Episode 1: Our first Intentional Travelers “Chat”

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Show Notes

Mentioned in this episode:

• Our first overnight on Amtrak – California to Oregon
• Vietnam tour info – March 2, 2024 
• Vietnam tour interest list: Sign up here
• Vietnam consultation services – for arrivals between January and early April 2024
• Hawaii travel restrictions with Maui updates
• Cinque Terre Hiking Itinerary with trail closure updates
• Submit an Ask Us Anything question for a future episode
• Michelle next course, including Google Voice phone number hack: WorldWide Connectivity Travel Tech Tutorials

Video tip: Click the [CC] icon on the video to see subtitles

Show Transcript

[Music] Hello and welcome to our first of – we don’t really know what this is going to be, but we will be filling you in on our own travel updates, some big news out in the travel world, some tips, travel hacks, destination inspiration, and then answering some of your travel-related questions as well. We really want your feedback, so please help us shape our future chats by filling out our survey with your constructive suggestions. I almost said “criticisms” [That too] and preferences, so that we can make sure that this is helpful and interesting to you.

In case you’re not familiar, we are Michelle and Jedd. We got married in 2008. We volunteered together with the Peace Corps from 2012 to 2014, and then, in order to be able to live abroad in new places at different times, we started working online and became “digital nomads”. Yeah, we travel slowly and together we’ve been to five continents and a couple dozen countries. In the summer, you’ll find us in Oregon. We often visit Jedd’s family who are in Hawaii. Some other places we go back to the most would be Vietnam, Ecuador, and Italy, specifically Tuscany, where we have friends.

So, let’s start with our personal travels from the month. Yeah, we did something unusual – for us. We traveled apart; like we flew in opposite directions. I went to Honolulu, Hawaii, and you went to the East Coast, right? to Florida, where we have nieces and a nephew. Niece and nephew. Niece and nephew. Sorry we have one nephew and many nieces. But you had some delays and disruptions for both your flights, right? What was something you learned about that?

Yeah, I think, first of all, that this is really common. The fact that it happened to me both ways is just a testament to how flexible we all need to be, especially post-pandemic. Staffing, resources at airports, anywhere in the tourism industry, they’re still not what they used to be, yet demand for flights has really skyrocketed. So, I would go so far as to say that if you really need to be somewhere at a specific time, give your itinerary a buffer of at least 24 hours just in case a flight gets delayed or canceled. Otherwise, you just have to accept the risk of missing that event. I would say that the customer service at Alaska was good, which is typical. We’ve been really happy. They automatically emailed me a food voucher for my initial delay, and then they sent a $100 credit afterwards, so I appreciated that.

Yeah, it kind of reminds me of a flight we once were waiting for – a cross-country flight from Los Angeles to Miami on American Airlines. It was delayed because of staffing issues or whatnot, but then they rescheduled our flight for the very next day. So, we had to spend, I don’t know, 12 hours in the airport. But I remember the customer service agent said to us, “Oh, you know, everybody can go wait in the line, and you know we’ll help you.” I remember that you were really good about being proactive and saying, “Hey, we should see what we can do without waiting in line.” So, you got on the app, I remember, and then I got on the phone and was trying to talk to a customer service agent, and we were both able to find something that was, you know, like a different flight that was earlier and better because I think they almost wanted us to do the same flight 24 hours later. It was crazy. We were like, “No, we’re not going to do that.” But it made us realize that like everybody who stood in line, and there was a long line, like they’re being helped one by one and just waiting to be helped. I mean, I remember being like, “Oh, we’re done. We’ve got our plan.” And then we walked by that really long line, and we’re like, “We need to find somewhere to sleep.” Exactly.

So long story short, when delays happen or rescheduling happens or whatnot, it is good to be proactive and to like try to call customer service or get on the app and try to reschedule yourself. You also booked a couple of our reservations this week, right? You rebooked and then you found some sort of hack or something.

Yeah, so this is a hack which travelers can take advantage of after they book a flight or a hotel. These days, many companies have gotten rid of change fees and cancellation fees, right? And many of these also use what they call dynamic pricing. So, basically, the flight is not always the same; it might cost $200 one day and something else tomorrow. It usually adjusts with supply and demand, or sometimes they’ll just have a sale, which was the case this last week. So, we had previously bought tickets on Southwest Airlines for a flight. So we had them booked. They went on sale, though, last week. And Southwest is a really good company to do this with because they make it really easy to change flights online, just by yourself. People might not realize that you can actually change or rebook the exact same flight, and if the cost went down, you get the difference of the cost back in the form of a credit which you can use on a future Southwest purchase.

