TravelCommons

Tag: Global Entry

  • Podcast #199 — Smile for Security: Facial Recognition in Travel

    Podcast #199 — Smile for Security: Facial Recognition in Travel

    Using my face as my boarding pass to get on a flight to Oaxaca, Mexico and then as my passport to get back in the US got me thinking about how facial recognition has permeated the travel experience. To help us understand where this is going, we talk with two travel industry experts, Dr. Sheldon Jacobson and Henry Harteveldt. But… Continue Reading →

  • Podcast #182 — More COVID Changes; Words That Mean Adventure

    Podcast #182 — More COVID Changes; Words That Mean Adventure

    Back in front of the microphone after a two-week trip to the UK, getting back home just before the new Omicron travel restrictions hit. We talk about getting to London, surfing the waves of changing travel requirements, a new way to renew Global Entry, moan a bit more about the inexorable advance of the cashless society, and finish up talking… Continue Reading →

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

    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 then some thoughts about our… Continue Reading →

  • Podcast #179 — High-Tech Airport Lines; Business Travel Still Missing

    Podcast #179 — High-Tech Airport Lines; Business Travel Still Missing

    Not much travel, but a lot of travel planning for our first post-lockdown international trip to Italy. Trying to thread our way through changing COVID rules and Alitalia’s bankruptcy throes. I’m getting inundated with discount offers for Clear’s fast-pass service. I’ve resisted them so far, because I remember back to when the first incarnation of Clear wanted to sell its… Continue Reading →

  • 10 Best Travel Gift Ideas for These Unprecedented Times

    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 Masks — If your traveler… Continue Reading →

  • Podcast #158 — Travel Potpourri for $400, Alex

    Podcast #158 — Travel Potpourri for $400, Alex

    Good End to 2019 Skipping the Chicago winter with trips to Phoenix and Sedona, Arizona, and a Christmas morning flight to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Talk about those trips, my good and bad Hertz experiences, and then gather up odds-‘n’-ends from my travel notebooks to see off 2019 in this New Year’s Eve episode. All this and more at the… Continue Reading →

  • 10 Best Gift Ideas for a New Traveler

    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 of samples around the blog-o-sphere),… Continue Reading →

  • Podcast #128 — Hunt for Experiences; Pop-Up Entertainment

    Podcast #128 — Hunt for Experiences; Pop-Up Entertainment

    It’s a very Paris-centric episode; I’m still trying to drop the weight I picked up on our 10-day stay. I talk about hunts for beer and pastry took us out of the usual Notre Dame-to-Eiffel Tower-to-Louvre tourist triangle, some of the interesting buskers we saw along the way, and my surprise at Munich Airport receiving an airport award. I also… Continue Reading →