The most valuable travel advice may come from “real” business travelers—not those who make their living writing about travel. These people are superstars in their respective fields, and usually getting to that level requires a great deal of travel. Thanks to online publishing platforms, many share their travel wisdom with strangers like you and me. Here are a few of my favorite tips from a few of my favorite superstars:

Brad Feld, entrepreneur, writer and venture capitalist, has an admittedly contrarian tip for being more productive:  Eliminate business travel. Read the article to know what caused him to go cold turkey–instead of traveling he mastered videoconferencing. While I’m a firm believer in the value of face-to-face, I also believe business travel is better when trips are limited to the essential and augmented by videoconferencing.

Speaking of contrarian, Ryan Holiday, director of marketing for American Apparel, writer and media strategist, gets more done onboard by NOT: choosing Wi-Fi. Here’s his argument against logging in at 30,000 feet.

I’m a big fan of marketing guru Seth Godin. (Who isn’t?) In a surprising off-topic recommendation, Seth shares his secret for wrinkle-free packing. You, too, can look crisp wherever you go. (Plastic bags are sure to be either the salvation or death of the human race…I can’t decide which.)

Chris Guillabeau writes about entrepreneurship and is the force behind the annual World Domination Summit. There are plenty of blogs out there about hacking loyalty programs. (Heck, that’s practically a genre now.) But I think of Chris as a “nontravel professional” because his more front-and-center gig is as a champion of entrepreneurship. He shares his list of favorite tips, most of which have to do with accumulating miles.

Try searching on your favorite superstar’s name, then adding “travel tips” to the search. You may be surprised at what you find they’ve shared, whether in a blog post, interview, or tweet. What travel tips have you garnered from “nontravel professionals?”

(Photo credit: Flickr/Nick Harris)