mark

Podcast #71 – Winter Travel, Last Year’s Travel, Tatty United

Recorded in the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago, back doing my thing to support the travel industry with lots of travel in January. We talk about some recent TSA observations, good and bad; my latest spin of the “travel roulette” wheel, trading the plane for a train in an East Coast snow storm; a look…

Read More

Good Restaurants for One

In past TravelCommons episodes, we’ve talked about how important it is for a frequent traveler to find good restaurants that welcome a single diner.  In spite of a former colleague’s advice to “never eat alone“, I often find myself with nothing but the USA Today as a dining partner.  Sure, I could dine in the…

Read More

Podcast #70 – Packing a Suit, Videoconference over Travel, Watching Winter Flight Delays

Recorded in the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago after finishing up my travel for the year. But there was a good bit of travel before the year-end, including one of the craziest/stupidest(?) itineraries I’ve done in a long time — Chicago-London-Denver in a little more than a day. Many of the subsequent Twitter comments I…

Read More

Podcast #69 – Pocket Travel Assistant; More Travel Tips

Recorded in the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago at the end of yet another busy travel month – Philadelphia, Portland, Denver, Northern Virginia – but am home this week, keeping to one of my cardinal rules of travel – stay out of any airport Thanksgiving week. In this episode, I talk about a successful experiment…

Read More

Podcast #68 – Advanced Travel Tips; Colors of Autumn

Recorded in the Philadelphia Marriott after a hectic travel month with two trips to Europe and a bunch of travel up and down the US East Coast.  In this episode, I talk about a bit of multi-modal travel — some planes, trains, and automobile trips.  We have a trio of stories about playing “travel roulette”…

Read More

Leaf Peeping From Above

Autumn is the only time I willingly book a window seat. Today’s approach into Newark had us flying over the Delaware Water Gap on a clear sunny day. The leaves are beginning to change — I saw dots of yellow and orange and red bursting out of a field of green. It made me reach…

Read More

Need Some Texture on Those Touchscreens

Mika Pyyhkala, a long time TravelCommons listener who works for the National Federation of the Blind of Massachusetts, dropped me a note about a problem he recently had with some new technology installed in New York City cabs. “I was in NYC last Sunday and I took a taxi from La Guardia airport to mid…

Read More

Podcast #67 – Stolen Luggage; Month With an iPhone

Recorded in the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago after a month of travel to and from the East Coast. In this episode, a spur-of-the-moment train trip bypasses a huge air traffic control problem.  A listener story gets us talking about theft after you entrust your luggage to the folks behind the curtain. I have fun…

Read More