Are you shopping for travel gifts for your favorite explorer?
While there is a seemingly neverending list of products that could be recommended in gift guides for travelers, in ours, we wanted to cut through the fluff and share a few items that we think are the absolute best.
Suffice it to say, if we were to receive any travel gift in this guide, we would be quite ecstatic!
As we are reaching the point in our lives where we desire comforts when we travel, flying in business class has been something we’re moving to more and more. But as we typically cannot afford these tickets outright (as conventional routes can be $2,000, $3,000, $5,000, or more roundtrip), we have been acquiring these coveted seats in recent years using points.
In the past, we would go the conventional route for snagging a rewards business class seat- simply using a boatload of points to buy the ticket outright while only having to pay taxes on the flight (often a nominal amount). But our points-earning capabilities have dropped a bit in the last few years such that we have to be a bit more selective with how we redeem our points when flying.
Thankfully, many airlines also let you upgrade a paid economy ticket with a mix of miles and dollars as a bit of a hybrid approach to try and snag a business class seat for less of a hit to your bottom line (pending availability). We tried this on a recent flight from Newark to Lisbon, Portugal, and had success in getting upgraded on our red-eye flight outbound.
So in this one, we thought we’d take a look at the process to score a United upgrade with miles and dollars, who has the best odds of snagging a seat in this process, and what happened when we didn’t get upgraded on our return flight home!
One of the most unforgiving experiences in travel is attempting to sleep on airplanes. For some this skill comes easy, while the rest of us are not so lucky.
Poor leg room, minimal reclining capabilities, and zero comforts make it incredibly difficult for any sort of rest and relaxation to be had. Amplify that over 12 hours, and the experience can be a nightmare.
Airlines try to provide small comforts such as pillows and blankets, however these are in poor design that leave most people wanting more. With blankets that don’t quite cover and pillows that are missing half the required fluff, it is almost easier to go without.
To get around this, many travelers bring external items on board to increase comfort, with the most common site found on any plane being an inflatable travel pillow.
Finding the best inflatable neck pillow, however, may be incredibly challenging as each style has its own pros and cons associated. In this one, we review several options from years of testing!
Disclaimer: We were provided this backpack courtesy of Standard Luggage Co. for a review. All opinions are our own.
When it comes to luggage that we can travel with, we often find ourselves balancing form and function. We like our backpacks to look neat and elegant and also have the capacity to match.
For many years, our travel setup included rolling suitcases with separate backpacks for electronics and more sensitive items (generally in the structure of one large checked suitcase, one carry-on rolling suitcase, and two backpacks). But recently many companies have started to merge the two carry-on styles in the form of backpacks large enough to accommodate everything in a single piece of luggage.
Standard Luggage Co is one such company, and we were fortunate enough to put their Carry-on Travel Backpack to the test in this review!