Travel Randomness - Travel Stories, Episode 166 - (Where Did Episode 165 Go?)

Recorded in the beautiful home office of Chateau’ Relaxo.In case you’ve been on a deserted island, the Airline Mask Mandate has been Extended Until May 3, 2022. If you haven’t followed the mask mandate here’s the Cliff Notes - The original ban was through September 14, 2021, * Next, it was extended through January 18, 2022, * Next, it was extended through March 18, 2022, * Next, it was extended through April 18, 2022, * And finally, the federal mask mandate has been extended another two weeks till May 3, 2022.I heard someone recently say - We've moved away from a 'collective responsibility to a 'personal responsibility phase of the pandemic. Talk about the proverbial can of worms that statement is the perfect example. Spend any amount of time out in the world and you witness people’s personal responsibility being very subjective.I’m not a betting man but I’m willing to bet that the mask mandate will again be extended and one of the main reasons is that there isn’t a collective mask mandate across the world, it seems that each country offers up their own individualized plan.If you plan to head to Florida for summer travel here’s a tip worth sharing. Florida has an abundance of toll roads, and those toll roads can be expensive. They’re even more expensive if you are in a rental car, and that’s due to the “convenience fee” imposed by car rental companies. I’ve seen daily convenience fees for each day of the rental even if you don’t use a toll road, and I’ve also seen a convenience fee imposed each day you use a toll road.I use an EZ Pass and at some point, I was smart enough to purchase an EZ Pass that mounts to my windshield with suction cups. At the time the reason was that I flip my car every 36 months and it would be easier to move the transponder to a new vehicle rather than remembering to scape the old pass off the windshield when I turned my car in. Little did I know that the EZ Pass is accepted in 19 states, most of which I travel through. So now part of my routine is when I park at the airport I remove my EZ Pass transponder and throw it in my laptop bag so I have it for my rental car. So if you can remove your EZ Pass take it with you when you travel. If you don’t have an EZ Pass here’s another solution when you arrive in Orlando. You can pick up a Visitor Toll Pass at the Orlando airport.Four easy steps - * Download the app and reserve your Visitor Toll Pass™* Pick Up Your Pass at the Orlando International Airport* Hang your Visitor Toll Pass™ on your Rental Vehicle’s Rearview Mirror* Return Your Visitor Toll Pass™ at Orlando International AirportThe benefits -* Save Up to 80% on Tolls with Visitor Toll Pass™* Completely free to use** Guarantees you always pay the lowest toll rate throughout Florida* Available for pick-up and return at Orlando International Airport* Here’s the one catch - You must return your Visitor Toll Pass™ hangtag at the conclusion of your trip or a $10 fee will be charged. Even if you forget to return the hangtag it’s still cheaper than paying the rental car company's convenience fee.From the “Who Knew” department, I give you - Five nude beaches in the United States.* Haulover Beach Park, Florida - I knew about this one from growing up in South Florida, and apparently, it’s still in operation. On the upside, if you get tired of all the Florida nudity you’ll be near Haulover Inlet and there you can watch mature captains try and navigate their vessels out into the ocean. Which honestly is a lot more entertaining than watching naked bodies roasting in the sun.* Next is Black’s Beach, California which requires a bit of hiking to access. Not sure if you hike clothed or just leave everything in the car.* How about Gunnison Beach, New Jersey, yes New Jersey has a nude beach, who knew.* If you’re in Hawaii you can let it all hang out in Little Beach, located in Maui, Hawaii* Finishing the list with Collins Beach, Oregon. Yes, Oregon… and I can tell you that I never once considered that Oregon residents would ever want to visit the beach, much less a nude beach.Here’s how I typically sum up nudist colonies and nude beaches…… none of the people there are the ones you would want to see naked.So if a nudist beach isn’t on your summer destination list what is? And how do you make the summer vacation process more enjoyable?Number one you need to begin booking summer travel right now. Airfare won’t be any cheaper in four weeks unless you stumble across some random sale. Home rentals and hotels will quickly book up and rental cars will also quickly be gobbled up.Here are a few additional tips to help with summer travel.* My first piece of advice is to avoid selecting mega-popular destinations. Yep, possibly won’t win father of the year with that advice but I don’t want to spend my downtime with lots of randos. I know that there are people that love the grind of waiting in long lines, that love being sunburnt, and who love having the same vacation experience as everyone else.* Next, do some research. We all have the internet, otherwise, you wouldn't have access to this show. Make sure you fully understand where you’re headed to. If it’s the southeast it’s going to be hot. If it’s Florida more than likely it will rain at some point during the day…. So pack a  poncho.* Don’t plan every moment of every day. I’ve talked about this before, but the CEO and I have had more fun taking quick side trips during our travels.* I typically don’t plan family travel during busy times. Think Memorial Day, July 4th, and the week before the kiddos return to school. You get the point.I found this over on Make Use Of - 10 Pieces of Tech You Really Don't Need AnymoreAnd here are a few of the highlights.* Payphones or calling cards. - Payphones, I can’t remember the last time I saw one in the wild, and if I did I’d doubt that I’d have any coins to feed it. The same goes for calling cards. I was issued one several decades ago, and I’m sure it’s in a drawer someplace but I can’t remember the last time I used it. Calling cards were great cost savings when you traveled as they allowed you to avoid the hotel surcharge added to your bill when you connected your laptop's 56k modem in order to access your email. * Pagers - in the early 1990s’ a pager was how we conducted business. This was before texting so communication was done using only numbers and not alpha characters. Most of us perfected a series of numeric codes to get our message across. Think emojis but without the graphic* 911 - call me back immediately* 411 - I have a question* 831 - I love you - 8 characters, 3 words 1 meaning. We were creative, to say the least.