Deal Strategy: Book an All-Inclusive Holiday Right After the Holidays

'Tis the season for traveling like Santa and his elves, with tons of gifts and packages in tow. The Transportation Security Administration has several reminders for travelers bringing their holiday gifts onto a flight. First off, remember that any liquid, aerosol or gel items are subject to the 3.4-ounce limit for carry-ons. That includes these popular holiday foods, treats and gifts: cranberry sauce; cologne; creamy dips and spreads (including cheeses and peanut butter); gift baskets with food items such as salsa, jams and salad dressings; gravy; jams; jellies; lotions; maple syrup; oils and vinegars; perfume; salad dressing; salsa; sauces; snowglobes; soups; wine, liquor and beer. Pies and cakes can be brought through security, but are subject to additional screening (whatever that means! A TSA taste test maybe?). Flyers are permitted to travel with wrapped gifts, but if the gifts set off the security alarm or there are any red flags, security officers may have to peel away your pretty paper take a closer look inside. “We recommend passengers wrap gifts after their flight or ship them ahead of time, to avoid the possibility of having to open them during the screening process,” TSA advises. So, really think about what’s in those packages, as it’s easy to forget about the contents once they’re wrapped. Case and point, I was flying with gifts for my brother and his family one year, when airport security pulled me aside to tell me there was a foot-long knife in my carry-on. I couldn’t believe what they were telling me, and turned bright red and flustered. As it turned out, I had packed an at-home, sushi-making set for my brother that, indeed, included a foot-long sushi knife. But because it had been a couple weeks since I had wrapped it, I forgot about the knife. They confiscated the blade and I had to gift the sushi set minus one of its main ingredients. More from Budget Travel: 5 Eco-friendly Packing Tips Poll: Would You Use Social Media to Find A Better Seatmate? It's Ski Season! Check Out Strategies for Cheaper Lift Tickets

As a South Africa-based health professional with decades of field experience in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (to start with), Ruth Stark has learned her share of lessons about getting by in another country—and in another culture. And while her new book (out this month from the University of Washington Press), How to Work in Someone Else’s Country, focuses on advice and ideas for folks embarking on short- and long-term work projects, it's also chock-full of tips leisure travelers can use, too. (I'm now seriously considering adding a water bottle to my suitcase as a bed warmer for romantic-but-potentially-drafty old hotels or B&Bs.;) Stark's book covers packing tips, safety suggestions, and travel-planning advice (oh, the complications of multi-country visas), but most invaluable are her years of experience building and observing cross-cultural relationships in all kinds of settings. And since this interpersonal stuff is what can really make or break a trip, we asked her for her no-fail advice for making inroads with locals anywhere you go. Learn a few words of the language. "You don’t need to know much," Stark says. "Even a few words or phrases will do—please, thank you, how are you? And don’t worry if you can’t pronounce the words perfectly. The fact that you try to say anything at all will show your interest and will get you off to a good start." And don't forget to say hello. "We Westerners tend to be very fast and efficient and like to get right down to business," Stark says, "But whether you're buying a bus ticket or meeting your tour guide, it's important to take the time to say a word of greeting first." A simple, "Hello, how are you today?" will suffice, Stark says. Even a nonverbal greeting—a smile, a nod, and a bit of a pause—stands in as a gesture of respect for the other person as an individual, not just a service provider. Study up on the local sports heroes. Skip talking politics—there's a much better (and less touchy) way to show you're interested in the local culture and current events. "Sports is a great ice breaker," Stark says. "When you meet locals who speak some English, ask about their sports heroes and the national teams. People are often passionate about the subject and love to talk about it—and it will likely open the door to talking about other topics." Go ahead, brag about your kids. "In the Western world, we often get to know people as individuals through what they do in their work," says Stark. "But in many parts of the world, the individual is viewed primarily in relation to their family network." Ask about a person's family, tell them about yours, and you're well on your way to finding common ground. "There is no better way to win friends," Stark says. Play photographer. "Digital cameras have opened up a whole new pathway to making friends with the locals, even when you can’t speak the language," Stark says. "If you're taking pictures of a group of people you don’t know (with their permission, of course), offer to show it to them on the camera. Just like back home, people enjoy gathering around the camera and seeing how the pictures came out." And if you're taking photos of newfound friends, find a way to share the images with them, whether it's through email, a compatible cell phone network, or even mailing them printed photos. "It is especially meaningful if you send photos of your new friends with their families," Stark says. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL: Learn a New Language for Under $100 Q&A;: How to Travel the World without Paying a Penny 5 Common Farmstay Questions—Answered!

