Covid-19

Podcast #173 — What’s New in Travel Insurance; Keeping Ahead of Expiring Miles

As travel bookings beginning to rise with vaccination rates, we talk with Michael Giusti of InsuranceQuotes.com to find out what’s changed over the last year. I make the rounds through all my frequent traveler programs to reset impending expiration dates. We also talk about yet another travel data breach, a favorite beer bar is a…

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Podcast #172 — Timeshares Without the Pitch; Notes on Tucson

Escaped Chicago winter for a week of hiking and eating in Tucson; CEO of Koala talks about renting timeshares; travel planning gets hot and then cools back down

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Podcast #171 — Data Privacy and Rental Cars; 2021 Travel Planning Tips

Pivoting from San Diego to Tucson for COVID restrictions; planning tips for travel during COVID; CEO of Privacy4Cars talks about leaving data behind in rental cars

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Podcast #170 — Show Me the Proof; Hereditary Road Warriors

No Thanksgiving travel, but looking at the travel volume for this, the busiest travel week of the year, shows just how far things have fallen. The Qantas CEO said “No vax, no fly”, so we dig into the emerging world of digital vaccine passports. And then I trace my travel genealogy, wondering if road warrior-ism…

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Podcast #169 — Pandemic Holiday Gift Guide; Year-End Status Offers

No travel since the last episode, so I had some time to think back through my post-lockdown travel and come up with my top 10 gift ideas for your pandemic travelers. We look at the start of the year-end efforts by airlines, hotels, and credit card companies to keep their grounded travelers, unpack the work-from-hotel…

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Podcast #168 — Surviving Quarantine Theater; Traveling for Food

Trying to recover from a long weekend of eating and drinking through the neighborhoods of South Philly. Our movable feast reminded me that food may be the one experience of a place left that can’t be easily exported and bought on-line. We talk about the FBI’s cybersecurity warning to work-from-home types using hotels for getaway…

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Podcast #167 — 6 Months On; Why Keep Travel Cards?

Spent a week in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula hiking, biking, kayaking, and running into a lot of other people getting away to do the same, which got me looking back six months to the start of the pandemic. I talk about a surprisingly good flight cancellation experience with American Airlines, and figuring out how to download…

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Podcast #166 — What Is The Meaning of Travel?

Reindeer are ruining my cabin porn Trying to plan an August trip amidst dueling state quarantine lists and rapid lockdown changes while writing off my September plans for Barcelona. What’s worse – hotels cutting back on housekeeping or breakfasts? And talking with Emily Thomas about her new book The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad. All…

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