Category Archives: Travel Tech

[Finished] NordVPN 1-Year Subscription Giveaway

Posted by mark on February 20, 2017 1 comment

Thanks to the folks at NordVPN, we’re giving away a 1-year VPN subscription so that one lucky TravelCommons listener can work/play safer on the Internet. We’re using Rafflecopter to run the giveaway: You only have do one of the types of entry listed below, not all of them. Each entry type (follows, blog posts, etc) […]

Podcast #127 — Critiquing My Top 10 Travel Tips; Reviewing VPNs

Posted by mark on February 20, 2017 Comments Off

In this episode, I talk again about digital security on the road, especially the use of a VPN. I review three VPN products, including NordVPN which is giving away a year’s subscription to a TravelCommons listener. I dig into the process of generating the Top 10 Holiday Travel Tips listicle I do every couple of year, […]

Podcast #124 — Craft Beer Hunting; I Hate Rick Steves

Posted by mark on September 28, 2016 2 comments

My son joins the podcast to talk about hunting down craft beers. I then talk about a few “a-ha” moments from my recent trip to Scotland, my on-going struggles with bitch tweeting, a VPN hardware product that could come in handy, and why I’ve come to hate the Rick Steves travel juggernaut. All this and […]

Podcast #123 — How to Avoid Travel Delays

Posted by mark on August 13, 2016 Comments Off

It’s been a tough travel month for a large portion of the traveling public. Between Delta and Southwest system outages and two straight Thursdays of thunderstorms in the east half of the US, dealing with travel delays has been a part of this month’s travel experience. In this episode, we think about ways to avoid […]

Podcast #122 — Data-Hungry Phones; Dramatic Iceland

Posted by mark on July 7, 2016 Comments Off

Watching Iceland makes its Cinderella run in the Euro 2016 soccer tourney got me thinking back to my March trip there. It is one of the hot travel destinations — maybe too hot? Could be, but the descriptor I keep coming back to is “dramatic.” And it seems that on every trip I make out […]

Podcast #120 — Where Do Guidebooks Fit In? I Hate Shopping for Suitcases

Posted by mark on March 12, 2016 3 comments

Where do guidebooks fit in the world of apps, review websites, social media, and podcasts? Planning for a trip to Iceland got me thinking about how to make sense of the explosion of travel tips. And then, after giving my thoughts about my new Bluesmart “smart connected suitcase”, I talk about how idiosyncratic frequent travelers are about […]

Podcast #119 — Digital Security On The Road; US Airports Getting Better?

Posted by mark on December 20, 2015 Comments Off

Here’s a little something to keep you entertained while you navigate the holiday airport lines. We talk about digital security on the road — what’s the right balance between hassle and hack? We also dig into JD Power’s latest airport satisfaction survey. They report a tick up in traveler experience and, for the most part, […]

Podcast #118 — Danger In the Travel Bubble; Switching Back to Apple

Posted by mark on November 8, 2015 Comments Off

A bit less of a random walk than the last episode, we talk about safety, physical safety, when traveling. While we sometimes put ourselves in the midst of dodgy surroundings, we usually feel safe when we retreat back into the “travel bubble” What about when the bubble is no longer safe? Smartphones are the frequent […]

Podcast #115 — A Decade of TravelCommons

Posted by mark on May 14, 2015 1 comment

Hard to believe that I’ve been prattling along for 10 years. Looking back, I see that I’ve become less of a TSA-hater, but am still pretty clear-eyed about the tediousness of the frequent travel experience. It’s tough to pack 10 years into a 30-min episode, but I think I’ve cherry-picked some good snippets. Before that, […]

What’s In My Briefcase – 2015?

Posted by mark on April 22, 2015 2 comments

It’s spring cleaning time, which for me means it’s time to wade through my briefcase. Within every frequent traveler is the desire to carry everything you could possibly need on the road — to make your briefcase into the road warrior version of Batman’s utility belt, letting you amaze your travel companions by pulling out just […]