TSA

Podcast #89 — Trains Over Planes; Fit 2 Weeks in 1 Carry-On

My business-vacation combo trip to London, Paris, and Venice provides the source for most of this episode’s content. Wanting to pack light, I had to figure out how to pack for 10 days, 3 cities, two business meetings and a week’s vacation in a single carry-on bag. After landing in London, I skipped the airports and…

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Podcast #88 — New Travel Goodies; Losing Elite Status

I’m getting ready for a stint of international travel — a couple trips to the UK, a vacation to Venice, and then bouncing around southern India. I visited the 2011 Travel Goods show in Chicago for a preview of the new travel goodies I’d be seeing in the shops this spring.  Wading through a front…

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Podcast #87 — Sick on the Road; What’s in My Briefcase?

I skipped the Midwest’s “snow-pocalypse” by flying to Phoenix where it was unseasonably cold — in the 20’s and 30’s F — but without snow. It’s been a cold winter and I came down with some nasty bug while visiting Dallas, which reminded me how miserable it is to be sick while traveling. Before my…

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Podcast #85 — Importance of Hotel Bathrooms; Maximizing Miles

Safely hunkered down in the TravelCommons studios during the busiest US travel week of the year, I don’t know how I can call this a travel podcast if we don’t talk about the TSA‘s “junk touching” patdowns.  The general traveling public is finally catching up with the frequent traveler set.  The TSA’s claim that it’s…

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Podcast #84 – End of Year Status Calculus; TSA Porn

Walking into the TravelCommons studios for this episode felt like walking into a confessional — “Bless me Father for I have sinned; it’s been 6 months since my last podcast…”  I talk about the new TravelCommons web site and the new Facebook fan page. I talk about some recent WiFi experiences — at 35,000 ft…

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Podcast #78 – Lost in Distraction, Movie About Us

Coming to you today from the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago, Illinois at the start of what’s looking like 6 weeks of straight travel. In this episode, we talk about the need to have a place to blow off steam after a frustrating day of travel, and how the distractions of cell phone calls have…

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Denver TSA Performance Poor Because of Management Harrassment

I travel frequently through Denver International Airport (DEN) to visit family and to ski.  From this first-hand experience, I’ve always believed that the DEN TSA crew is among the nation’s worst.  According to an internal TSA report, a key reason is the local TSA management.  Denver’s NBC affiliate obtained a copy of the report and…

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Podcast #71 – Winter Travel, Last Year’s Travel, Tatty United

Recorded in the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago, back doing my thing to support the travel industry with lots of travel in January. We talk about some recent TSA observations, good and bad; my latest spin of the “travel roulette” wheel, trading the plane for a train in an East Coast snow storm; a look…

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