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We stopped for a moment to catch our breath and figure out how much longer to the top of the Atalaya Mountain Trail. Yesterday, before we flew out to Santa Fe, we were at 700 ft above sea level. After 90 minutes of walking, I guessed we were at 8,000 ft and had another 1,100 ft to get to the… Continue Reading →
Trying to wrap up travel for the year so I can hunker down in the TravelCommons bunker outside of Chicago and not worry about any forecasted snow. But for those of you who are traveling, here’s an episode to keep you occupied in the airport, train, or car traffic. We talk about some travel tips that didn’t make my Top 10… Continue Reading →
It seems that the snow and cold temperatures settled into the northern part of the Northern Hemisphere a bit earlier than last year. With the crush of Christmas/New Years travel starting in a few weeks, here are the TravelCommons’ top holiday travel tips to get you started early on your travel prep… Fly Non-Stop — It’s obvious because it’s the cardinal… Continue Reading →
Getting this posted just in time to give you something to listen to while jammed up in Thanksgiving traffic, be it on the road or in the airports. We talk about working the angles to maximize credit card benefits, which leads me to one more story from my fall trip to Europe — a rental car scrape that my Chase… Continue Reading →
Just regular domestic business travel since the last podcast, trying to dodge Hurricane Florence to get back to Charlottesville. Thinking back to last month’s European travels, we talk about a tight connection through Amsterdam and some odd concierge lounge rules, which gets me thinking about hotel breakfasts. And a listener request for restaurant recommendations gets me thinking about the balance… Continue Reading →
Back in front of the mic after 12 days of skipping across northern Europe — Copenhagen, Brussels, and Scotland. In this episode, we get nostalgic about outside airports in California, talk about how a hospitality mentality is pervasive in hotels but not in restaurants, missing customer service responses from United Airlines and Marriott, and European perspectives about Chicago. All this… Continue Reading →
No long-distance travel this month. Instead, I”m getting back into regional jets, and waiting out a long delay in Cincinnati has me wondering about American Eagle’s flight scheduling algorithm. My flights into CVG cause me to think about the impact of losing hub status. CVG looks overbuilt, but MEM is spending money to shrink itself. A Harvard Business Review article… Continue Reading →
With a bit of forethought, a 4-5 hour layover allows you to do a quick flyby of a new city’s highlights, or get deep into some part of a city. In this video, we’re laying over at Midway, Chicago’s older, less-known airport and one of Southwest’s busiest stations, skipping the usual tourist spots and instead for what can only be… Continue Reading →
Yet another last-minute long-distance trip, this time to Frankfurt, Germany, lets me check out United Airlines’ new business class service, and think again about the value for those expensive lie-flat seats. Seeing a new Chinese menu at a favorite wurst stand in the old part of Frankfurt reminds me of the changes driven by the new wave of Chinese tourists.… Continue Reading →
A last-minute trip to Pune, India provided more than enough material for this episode — a visa dash, very hands-on airport security, worthless rupee notes, flight disruptions…. We also read the obits for a couple of smart bag companies and hear why MSP’s T2 isn’t so ghetto after all. All this and more at the direct link to the podcast file… Continue Reading →