TravelCommons
It's more about the journey than the destination
Latest Posts
Easy Way to Do 1-Day Testing For Returning to US
How to meet the US 1-day COVID testing window by packing Abbott BinaxNOW kits so you can self-test in your hotel the day before your flight home
Podcast #182 — More COVID Changes; Words That Mean Adventure
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...
Podcast #181 — Travel Potpourri; 2021 Traveler’s Gift Guide
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...
10 Best Travel Gift Ideas To Survive Post-Pandemic Travel
If last year’s gift guide was all about helping folks travel while dodging last-minute lockdowns, this year’s guide is stacked with the best travel gift ideas to help the...
Podcast #180 — Tracking COVID Travel Requirements; Cycling Thru Puglia
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...
Podcast #179 — High-Tech Airport Lines; Business Travel Still Missing
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...
Podcast #187 — Moving to a Non-Hub Airport; What Makes A Great Taproom?
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...
Podcast #186 — Mask Mandate Scramble; Small Airport Survival
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...
Podcast #185 — Notes on Louisville; Changing Mask Mandates
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 drink. All this and more – click here...
Podcast #184 — Figuring Out Stealth Travel Inflation
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,...