* Portable music players - I started with a Sony WalkMan that became a Sony Discman that morphed into an MP3 player and now everything is contained on my phone.* Floppy Disks and CDs’ - My last computer with a floppy drive was 2000 and after that, I went with 2 CDRW drives so I could burn one CD to another so I would have a Quote - unquote backup. None of the laptops at Chateau’ Relaxo have a CD drive but when the entrepreneur recently moved out he left us with a USB external CD drive just for old time's sake. Recently a View From The Wing reader asked, Does A Hotel Owe You Compensation When Your Room’s Alarm Goes Off During The Night? They are asking about the alarm clock, not the fire alarm.Here was the author of the post Gary Leff’s response - This one seems easy to me – the hotel is responsible.And here’s his reasoning - * The fundamental thing you’re buying from a hotel is a safe, comfortable night’s sleep and a place to shower in the morning.* A basic responsibility for any decent hotel would be to check that the bedside alarm clock is not turned on, as part of turning the room between guests. If they fail to do that, and the result if you aren’t able to get the comfortable night’s sleep you purchased, then they haven’t earned their money.In all my years of travel, this has happened to me maybe twice, and neither time did I consider asking for compensation from the hotel.Earlier I mentioned personal responsibility and this is a perfect example of just that. Do people really expect housekeeping to verify that every clocks alarm is set to off? Most times I verify that the alarm is set to “off” and then I unplug the alarm clock because I set an alarm on my smartphone and that frees up a receptacle for powering one of the other life-saving devices I travel with.Last year Marriott was considering removing alarm clocks from hotel rooms altogether. Be prepared Marriott more than likely someone will want compensation for oversleeping since there wasn’t an alarm clock to wake them up.Lifehacker posted How to Create the Ultimate Travel Spreadsheet (and Why You Need One)I love data and organization so I immediately thought this would hold one or two new nuggets. The post started out strong - with Why you need an ultimate travel spreadsheet.* Accessibility. You will always have access to your itinerary via your phone. Viewing a spreadsheet on a smartphone is brutal.* Collaborating and sharing. Makes sense especially if it’s Office 365 or Google sheets.* Built-in templates. OK* Adaptability. As plans change, you can edit your spreadsheet on the go. But here’s where they lost me - Creating tabs. Tabs for - * General overview itinerary: * Detailed, master itinerary: All the information in one place, links to different tabs, (all the information in one place, can link to different tabs as needed?)* Packing list:* Transportation: * Lodging:* Budget:.* Day-by-day itineraries: * The fun stuff: Restaurants, nightlife ideas, etc.There are many many many people that enjoy planning a vacation more than taking the actual vacation. If that’s you then this 8-tab pivot-table wanna-be spreadsheet might just be for you.Here’s my take on travel planning, more specifically vacation or pleasure travel planning. Get a free Evernote account and download the desktop client as well as the plugin for your web browser of choice. Step 1 - Create an Evernote notebook for your next trip or multiple notebooks for multiple tripsStep 2 - While browsing and you see something that applies to an upcoming trip use the Evernote web clipper to store it in the correct folder. You can even add tags to the clips if you want.Step 3 - As the time approaches to begin booking travel open Evernote and the notebook for your next trip and all your cool ideas and destinations are in one place.You can even share the notebook with others so they can contribute their own notes, links, and ideas.When it comes to managing itineraries TripIt does it better than anyone, and again the free version will work perfectly.TripIt monitors your email inbox and has the intelligence to build a travel itinerary based on email subject lines. The best part is that you don’t have to input any information.Again you can easily share your TripIt information with othersSo sorry “Big Spreadsheet” my method suits me perfectly.Finishing up with this inspiration from HuffPost - How To Get Rid Of The Post-Vacation Blues.I’ve never experienced this, and after reading their suggestion I have an idea why. Thankfully I have a job that I love, I work with a great group of people, so it’s rare that finish up my Sundays dreading Monday.* Unpack your suitcase when you get home - I do this after every trip. If toiletries need replacing I tell my Echo to add it to the shopping list.* Bring home a souvenir you can use in daily life - My office is decorated with things I’ve found while traveling.* Seek out meals you tried while traveling - Can you say Nashville hot chicken or Savannah’s shrimp and grits? Before the internet became so prevalent I would often times buy local cookbooks while traveling.* Plan your next trip -  * Do vacation activities in your everyday life - This is somewhat the reverse for me as there are times when we’ll do everyday activities while traveling, such as fishing, geocaching, or attending cooking schools.* Explore your hometown - I’ve often said that there’s so much just an hour or two from where you live and since moving to Central Florida we’ve done some sort of a day trip or an overnighter almost every single month.* Share memories - First, no one wants to look at 47 pictures on your smartphone of your latest trip. But you can easily share them with people using Flickr or you can create your own website and share your adventures that way. Or even a podcast……So since I’m already doing most of the items on the list that’s the reason I don’t suffer the post-vacation blues.That’s it for this episode of travel randomness, the next episode in the queue is the April Crazy Travel Roundup.If you want detailed show notes, links and pictures head over to podpage.com/travel-stories/Leave a message on Anchor, or shoot me an email at [email protected] I always say, travel safe, stay safe, and thanks for listening.Thanks for listening. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit travelstories.substack.com