TravelCommons

Finishing up 19 years of thinking way too much about travel, I indulge in a little bit of nostalgia and talk about my personal travel philosophy. But before that, we compare three Mid-South river cities -- Nashville, Louisville, and Memphis -- talk about the recovery of business travel, and enjoy a full listener mail bag.Check out this episode's show notes for a transcript of the episode and links I mention here

I .Check out this episode's show notes for a transcript of the episode and links I mention here

I walked by Shakespeare's Globe Theatre after a weekend of wrestling with Booking.com and TravelNest‘s service agents, trying unsuccessfully to not let them screw up my London vacation rental. The Macbeth soliloquy about a tale “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” pretty much summed up my experience — lots of talk that yielded nothing. But before that, we catch up on Hertz's EV reversal, Sioux City, Iowa's embrace of their SUX airport code, and a flash-in-the-pan airport delay betting app.Check out this episode's show notes for a transcript of the episode and links I mention here

It's the sustainability episode of the TravelCommons podcast, talking about my experience renting a Tesla from Hertz and my road-tested list of Christmas gift suggestions for the frequent traveler(s) in your life. I also talk about some new TSA biometrics equipment I faced (literally) in Nashville and yet another update on the EU's ETIAS system and the US's Real ID.Check out this episode's show notes for a transcript of the episode and links I mention here

In this beer-focused episode, John Holl, editor of All About Beer, gives us his take on beer tourism and tips on how to beer travels. I talk about my experience planning my Asheville, NC taproom visits with ChatGPT. We also dive deep into the new JD Power Airport Satisfaction Survey and do a quick update about the EU's delayed ETIAS system.Check out this episode's show notes for a transcript of the episode and links I mention here

In this episode, I dive deep into our Dutch tulip-themed trip last April. Before the tulip festival stories, I randomly wander through a potpourri of travel topics — TSA passenger volumes returning to pre-COVID levels, having a surprisingly satisfying customer service experience with American Airlines, Hertz's EV push, and a bit of a chuckle about the misplaced visa panic in the news coverage of the EU's impending ETIAS system.Check out this episode's show notes here

Back behind the microphone after, despite my finely tuned travel plans, I had to resort to being stubbornly cranky to fix a ORD connection drama when coming home from a tulip-peeping trip in Holland. We also wander into the world of flâneuring, aimlessly walking around a city as a way to swerve overtourism. Listeners weigh in on Priority Pass lounge access and online passport renewal experiences, and I count all the apps I needed to go cashless in Holland.Check out this episode's show notes here

Doing a bit of winter travel, the bar tab from waiting out a weather delay got me rethinking the economics of airport lounge memberships. Doing yet more travel planning but with a focus on making the most of the points and miles we accumulated on credit cards during the pandemic. And after eight months in Nashville, I compare the two sides of the local music scene -- the Nash-Vegas honky tonks vs the smaller, eclectic off-Broadway scene.Check out this episode's show notes here

With COVID travel restrictions gone, I expect people to revert back to their old ways where January is the biggest travel planning month. I wade into the debate between booking direct with travel providers vs. booking with agents and 3rd-party sites. I see how well my travel tips did during the Southwest cancellation chaos, and then pull out a little more of my conversation with Jeff Cioletti, author of the new book Imbibing for Introverts; this time about how gin is going global with a local twist.Check out this episode's show notes here

Hard up against the Christmas deadline, we compare long-distance drive times between gas and electric cars, and my travel tips vs. those from the ChatGPT AI chatbot. We talk about the latest Real ID deadline delay, and impressions from my trip to Positano, Rome, Florence, and Split, Croatia.Check out this episode's show notes here

Back behind the mic after 3 week of travel in Croatia and Italy. The trip went amazingly well up to the last leg, when United's Newark team couldn't get our bags on our plane. But, I'd stuffed Apple AirTags into our luggage, so we were able to track their movements 'til they got home. That experience and a listener's tweet led to me re-visiting my travel tech stack. We then talk to Jeff Cioletti, author of the new book Imbibing for Introverts, about the art of drinking alone.Check out this episode's show notes here

Lots of different voices in this episode. Listeners growing our list of travel tips, and conversations with Dr. Sheldon Jacobson about why one of those tips — always catch the first flight out — isn't always right, and Patricia Schultz about her new book, Why We Travel: 100 Reasons to See the World.Check out this episode's show notes here

Back behind the microphone after a couple of months of setting up the new studios in Nashville. I've been dishing out travel advice to friends and family swept up in this summer's travel chaos. I've distilled all those texts and messages down to my top 13 travel tips to help those traveling through the rest of the year. We also talk about the countries that have dropped all of the COVID testing requirements for inbound passengers, noodle about the rationale for JetBlue's dogged pursuit of Spirit Airways, Delta's new time limits for their Sky Club lounges, and why frequent flier award travel is suddenly a bargain again.Check out this episode's show notes here