So, you went to your original reservation, yeah, and then you said change flight. I clicked change flight. It shows me all the options, and it’s like, “Oh, this is the same one I already had booked, but now it’s showing me it’s – well only $10 less, but – No but it was cheaper.” Yeah.And then so by just taking a couple of seconds to do this, you said you’ve rebooked yourself in the same flight and you got us some money back. Yeah, hey, that’s awesome.So the same thing happened, or similar, with one of the hotels that we had booked for a conference. So I got an email from IHG hotels that they were having a flash sale. And we had previously reserved a hotel night with points, points we earned from a credit card. Because we don’t actually stay at hotels that often. But sure enough, the same room was cheaper, about 5,000 dollars – or 5,000 fewer points, not dollars, during the sale.

So for IHG, I had to cancel our original reservation, and I just Googled real quick, and I saw people do this all the time, and the points come back in your account immediately. So, I got back 36,000 points in our account when I canceled the reservation, and I rebooked the exact same room for 31,000 points. Cool, yeah, that’s a good tip.

Alright. What about future travel? So, we talked about kind of our most recent. People keep asking us, “What’s next?” So, the first thing on the docket for both of us together will be going to Westchester, just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We’re helping to produce a small conference. Then we have a family reunion that we’re attending in New Orleans. So, we signed up for an Amtrak credit card which gives us enough points to take an overnight train in a private roomette from Philadelphia straight to New Orleans. It’s about 30 hours, and we have our own private little room.

Wait, 30 hours? Yeah. Ok! And then there are rooms with private bathrooms, but we kinda didn’t have quite enough miles for that, so we have the bathroom is in the car, oh, shared with whoever else has little rooms in that car. So, it’s very similar to what we did going from San Diego to Portland, right? Yeah, I mean, I love that trip, and the 30 hours sounds a lot, a lot, and I’m kind of joking around, but we really like it; it’s just a really nice slow way to travel. And the great thing about booking a room on Amtrak is meals are included for both passengers. So, yeah, that’s awesome.

So after that, we’ll be hopping around to visit some family in Florida and Texas and probably California too. So, good family time. And then we’ll be at our home base in Oregon for a little bit, and then we’ll be flying to Honolulu at the end of the year, which is my one of my favorite places in the world to be for the new year, yours too. Um, and we can talk about Hawaii and New Year’s traditions in a future chat, um, but from there we’ll be heading back to one of our favorite places, which is Vietnam, for the first three months in 2024. Yeah, we’re excited to share that we’re partnering with Wayfinding Initiative to lead a small group Learn and Explore trip in Hoi An starting March 2nd. We’d love for you to join this tour or if you prefer to travel independently, check out our Vietnam Consultation Services. So, we will be there on the ground for three months, and we’d love to cross paths with you and maybe help you have a special experience in Hoi An.

Yeah, Vietnam is one of our absolute favorite places. I think I already said that. All right, Um, so you mentioned Hawaii, so we’re gonna move on to some news, some headlines and updates in travel around the world. So last month, we were shocked and saddened that a wildfire completely burned down the town of Lahaina on Maui. I was just in Honolulu, and it’s still impacting everybody there.

I fortunately don’t have any family on Maui, but we do know people who are affected. And as always, if you can serve or help in some way, even remotely, you know, consider doing that.

Yeah, West Maui is pretty much off-limits still. However, the rest of Maui and the other islands I’ve seen are making a point to promote that they are open. So, Hawaii’s economy relies on tourism, and it’s tricky but also important that people don’t stop going right now. Yeah, and just be – have good judgment. I mean, you can just be respectful to those that are affected in the areas but also still support and care for those affected as well by traveling.It’s still possible.

For the Caribbean, Central and North America. Forecasters said they expect a more dangerous Atlantic storm season than previously expected, forecasting at least six to 11 potential hurricanes. I feel like when you went to Florida, you were you were traveling, and – There was a hurricane. And there was two hurricanes! Like one was on the left side of Florida on the west side, one was on the east side. I mean, it’s and there’s a big one in the Atlantic right now, and I actually dodged one when I was in the Pacific too, so it’s just a stormy season. Yeah, definitely something to keep an eye on if you’re traveling, um, in those areas. You know when we go to New Orleans, obviously we’ll be watching that as well.

