I like the new character to check base portals idea.

My hindsight idea is always have an untagged portal for emergancies, you can't ever forget the name or type it wrong - you can still forget if you've used it however. Plus depending on the emergency you may not want to take the time to type a tag - this way you don't have to.

I always use blank for exploring, and build a new portal at base if I want that location permanent instead - then just hop back and tag it.