The last episode recording in Chicago before we relocate the TravelCommons studios, and our lives, down to Nashville. We close out our threads on in-flight mask mandates and hotel housekeeping, and critique an academic paper about the moral hazard of frequent flier elite status. I talk through the changes I'll have to make when flying out of a non-hub airport. And then, as I'm making a list of the Chicago breweries I want to re-visit before leaving, I think through the characteristics that makes a taproom great.Check out this episode's show notes here

We recap the bouncing ball history of the in-flight mask mandate as we try to figure out where it's going land now that it's in the courts. But before that, I recap my trip to Santa Fe, NM, take the flight tracking app Flighty for a spin, and wonder why CLEAR keeps giving away annual subscriptions. Then we dig into the current state of regional airports with Joanne Magley, of Daytona Beach International AirportCheck out this episode's show notes here

As the great American philosopher Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast” and in this episode, we talk about the rapid changes in hotel service, and in-flight mask mandates. Then I go into detail about our recent trip to Louisville, complete with recommendations for food and drinkCheck out this episode's show notes here

In the travel world, what goes up -- rules, fees, prices -- often stays up. It's the ratchet effect and it's a theme running through this episode. Inflation is on everyone's mind, and so we dig into travel inflation, comparing today's prices with pre-pandemic levels. We also talk about US passport renewals ahead of the summer vacation season, and some good Cuban food in Louisville and a questionable food trend in London.Check out this episode's show notes here

No travel since the last episode, but lots of travel planning. Are we making our way back to pre-COVID travel planning patterns? Omicron has lots of people worried about testing positive and getting stuck abroad. Michael Giusti of InsuranceQuotes.com talks about how travel insurance can help. A blogger's brutal review of a Michelin-starred restaurant where we ate in October gets me thinking about food as an adventure.Check out this episode's show notes here

Back in front of the microphone after a two-week trip to the UK, getting back home just before the new Omicron travel restrictions hit. We talk about getting to London, surfing the waves of changing travel requirements, a new way to renew Global Entry, moan a bit more about the inexorable advance of the cashless society, and finish up talking with Josh Glenn about his new book The Adventurer's Glossary. Check out this episode's show notes here

No travel since the last episode, so just talking through a random potpourri of travel stuff. There's more travel planning; this time for a couple of weeks split between London and Wales which means sorting through a new set of COVID travel requirements. We look at some stats -- Uber's latest financials and how deeply last year's lockdown hit Nashville airport vendors. I marvel at how much European mobile data rates have fallen, strip down my English to have a deeper chat with an Italian bartender, and wrap it all up with highlights from this year's traveler's gift guide.Check out this episode's show notes here and the 2021 Traveler's Gift Guide post here

Back at the microphone after two weeks in Southern Italy. Lots of travel segments that could've gone wrong, but none of them did. We talk about what international travel is like in COVID times, about the challenge of keeping track and complying with the different COVID travel requirements that seem to be constantly changing, and then some thoughts about our bike tour through Puglia .Check out this episode's show notes here

Not much travel, but a lot of travel planning for our first post-lockdown international trip to Italy. Trying to thread our way through changing COVID rules and Alitalia's bankruptcy throes. I'm getting inundated with discount offers for Clear's fast-pass service. I've resisted them so far, because I remember back to when the first incarnation of Clear wanted to sell its members' biometric data. We then talk to Xovis Technology‘s Cody Shulman about how airports are better managing all sorts of lines in airports. Finally, air passenger traffic is dropping again because business travelers are still MIA.Check out this episode's show notes here

Last month's travel got me wondering what travel changes are going to stick after the COVID pandemic begins to recede. With all the restaurant and bar closures caused by COVID lockdowns, I'm updating my recommendations list based on recent travels. And, I'm way overthinking our first post-lockdown international trip.Check out this episode's show notes here and the blog post with my 2021 restaurant and bar recommendations here

After a 2-week, 2,500-mile driving expedition through the Northeast, there wasn't much time to write a new episode. So, I mined recent interviews for stories that got left on the cutting room floor. Also talk about COVID planning for a fall trip to Italy and mourn the demise of American Airlines' in-flight magazine.Check out this episode's show notes here

Business travelers are getting itchy. They know Zoom calls can't replace a face-to-face meeting, but they can't meet with people who aren't in their offices yet. We also talk about how surprisingly great the LaGuardia Terminal B renovation is, and then talk about airport history with Professor Janet Bednarek, professor of history at University of Dayton.Check out this episode's show notes here

I can feel travel beginning to come back. TSA checkpoint volumes are hitting post-pandemic highs, business travelers are starting to come out from behind their Zoom sessions, and vaccination rates are prompting more people to make travel plans. So on this episode, we first talk to Paul Melhus, CEO of ToursByLocals about the state of the local tour market and then about how frequent travelers are starting to stretch their atrophied travel muscles.Check out this episode's show notes here

Looking at the Beer section of this new website design, I saw I needed more content. So I got hold of Rob Cheshire of the This Week in Craft Beer podcast to talk about our approaches to taproom tourism and to trade taproom travel stories. I also talk about mask hassles on a couple of recent flights, Hertz's continuing downward service spiral, and Uber and Lyft driver shortages.Check out this episode's show notes here and the uncut video of Rob's and my beer chat here