Slowly but surely, vacation packages that once relied on charter flights to shuttle travelers based in smaller markets to fun-and-sun destinations are being replaced with packages bundled around scheduled flights. In the past, companies like Vacation Express, Apple Vacations and Worry-Free Vacations relied heavily on chartered aircraft to deliver travelers in markets underserved by regional or national carriers to the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. But slowly, scheduled carriers have picked up the slack and have gradually added more flights from second- and third-tier markets in the U.S. to these popular vacation spots. The Edina, Minn.-based Worry-Free Vacations, for instance, was once a vibrant air-and-hotel packager for the Midwest market. Now, Worry-Free no longer offers air transportation at all, and purely sells hotels, car rentals and activities in Las Vegas, Mexico and Jamaica. Meanwhile, its parent company, MLT Vacations, is busy operating and managing more and more airline vacation brands such as Delta Vacations and United Vacations. Similarly, the owners of Apple Vacations are in the process of shutting down their USA3000 airline, a business started several years ago when scheduled air wasn’t adequate for the Caribbean and Mexico routes Apple Vacations serves. USA3000 actually grew to become almost entirely a scheduled carrier, but the fact that its service is coming to an end speaks to the how much the national scheduled airlines have increased service to leisure locales. The changes are probably more dramatic behind-the-scenes than for the travelers booking these vacations. Beach-goers might simply notice that the name of the carrier is one they recognize — or one they are a frequent flyer of $mdash; rather than that of a lesser-known charter company. Vacation packagers work around-the-clock to deliver competitive prices, regardless of what kind of aircraft or air contracts they engage. But if you live in a market that was once catered to by more charter flights and have seen a noticeable shift, let us know the changes you’ve noticed, good or bad. Do you care how you get to where you’re going or is it all about the price of the vacation? Do you prefer working with a larger airline so that you can accumulate miles? Let us know! More from Budget Travel: 9 Must-Visit Caribbean Islands Should Airlines Have to Allow One Free Checked Bag By Law? Nonstop Caribbean Map: Fly Right to the Beach

At certain U.S. ski resorts, you could pay over $100 for a single day's lift ticket. Do you really have to pay that much to ski? No way. The New York Times recently rehashed a handful of the best ways to trim lift ticket costs. The list includes classic advice such as buying a package with lodging and lift passes bundled together, skiing midweek rather than the weekend, and choosing multi-day passes over single-day tickets. The gist is that you'll pay through the nose if you don't plan ahead, and instead just arrive on a Saturday and stroll up to the ticket counter and ask for a day pass. Do that at a resort like Vail and you'll pay as much as $106! In fact, the way to save the most on lift tickets is by planning far, far in advance. As the Times points out, the ski pass-discounting website Liftopia works best for skiers comfortable booking months before they'll hit the slopes. The average discount through Liftopia is 33 percent for skiers purchasing tickets at least 14 days in advance, and it's possible to save a lot more by booking further out and being flexible with ski days. For a scant few days at Mount Snow, in Vermont, for example, a single-day lift ticket in costs as little as $24 via Liftopia. A standard midweek ticket, meanwhile, runs $75 at the resort. The downside with purchasing tickets through Liftopia, or similar services like LiftTickets.com, is that passes are totally nonrefundable. So if your plans change, or the weather doesn't cooperate, you're stuck paying for a lift ticket you don't use. That's the tradeoff for snagging lift tickets on the cheap. If you ski as a family, it's well worth checking out if your state, or a state where you plan on skiing, has a ski passport program for kids. With these programs, children in the prime ages for learning to ski (generally, fourth, fifth, or sixth grade) get free or discounted skiing all season long, so long as they're accompanied by a paying adult. Some processing and handling fee is usually required, but other than that, the savings potential is huge. With the "Winter Kids" program in Maine, for example, after a family pays $25, eligible kids can ski for free or at major discounts at 50 mountains and outdoor recreation areas for the duration of the season. Under the Passport program in Utah, fifth graders get three free lift tickets at each of the state's 14 participating resorts. Sixth graders, meanwhile, get one free day pass at each of the mountains too. Vermont, Colorado, and New York are among the states with similar programs. Among the other lift ticket savings strategies worth checking out is opting to ski only part of the mountain. Beginners rarely venture beyond a resort's novice areas, so why pay for access to trails you'll never see? At Alta in Utah, for instance, a lift ticket in the beginner area, with access to three different chairlifts, costs $38. By contrast, a full-access day pass costs $72. Finally, if you're traveling with skiers at either end of the age spectrum, choose your resort carefully. While many mountains offer lift tickets for free to skiers around 5 and under or 75 and older, some resorts are far more generous with freebies than others. At Big Sky Resort in Montana, for instance, up to two kids 10 and under skis for free when accompanied by a paying adult. MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL: Ask Trip Coach: Ski Vacations Shut Up and Ski: 10 Best Old-School Ski Resorts in the U.S. In Search of the Perfect Ski Village