VPN

Podcast #180 — Tracking COVID Travel Requirements; Cycling Thru Puglia

Back at the microphone after two weeks in Southern Italy. Lots of travel segments that could’ve gone wrong, but none of them did. We talk about what international travel is like in COVID times, about the challenge of keeping track and complying with the different COVID travel requirements that seem to be constantly changing, and…

Read More

10 Best Travel Gift Ideas for These Unprecedented Times

With public health officials saying things like “it will be easily by the end of 2021 and perhaps into the next year before we start having some semblance of normality,” I figured this year’s travel gift guide would need to be a bit different. Here are my top shopping ideas for your pandemic traveler. Comfortable…

Read More

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…

Read More

10 Best Gift Ideas for a New Traveler

Coming into the heart of the Christmas shopping season, when people are getting desperate for gift ideas, I thought I’d offer up 10 suggestions for gifts that a new frequent traveler will actually use. While many gift lists are pushing Away luggage, Huzi infinity pillows, and Aesop travel kits (these companies must’ve splashed a lot…

Read More

[Finished] NordVPN 1-Year Subscription Giveaway

Thanks to the folks at NordVPN, we’re giving away a 1-year VPN subscription so that one lucky TravelCommons listener can work/play safer on the Internet. We’re using Rafflecopter to run the giveaway: You only have do one of the types of entry listed below, not all of them. Each entry type (follows, blog posts, etc)…

Read More

Podcast #127 — Critiquing My Top 10 Travel Tips; Reviewing VPNs

In this episode, I talk again about digital security on the road, especially the use of a VPN. I review three VPN products, including NordVPN which is giving away a year’s subscription to a TravelCommons listener. I dig into the process of generating the Top 10 Holiday Travel Tips listicle I do every couple of year,…

Read More

Podcast #124 — Craft Beer Hunting; I Hate Rick Steves

My son joins the podcast to talk about hunting down craft beers. I then talk about a few “a-ha” moments from my recent trip to Scotland, my on-going struggles with bitch tweeting, a VPN hardware product that could come in handy, and why I’ve come to hate the Rick Steves travel juggernaut. All this and…

Read More

Podcast #120 — Where Do Guidebooks Fit In? I Hate Shopping for Suitcases

Where do guidebooks fit in the world of apps, review websites, social media, and podcasts? Planning for a trip to Iceland got me thinking about how to make sense of the explosion of travel tips. And then, after giving my thoughts about my new Bluesmart “smart connected suitcase”, I talk about how idiosyncratic frequent travelers are about…

Read More