My business-vacation combo trip to London, Paris, and Venice provides the source for most of this episode’s content. Wanting to pack light, I had to figure out how to pack for 10 days, 3 cities, two business meetings and a week’s vacation in a single carry-on bag. After landing in London, I skipped the airports and…
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One of my annual New Year’s travel resolutions is to “unpack and repack my briefcase.” Some people re-do their closets; I do my briefcase. I’m always amazed at the stuff that accumulates over the year. Why did I think I needed a half-dozen pens, two sets of earphones, $5 of loose change in three different…
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I’m getting ready for a stint of international travel — a couple trips to the UK, a vacation to Venice, and then bouncing around southern India. I visited the 2011 Travel Goods show in Chicago for a preview of the new travel goodies I’d be seeing in the shops this spring. Wading through a front…
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I skipped the Midwest’s “snow-pocalypse” by flying to Phoenix where it was unseasonably cold — in the 20’s and 30’s F — but without snow. It’s been a cold winter and I came down with some nasty bug while visiting Dallas, which reminded me how miserable it is to be sick while traveling. Before my…
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Last week’s winter storms in the Northeast and the South resulted in 70 percent of the US being covered in snow — shutting down airports across the region, canceling thousands of flights and trains. So it seems like a good time to recap some of the travel tips we’ve covered in past episodes of TravelCommons….
Read MoreI’ve never been a big New Year’s Resolution guy. Mine seem to have a 3-week half-life — they don’t even last to February. However, in the spirit of “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” (a quote which has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Albert…
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Finishing up the year in front of a warm fire in the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago after a couple of warm-up trips to Phoenix. I carved myself out an mini-vacation during one of the trips and worked at the summit of Squaw Peak for part of an afternoon. My MacBook Air — my perfect…
Read MoreSafely hunkered down in the TravelCommons studios during the busiest US travel week of the year, I don’t know how I can call this a travel podcast if we don’t talk about the TSA‘s “junk touching” patdowns. The general traveling public is finally catching up with the frequent traveler set. The TSA’s claim that it’s…
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