Survival Guide – TOUR TIPS

This new set of Tour Tips was written by the indie artist, Survival Guide. You can check out her tips for being on the road, after the break.

1. Bring as many pairs of socks and underwear as you can. It’s tough to predict how often you’ll get to do laundry, and what’ll you do if you run out? None of the options are very good. Better be safe and just shove a few more pairs in your suitcase for good measure.

2. Always always bring a swimsuit, no matter the season! Touring the northeast in winter? It doesn’t matter — you never know who might invite the band over for a hot tub, or maybe you’ll stay in a hotel that happens to have a heated pool. Plus swimsuits don’t take up much room in your bag anyway!

3. Be aware of time-zone differences. If you want to be professional and punctual (which you should), you have to pay attention when heading east. If you’re playing a show in El Paso then driving the 9 hours to Austin, you’d better factor in that hour you’re losing.

4. If you start to get sick, take care of yourself! It’s so easy to get sick on tour, and for a vocalist, it can quickly affect everyone if you’re too sick to sing. No matter what instrument you play, you’ve gotta nip that in the bud. Don’t continue to party and stay up ridiculously late every night. It’s tough to have to miss out on some of the fun, but you could potentially get way worse and/or bring the rest of the band down with you. Instead, get as much sleep as you can, drink as much water and eat as much healthy food as you can, and always have a vitamin C stash ready for this.

5. Make space in your tour vehicle for a mini kitchen. If you get a power converter, you can plug things in like a hot water kettle. This is SO valuable on tour! You can use it to make soup cups, tea, oatmeal, coffee… if you love coffee like I do, please get yourself a plastic or metal French press. It’ll make your mornings on tour so much better!

Keep up with Survival Guide on Twitter and Facebook!

Did you find these tips useful? Let us know in the comments below!