Here’s a 3-minute summary of what I liked best during my Spring 2013 visit to Madrid, Spain.
Some of the places mentioned include
Quiet Sunday Morning Before the Tour Boats Invade the Prinsengracht
Back in front of the mic after summer vacation, I’ve continued the heavy travel schedule — New Orleans mostly with a week in Amsterdam for a family vacation. I talk about the exposure of staying in a houseboat on an Amsterdam canal and run through my personal “Best of” list. Flying out of the Gulf Coast in the summer with its afternoon thunderstorms has forced me to become a weather geek. I run through the weather apps I religiously use. Bad weather also caught up with me in Europe, but Lufthansa did a great job of taking care of us. I’m still in love with TSA’s PreCheck. I may make Southwest’s A-List once PreCheck comes to Chicago-Midway airport. And we wrap with restaurant trends seen at this year’s National Restaurant Association show. All this and more at the direct link to the podcast file or listening to it right here by clicking on the arrow below.
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Should we look it up in TripAdvisor or chance it and walk through the door?
Been traveling non-stop since the last episode. One destination was a family Spring Break vacation split between Madrid and Barcelona. I talk about our experiences with booking a vacation rental and how I’ve learned to give up complete spontaneity and enjoy a couple of guided tours. I also do a mea culpa for bitch-tweeting about flight delays, but don’t think the airlines’ response to my tweets represents an effective social media strategy. Instead, I highly recommend the flight tracking website Flightaware. And I end with some thoughts about the resurgence of the hotel lobby. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file or you can listen to it right here by clicking on the arrow below.
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Felix Baumgartner Losing United 1K Status (Redbull via YouTube)
Travel has been a bit less glamorous since I’ve fallen from the top tier status, especially when I’m doing “stupid” travel — up-&-backs across the continent in 48 hours. One of my recent flights was on a new United 737-900; the interior is a significant step up. Prepping for a vacation in Spain, I find it’s easier and cheaper to get an unlocked phone to use with a local SIM card. And it wouldn’t be a proper TravelCommons episode without a TSA story — the fight over the new knife rules misses the point. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file or you can listen to it right here by clicking on the arrow below.
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This Week in Travel hosts Jen Leo and Chris Christensen invited me to this week’s episode along with Corey Taratuta of the Irish Fireside podcast. Though it took us a second time to get all the Google Hangout technology to work, we had a good time. We start with a rundown of this week’s travel news headlines. Corey then talks about The Gathering, this year’s big tourist program in Ireland, which reminds me of my favorite Ireland travel moment — finding a laundromat next door to a pub in Cork. I also talk about the explosion of tablet sizes and form factors, a topic also covered in TravelCommons #103. And just to be clear, I did not choose the thumbnail for the YouTube preview.
Twin or King-Size Lily Pad?
Doing a bit more travel since the last episode, so have more to talk about. First business trip of the year started out great, but quickly deteriorated as weather delays forced me to make quick changes. I update my trip management app recommendations after TripCase released the latest rev of their app, and talk about good mass transit experiences in Portland, OR and Park City, UT. A new behind-the-scenes book on the hotel industry shows how important people are to the travel experience. And the explosion of tablet form factors makes me re-think why I carry a tablet — comparing Apple’s iPad Mini to Google’s Nexus 7. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file or you can listen to it right here by clicking on the arrow below.
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Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky
I read Jacob Tomsky’s Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality during my Christmas ski vacation in Park City, UT. It’s a fun, easy read. Just looking at the cover, you can tell that Tomsky wants to give us the hotel version of Anthony Bourdain‘s Kitchen Confidential — the flawed insider with a heart of gold giving us a snarky behind-the-scenes tour.
Tomsky’s story has two very distinct parts. The first third of the book tells us how Tomsky fell into the hospitality industry and began to make it a career. A degree in philosophy in New Orleans wasn’t generating any meaningful employment, so he took a job as a parking valet. Working hard and being earnest (he cleans up well, doesn’t try to kill his co-workers), he gets promoted to front desk agent and then into management at a new luxury hotel. The second part of the book is set in a gone-to-seed Manhattan hotel where Tomsky reluctantly lands, broke after 9 months touring through Europe and 3 months searching for a publishing job in New York.
The New Orleans story is certainly the sunnier of the two parts; a young man finding his niche in the world and working his way up. It also gives a more interesting behind-the-scenes view if you’re interested in how big hotels really work. Tomsky does a great job of describing the amount of planning and effort it takes for a Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons to provide their levels of hospitality. I wished this part lasted longer.
The Manhattan story seems less about the hotel business and more about Tomsky abandoning, bit by bit, the Ritz level of service he was so proud of, becoming more focused on hustling tips than helping guests. As he slides down that slippery slope, the snark level increases… as does a sense of self-loathing. The big confrontation scene with the evil manager is less of a climax and more of a denouement.
Much of the press coverage of Heads in Beds has focused on the insider advice Tomsky dishes in the book’s appendices – “Things a Guest Should Never Say,” “Things a Guest Should Never Do,” “Things Every Guest Must Know”. It’s all pretty common-sense, distilling down to: 1) Don’t be a jerk to the staff; 2) Tip everyone well; 3) Staff can and will screw you over if you don’t follow the first two points.
Heads in Beds is no Kitchen Confidential, but it’s a fun read and a good story told with heart. Recommended.
In the last podcast, I did a side-by-side comparison of the free versions of the leading trip management apps. In an article on the Tnooz website, I dug deeper, expanding my comparison to the free and paid versions of TripIt, TripCase, and WorldMate. My conclusions didn’t change much.
THE TCRITIC TAKE: TripCase for smartphone only; WorldMate Gold for iPhone + iPad
If you only use a smartphone, the free TripCase app is the best choice. It was in the top of all three scenarios: itinerary building and sharing, and real-time flight status updates. However, it doesn’t have a tablet-specific app, just scaled up the smartphone app. iPad users should pay the $9.90/year for WorldMate Gold’s universal (iPhone + iPad) app. There’s nothing in TripIt Pro that justifies it’s $49/year price tag. The handful of Android tablet users should just accept the scaled-up TripCase app and hope for better treatment in 2013
Click here to read the full article.
What Better Way to Test Travel Management Apps than a Nor’easter in New York?
Traveling to New York earlier this month, I missed Hurricane Sandy but took the full brunt of the follow-up nor’easter that the Weather Channel helpfully named Athena. The travel havoc wreaked by the wind and snow was a perfect setting for a side-by-side comparison of the free versions of the leading trip management apps — TripIt, TripCase, WorldMate, and Kayak. Looking at three use cases, pulling together travel plans into a single itinerary, sharing that itinerary with others, and flight tracking when bad weather hits, TripCase came out on top. I also talk about the TSA’s latest scanner debacle and the changes since I took listeners on a tour of my briefcase in Episode 33 back in 2006. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file or you can listen to it right here by clicking on the arrow below.
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Search for Nashville Hot Chicken Led to Interesting Neighborhoods
Back in the TravelCommons studios after a couple months of summer break. We open up with thoughts about skipping rental cars, sharing listener comments on the Chicago Layover Excursion video, and the current state of American Airlines — great new airplanes, deteriorating on-time stats. Michael Komarnitsky, the founder and CEO of GoMiles, talks about why he sold his company to Traxo and where he sees the mileage tracking industry going. We wrap with my thoughts about how I break through the frequent traveler “travel bubble” by looking for local artisanal food and craft beers. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file or you can listen to it right here by clicking on the arrow below.
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