Organiser, Niall Phillips, explained.

“For the highly regulated and specialised work that an ASU officer does the hourly rate of pay is not sufficient to attract workers into the role and is not appearing to be enough to retain new recruits in the positions. There are currently approximately 200 new recruits in security with plans to significantly increase these numbers over the coming months,” he added.

The IATA said the most pressing issue now is clearing the queues for security clearances as summer travel gets underways. They’re urging the ground handling sector worldwide to adopt a stronger talent acquisition strategy, streamline onboarding processes and develop a more compelling retention propostion.

“Additional resources are needed to accelerate the processing times for employment security clearances which can be as much as six months in some markets. The shortages we are experiencing today are a symptom of the longer-term challenges to achieve a stable talent base in ground handling,” said Nick Careen, IATA’s senior vice president for the operations, safety and security.

Summer of strikes

Italy is one of the few European countries to escape the long lines that have faced passengers flying elsewhere in Europe — but it hasn’t escaped disruption. A number of flights were delayed or cancelled on June 8 due to transport strikes from stafff working for low-cost airlines such as Ryanair, EasyJet and Volotea over pay and working conditions. Unions representing staff for Ryanair in Italy have called for a 24-hour strike on June 25 and more strikes are likely to take place there across the summer.

Similiarly, Portugal’s union of civil aviation personnel SNPVAC said Ryanair’s Portuguese cabin staff will go on strike for three days in late June.

French airports too are set to be hit by strike action in July as workers fight for salary increases to cope with the cost of living crisis. Last week (June 9) a quarter of flights departing from Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly were cancelled because of strikes.

Scandinavian airline SAS could go on strike at the end of June, with more than 1,000 pilots in Denmark, Norway and Sweden set to walk out on June 29, according to The Local Denmark.

Tips for airline passengers

Following the chaotic scenes witnessed over the past few weeks, some airports have issued advice for passengers including arriving early, preparing your liquids and laptops for security checks before getting to the airport, and ensuring passports are up-to-date.

While officials need to work on long-term solutions to manage queues and cooperate with unions, here’s what else you can do to help the process run a little smoother if you are flying from a European airport.

Download your airport and airline apps

This will save you a lot of hassle. Many airports share security screening wait times with their apps so you can see live wait times before you even get to the airport, allowing you to plan your arrival time accordingly.

Similarly your airline’s app will also help you anticipate any disruptions or cancellations. When you download the mobile app, you’ll generally get immediate alerts and some airlines will offer re-booking options and notifications through the app when facing delays.

Take a screenshot of your boarding pass

Take a screenshot of your boarding pass so you can easily access it as soon as you get to the airport. You can also save it on your Apple Wallet on iOS, or PassWallet on Android. Having a scannable, offline version of your boarding pass can save you scrambling to access it when the airport WiFi is patchy and frustration is mounting behind you at the check-in queue.

Bring a portable phone charger

If your boarding pass is stored on your phone, you don’t want to be caught short with a dead battery when you finally reach your gate. Pack a portable battery charger and necessary cables in your hand luggage so you can power your phone when you need it.

Drop your bags off early

Airlines like British Airways and Jet2 allow customers to check their bags in a day before departure. Find out if this is a service your airline offers to ease pressure at check-in desks when you fly.

Purchase fast passes or priority boarding if possible

Some airports offer fast-pass access that can help you get through security quicker for an additional fee. It’s not always available, particularly as demand for it has increased in recent weeks. And there have been widespread complaints that these ‘fast lanes’ have been equally as slow as regular ones of late, but it’s a good idea to enquire before you get to the airport. It’s also worth asking your airline about advance check-ins or priority boarding access.

Pack snacks

With passengers typically spending more time in the airport than usual to get ahead of the queues, many shops, cafes and restaurants are running low on food and drink options to meet increased demand. Passengers traveling through European airports have reported long lines at restaurants and retailers selling out of pre-packaged sandwiches and meals in the early afternoon. In the UK, people traveling on TUI flights have been told that they may need to bring their own food and drink onboard in the coming weeks as staffing shortages at the company’s catering supplier have meant that hot or cold meals cannot be served on short- and mid-haul flights for now.

Bring snacks that you know you can check through security screening, any drinks over 100ml will have to be purchased on the other side.

Find out what compensation you’re entitled to if you miss your flight

When thousands of passengers missed their flights in Dublin in May due to mismanaged queues, the Dublin Airport Authority told Lonely Planet that many of their airline partners offered passengers the ability to amend their bookings to the next available flight without additional charges. Those who missed their flights and incurred additional charges were directed to the airport’s customer support team to claim for vouched expenses incurred.

This isn’t something that every airline or airport will offer you so make sure you know what options are available before you fly. It’s also a good idea to take out a travel insurance policy that covers you for missed, delayed or cancelled flights.

While overall memory declines as we age, that’s far from the end of the story. In fact, there are certain things older people continue to remember quite well, says researcher Alan D. Castel.

Our memories are our identities, and at my lab at UCLA, I’ve worked to understand how we remember what matters to us, especially as we age. Memory decline is one of the first things that concern people about growing older — it can start after the age of 20, so being more forgetful when you are 60 or 70 is often normal. And while a vast amount of research has shown the deficits that accompany aging, it’s far too simplistic to say that the elderly have impaired memories. In fact, there are many things older adults remember quite well. Here’s a look at a few of them:

1. Older people tend to remember the essentials.

A great deal of memory research focuses on what might be considered by some of us to be mundane — word lists, face-name pairs, studying and being tested on pictures — and it’s unclear why this might be important to remember. But how about things that are of real concern or interest?

