Nashville

Things I’m Recommending Right Now…

In the last podcast episode, I mentioned that I’ve found myself giving out a lot of travel recommendations recently. So rather than limiting them to a 2-barstool radius in my favorite Nashville taprooms, here are (in no particular order) the things I’ve been recommending lately… Restaurants, Bars, and Taprooms Oaxaca (Oaxaca de Juárez) As I…

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Podcast #200 — Wrapping Up the TravelCommons Journey

Finishing 19 years of podcasting where I’ve been thinking way too much about travel, I indulge in some nostalgia and talk about my personal travel philosophy

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Podcast #193 — Making the Most of Miles; Nashville vs Nash-Vegas

Weather delay bar tab got me rethinking the economics of airport lounge memberships. Continuing to plan travel but focusing on making the most of the miles we accumulated on credit cards during the pandemic. And comparing Nashville’s music scene: Nash-Vegas honky tonks vs the smaller, eclectic off-Broadway scene.

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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…

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My Best Restaurants, Bars and Taprooms of 2021

It’ll take travel guide books a while to catch up with all the restaurants and bars closures caused by the COVID lockdowns. To help fill that gap, here are the best places I’ve ate and drank at during my 2021 travels. I’ll update this after each trip, so keep it bookmarked. Chicago NoodleBird at Fat…

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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 London and Wales which means sorting through a new set of COVID travel requirements. We look at some stats — Uber’s latest financials and how deeply…

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Podcast #165 — First Post Lockdown Flight; When Do We Travel For Business Again?

The hop taste isn’t coming through My first post-lockdown flight was a 90-minute Southwest non-stop from Chicago to Nashville. It wasn’t bad, but not as casually easy as my last pre-coronavirus flight in February. We talk about that experience as well as Hertz’s new cleaning program, my latest pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones, and then…

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Podcast #152 — Overwhelming Travel; New & Old Restaurant Trends

Latest in Sustainable Food Delivery  Moving the TravelCommons studios kept me mostly off the road this month except for a quick trip to Nashville, but staying out of restaurants has helped me finally drop the last bit of Christmas weight. We talk about the “earn and burn” strategy for frequent travel awards; answer a listener’s…

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