Some Europe highlights. So, Italy, I’m excited, is launching some new tourist trains. They’re trying to promote sustainable travel. And then the other thing in Italy, the Via dell’Amore in Cinque Terra is set to reopen next year. So, that’s a special part of the main trails in Cinque Terre. They’ve been closed for construction; there was like a bunch of landslides. They’ve been closed for years. So, that – part of it – is set to reopen. So we should go back. I love that area. We do have a blog post about hiking Cinque Terre where we also are keeping tabs on those trail closures. You can check our blog for details.

In other news: Bulgaria and Romania will soon follow Croatia in joining the Schengen Zone. If you don’t know, this is an area where there are no border crossings, and so non-European travelers can spend only 90 days in the Schengen area within a 180-day period. There’s a group of countries that are part of the Schengen. Right, so if you go, for example, from Paris or, sorry, France to Spain, right, there’s no border crossing, there’s no like customs or someone that’s stamping. As long as you’ve already entered Schengen once, then you can continue to travel in these countries within this period, this 90-day period.

For this month’s travel hack, I thought we could share a tip from the next course that I’m working on, which is all about staying connected, data, phones, and Wi-Fi while traveling. So, Jedd, something you set us up with a few years ago was a Google Voice phone number. Can you explain why that has been helpful?

Yeah, so if you have a Google account, you can sign up for a Google Voice number, and you can choose a phone number based on your region. What it does is it gives you a phone number, and what’s nice is it’s not connected to any major US networks. It’s connected to Google. Because you manage and sort of work with this phone number in this account through your Google account and online, you can actually connect it to a different phone. So, for example, like if we have this one number, but right now, I’ve set it so that it will ring on my cell phone number if I want to use it or I can text from it, or I can call people using that specific number. But if I wanted to, I could also set that number up on your cell phone. It could go to your phone, or it could go to my phone.

Correct, it’s not tied to a phone, and it’s not tied to a SIM. The other nice thing about it is it works without a phone at all. So, for example, if someone were to call it and leave a voicemail, it would be transcribed. I could go online, similar to email. I could open up a browser; I can go to voice.google.com, and I can see a transcription. I actually have it – I have one as well, and I have it email me… Right Whenever someone calls me, it emails me the transcribed voicemail or the text message. You can do that too. So, that’s kind of neat about it. And then also, you can send and receive text messages from it.

So, you can start to process there that like this could be a really helpful tool because as you travel, you know, if you are disconnected for whatever reason or let’s say my US T-Mobile phone number doesn’t work abroad, we often use our – this Google Voice number for like business transactions. Because you know right now, I’m sure you all feel this way when you try to log into something they’ll send like a verification text code right? You know like a secondary verification thing, and if your phone number – if you use your USA phone number and it doesn’t work, let’s say in Vietnam, then you’re going to have a hard time getting into maybe your bank account or something you need at that moment. Right because you can’t receive that verification – right – to your original number right.

So this is where the Google Voice number is really helpful because again, you will be able to access that text message whether again you open a web browser or whether you use the Google Voice app on your phone. As long as you’re connected to data, and you’ll – you’ll talk about that in a lesson – as long as you have some way to connect the data – I mean even if you just use the Wi-Fi of that airport, you would be able to access your Google Voice number.

So super helpful; we use it a lot; it’s really simple, and the best part about it – I know, I feel like I’m going to – I’m like one of those commercial salespeople on TV – but there is no fee. It is completely free. It comes with your free Google account. There’s some costs if you own a business and you’re using it as a business line. And there’s no side effects, no stomach aches…But yeah, it’s a really cool tool though.

All right, if you want to learn more about tricks like this and have a step by step guide to get yourself set up, then keep an eye out for my next course. At the time of this recording, it is in pre-sale so you can get it at a discount; but it should be available very shortly.

So yeah! Thank you so much for tuning in to the first of our monthly chats! Please be sure to fill out our survey while it’s available so that we can make these more valuable for you each month. All right, take care. See you next time. Bye. [Music]