business travel

Podcast #61 – Zen of Delays; Sneaking in a Vacation

Recorded in the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago on a rare full week in town after trips to Amsterdam and Kansas City. In this episode, an unusual flight delay makes us think about embracing the delay rather than fighting it, and snatching a couple hour vacation in Amsterdam allows us to explore some high and…

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Podcast #60 – Tips for Holiday Travel; GPS as the Hot Travel Gift

Recorded in the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago after I’ve finished up my business travel for the year. Since a number of listeners aren’t frequent travelers, we provide some tips on how to blend in, look like a pro, and generally reduce a little of the hassle of holiday travel. Also, GPS devices are hot…

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Podcast #59 – Trains to Planes; Renting a Rambling Wreck

Recorded in the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago in the middle of the one week a year I refuse to travel — Thanksgiving Day week. With environmental and economic reasons to reduce unneeded car trips, how easy is it to take a train to and from the airport? The answer is mixed and it doesn’t…

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Podcast #58 – Who Raves About Their Airline; Powering Up in Airports

Recorded in the Gaithersburg, MD Marriott outside Washington, DC at the end of an intense week of travel that had me flying from the East Coast to the West Coast and then back east again… on four different airlines. With many airlines’ plummeting customer satisfaction scores, we ask the question “Who raves about their airline?”…

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Podcast #57 – Making Time for Local Fare; What’s Standing in the Way of Fixing Our Airports

Recorded in the TravelCommons studio outside Chicago, I’ve been bi-coastal since the last episode, bouncing between New York and San Francisco. A side trip down to Philadelphia yields a great street-food breakfast when I take the time to walk outside my hotel. Delays in my flights between O’Hare and LaGuardia airports cause me to dig…

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Podcast #56 – Lines Around the World; Shedding Some Electronic Weight

Recorded in the San Francisco Airport Marriott, a recent city-a-day business trip through Europe allowed me to do a first-hand comparison of the European air travel experience to the much maligned state of US air travel. We also update our thoughts on the state of mobile computing devices. Is it possible to travel “PC-less” yet,…

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Podcast #55 – True Cost of Connecting; See More With The Family

Recorded in the Marriott Courtyard in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the current “blogstorm” about United Airlines’ poor customer service provides the data to calculate the true cost of connecting flights. A recent combined business and family trip to New York City makes me realize that my family isn’t a burden in my travels, but instead…

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Podcast #54 – Traveling Injured; How Bad Is Travel Experience Really?

Recorded in the Grand Geneva Resort and Spa, the former Playboy Club, in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, I talk about the travails of “playing injured” — traveling while sick. A listener comment makes me wonder if I’m exaggerating the state of the US travel experience. We get a good suggestion on how to wrestle with charging…

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