As travel bookings beginning to rise with vaccination rates, we talk with Michael Giusti of InsuranceQuotes.com to find out what's changed over the last year. I make the rounds through all my frequent traveler programs to reset impending expiration dates. We also talk about yet another travel data breach, a favorite beer bar is a COVID casualty, and bankrupt Hertz is starting to let its cars get old.Check out this episode's show notes here

Escaped the Chicago winter for a week of hiking in the mountains around Tucson and searching for good Sonoran food. We also talk with Mike Kennedy, CEO and Co-Founder of Koala about how he’s making it easy to rent timeshares without buying into them. Also, how travel planning got hot but then cooled back down, and trying to extend the life of my Avios pointsCheck out this episode's show notes here and my Tucson trip blog post here

Was all set to head to San Diego for a week’s break from Chicago’s grey January and then looked at the COVID restrictions… and then pivoted to Arizona. With people starting to think about 2021 travel, I pulled together my top 5 travel planning tips. Slow vaccine roll-out will probably keep us restricted for longer than we thought. Andrea Amico of Privacy4Cars joins us to talk about the dangers of leaving our data behind in rental cars.Check out this episode's show notes here

No Thanksgiving travel, but looking at the travel volume for this, the busiest travel week of the year, shows just how far things have fallen. The Qantas CEO said “No vax, no fly”, so we dig into the emerging world of digital vaccine passports. And then I trace my travel genealogy, wondering if road warrior-ism is hereditary.Check out this episode's show notes here

No travel since the last episode, so I had some time to think back through my post-lockdown travel and come up with my top 10 gift ideas for your pandemic travelers. We look at the start of the year-end efforts by airlines, hotels, and credit card companies to keep their grounded travelers, unpack the work-from-hotel offerings from Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt, and dissect the latest hotel reservation system data breach.

Trying to recover from a long weekend of eating and drinking through the neighborhoods of South Philly. Our movable feast reminded me that food may be the one experience of a place left that can’t be easily exported and bought on-line. We talk about the FBI’s cybersecurity warning to work-from-home types using hotels for getaway offices, and are a bit amazed at how fast last year’s 'flight shaming' gave way to 'flights to nowhere.' And we think about 'quarantine theater' — how cities and states are focusing on activities to signal they are serious about COVID, but that most folks know aren’t really effective.

Drivable getaway to Michigan's Upper Peninsula; looking back 6 months to start of pandemic; downloading 12 years of TripIt data; what to do with travel card points we can't use?

Drivable getaway to Michigan's Upper Peninsula; looking back 6 months to start of pandemic; downloading 12 years of TripIt data; what to do with travel card points we can't use?

Travel planning amidst changing quarantines and lockdowns; writing off Barcelona trip; Emily Thomas and her new book "The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad"

Travel planning amidst changing quarantines and lockdowns; writing off Barcelona trip; Emily Thomas and her new book "The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad"

Experiences on my first post-lockdown flight; Hertz's new cleaning program; reviewing my new pair of Bose headphones, wonder when business travel will return

Experiences on my first post-lockdown flight; Hertz's new cleaning program; reviewing my new pair of Bose headphones, wonder when business travel will return

First post-lockdown trip, a fast drive down I-65. Talk about hotels swapping hospitality for sanitation, Hertz's bankruptcy, tips for travel credit card usage

First post-lockdown trip, a fast drive down I-65. Talk about hotels swapping hospitality for sanitation, Hertz's bankruptcy, tips for travel credit card usage

First post-lockdown trip, a fast drive down I-65. Talk about hotels swapping hospitality for sanitation, Hertz's bankruptcy, tips for travel credit card usage

People are doing short car trips. Before doing more extensive travel, they'll want more spacing in aircraft, travel insurance, and finding medical attention on the road

People are doing short car trips. Before doing more extensive travel, they'll want more spacing in aircraft, travel insurance, and finding medical attention on the road

People are doing short car trips. Before doing more extensive travel, they'll want more spacing in aircraft, travel insurance, and finding medical attention on the road

Cyberattacks on frequent flyer accounts now that we aren't checking them; planning my post-pandemic trips; re-reading my travel journals provides a travel fix

Cyberattacks on frequent flyer accounts now that we aren't checking them; planning my post-pandemic trips; re-reading my travel journals provides a travel fix

Cyberattacks on frequent flyer accounts now that we aren't checking them; planning my post-pandemic trips; re-reading my travel journals provides a travel fix

Things started out well, skipping out on Chicago winter for a drive down to Key West. But then last week, coronavirus hit the US and everything unraveled

Things started out well, skipping out on Chicago winter for a drive down to Key West. But then last week, coronavirus hit the US and everything unraveled

Things started out well, skipping out on Chicago winter for a drive down to Key West. But then last week, coronavirus hit the US and everything unraveled