TravelStories Episode 3: How to Improve Your Travel Experience
Added 2022-12-15 14:27:38 +0000 UTCEpisode 03: Show Notes.
It’s the holidays! During today’s episode, we’re talking travel tips, whether it's on the ground, in the air, at your destination, or just in general. We kick off our conversation with a handy list of websites to bookmark, giving value to your travel planning process based on our own experience. You’ll find out why you should consider secondary cities when you are planning your trip and hear some ground tips that will transform your experience including car service versus cabs, priority pass benefits, and more. Finally, we dive into some exceptions to our travel rules, equipping you with more travel strategies to avoid stress and enhance your experience. Thanks for tuning in!
Key Points From This Episode:
- Today’s topic: travel tips on the ground, in the air, and at your destination.
- Building a toolkit of websites to bookmark.
- What you can learn from the Google Flights Explore feature.
- Why it’s worth your while to pay for Expert Flyer.
- How Wikitravel can help you to plan the destination, not the journey.
- Using SeatGuru to help you select the best possible seats on the plane.
- How Tom uses AwardHacker.
- Tracking flights using FlightAware.
- How BoardingArea aggregates blogs from different websites.
- What Trevor has used FlyerTalk to do on his own travels.
- Finding your best price at the Flight Deal.
- Three paid services to consider: AwardLogic, point.me, and SeatSpy.
- What you can learn from Spencer Howard’s (Straight to the Points) email blasts.
- Why you should consider secondary cities when you are planning your trip.
- Ground tips based on our experience.
- Benefits of arranging a car service rather than taking a cab.
- Priority pass restaurant benefits, including SFO.
- The most hidden gem of priority pass restaurants.
- Why pizza has nine times out of ten been the best answer to stave off hunger on a budget.
- Exceptions to general travel rules.
- When to check a bag, and when to avoid it.
- Saving money by carrying cash.
- Why it can be necessary to be a bit more flexible with your packing process.
- Why air tags are a red flag for Heathrow security.
- Why you should be aware that there are places in the world where Google Maps doesn’t work.
- Avoiding perfectionism to find what is good enough.
- Finding ways to be kind and appreciative in life and in travel.
Tweetables:
“It’s easy to forget that when you look at British Airways, Japan Airlines, even Lufthansa to an extent, they do fly to some of the secondary cities that we might not always expect them to fly.” — @tmount [0:20:12]
“Because your local city doesn’t have that availability, sometimes just an extra hour or two-hour drive, or a quick flight up to Chicago might open up opportunities where you can actually get that award space you are looking for.” — @tmount [0:21:09]
“Sometimes when you have a vehicle arranged by the hotel, and you’re arriving early, that might actually mean that your room will be ready a little earlier because they know you are coming.” — @tmount [0:27:56]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
