Travel Technology

Podcast #122 — Data-Hungry Phones; Dramatic Iceland

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…

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

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…

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Podcast #115 — A Decade of TravelCommons

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,…

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What’s In My Briefcase – 2015?

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…

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Podcast #114 — Public Transit to Airports, Requiem for SkyMall, Awful Winter Travel

Recorded at the JW Marriott in New Orleans together with a GoPro video capturing all the unedited bits. We go deep in a comparison of public transit and drive times to US airports, shed a tear for SkyMall magazine, and marvel at the stack of lost Android tablets at American Airlines’ ORD lost-and-found. We talk…

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Podcast #108 — Worst Travel Experiences Ever

We look back on a brutal travel winter with stories about how driving instead of flying probably wasn’t the best idea, and a completely awful United flight that ended up with a drive — but not by choice. I also talk about my recent trip to Beijing, China and my plans for a round-the-world-in-8-days itinerary…

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Podcast #103 — Hospitality is Personal; Tablets Everywhere

Doing a bit more travel since the last episode, so have more to talk about. First business trip of the year started out great, but quickly deteriorated as weather delays forced me to make quick changes. I update my trip management app recommendations after TripCase released the latest rev of their app, and talk about…

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Podcast #102 — Trip Management App Comparison; TSA Scanner Shuffle

Traveling to New York earlier this month, I missed Hurricane Sandy but took the full brunt of the follow-up nor’easter that the Weather Channel helpfully named Athena. The travel havoc wreaked by the wind and snow was a perfect setting for a side-by-side comparison of the free versions of the leading trip management apps —…

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