Imagine you’re packing for a trip. You want to make sure you’ve put in the most important items, the ones that would be extremely costly and/or inconvenient if you forgot them (e.g., your passport, your credit cards). While I wish we could have followed people on their vacations to see what they left behind, we created an experiment to examine this in the lab. We presented subjects with 20 possible items that you might pack on a trip (e.g., medications, passport, sunscreen, toothbrush, phone charger, deodorant, swimsuit, sandals). When we later asked them to recall the items, the older adults (average age was 68) recalled more of the items that they felt were important than the younger adults (average age of 20.4), even though they remembered fewer items overall. We’ve since done other studies showing older adults will have a greater memory for important medication side effects from a long list and for a grandchild’s dangerous allergens than younger adults.

We did another experiment when we came up with a list of words to remember. Some were more important and paired with higher point-values or rewards, while others were less important and associated with lower point-values or rewards. The goal was to maximize one’s overall memory reward — to do that, you needed to remember the words paired with the highest values. We found that older adults remembered fewer words overall but recalled just as many of the highest-value words as younger adults.

2. Older people tend to remember what they need to do in the future.

Sometimes the most important things for us to remember involve future actions. This is called “prospective memory” — and it might take the form of remembering to take medications at a certain time tomorrow, or paying a credit card bill on a particular date or else we’ll get penalized. While prospective memory might be worse in older age, there are important exceptions. Researchers have found a “prospective memory paradox”: despite older adults doing poorly on laboratory tasks of prospective memory, they fare well in the real world.

For example, in research studies older adults may be asked to perform a future task such as “When you see the word ‘president’ on the next page, please raise your hand.” Sometimes they get so focused on reading that they forget to react when “president” appears — but does that mirror the forgetfulness of not taking one’s medication at noon in 2 days? As many of us know, older adults have often developed strategies to prompt their prospective memories, like putting their wallet by the front door or their medications by their eyeglasses. To bridge this gap between lab-based prospective memory tests and real life, one study asked people who came to the lab to mail back postcards every week; researchers wanted to determine how younger and older adults would compare in remembering to do this future-focused task. To their surprise, it was the older adults who diligently mailed in the postcards each week.

Of course, some older adults remember to do things the old-fashioned way: they write it down in a calendar they consult every day. When I called then-97-year-old John Wooden, retired from a legendary career as a basketball coach, to schedule an interview, he wrote it in a calendar. Then, he called me the day before to confirm I was still coming to see him — he was reminding me!

3. Older people tend to remember what intrigues them.

Humans are curious from an early age. My young son loves the adventures of the mischievous Curious George and of learning about the world. Our curiosity blossoms with age, but we typically become interested in different things as we get older. After all, Curious George is not the favorite bedtime reading of most adults.

To test your own level of curiosity and memory, read the following trivia questions, decide how interested you are in learning the answers (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not interested at all, and 10 being extremely interested), and then try to come up with answers (the answers are at the very bottom of this article):

What mammal sleeps the shortest amount each day?
What was the first product to have a bar code?
What was the first nation to give women the right to vote?

These are fairly difficult trivia questions, and some are probably more interesting to you than others. In one study done in my lab, younger and older adults were given questions like those that you just read. Much like those, all of the queries were chosen such that we guessed almost none of the participants knew the correct answers. Afterwards, the subjects gave each a curiosity rating — showing how interested they were in learning the answer. They were then told the answers. A week later, the same subjects were presented with the same questions and asked to recall the answers. It was the older adults who remembered the ones they were more curious about — and they forgot the less interesting ones. The younger adults didn’t show this pattern.

There’s a certain pleasure in recalling trivia and absorbing new information about the world. I’ve noticed the most popular games at senior centers and retirement communities often involve this kind of random knowledge. People sometimes worry about having too many stray facts in their minds. But even though trivia may appear to have little useful value, the fact that it continues to arouse curiosity — and sticks in older people’s minds — shouldn’t be discounted.

4. OK, older people may forget what they’re doing in a particular room, but they can jog their memory.

Our surroundings can influence how we remember things. Have you ever found yourself in the kitchen and not had the faintest idea what compelled you to go there? This is a common occurrence for everyone, but especially for older adults. Some research suggests that walking through doorways or crossing physical boundaries may actually trigger forgetting. When you move from one place to the next, the doorway leads to a new environment that does not provide the necessary cues to remember what you were doing in the other room. As you enter the new room, your brain must either keep in mind or re-create what you were thinking when you were in the earlier room — but our minds often wander as we go to another room or we start thinking about something else.

The best way to remember what you need is to walk back into the first room where you originally had the thought of why you needed to go to the other room. The context of that original room can trigger your original intention. In addition, walking is one of the best ways to keep your memory sharp. With enough time and walking, you’ll find the memory eventually comes back.

P.S. But don’t get too hung up on what you can and can’t remember.

Our beliefs about our memory can be very influential. In fact, many of us have negative beliefs and expectations about aging’s impact on the brain. This kind of “stereotype threat” can make people perform stereotypically — in a way that is consistent with what they think is expected of them. Stereotype threat has been examined to determine if it causes older adults to underperform on tests of memory. Labeling something a memory test, or asking people to come to a memory study, does appear to invoke anxiety, and research has shown that renaming it as a “wisdom test” (and then administering the same memory test) leads to better performance by older adults. So, the next time you start to worry about forgetting a world capital or a famous actor’s name and wonder what this means about your brain and your memory, try not to sweat it.

Note: The research covered here involves mostly healthy older adults who report memory changes in older age. However, if you experience more frequent and concerning memory problems, you should consider consulting a neurologist.

Answers to trivia questions: giraffe; Wrigley’s chewing gum; New Zealand.

Excerpted with permission from the new book Better With Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging by Alan D. Castel PhD. © 2019 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.