Category Archives for Destinations.
While the U.S. still has a vaccine requirement for non-residents to travel here, we’re coming out the era of pandemic restrictions generally. But we’re not becoming a friendly place to travel. In fact we’re largely becoming worse.
For those who need a visa the average wait times are mind bogglingly absurd. The wait time in Mexico City? Over 500 days.
On your next trip to Thailand, if some have their way, you could smoke pot, gamble, and pay a bar fine all in a single visit. Funny, all I want to do when I go there is eat great street food.
Eventually Hong Kong (and mainland China) will lift pandemic restrictions. The city has focused on its relationship with Beijing, and the Peoples Republic of China has kept draconian Covid restrictions because much of its population has remained immunologically naive and they’ve been unwilling to using mRNA vaccines (since those represent failure of Chinese science compared to the West) and other key treatments.
China needs to keep Covid-19 in check until getting past the 20th Peoples Congress at which President Xi is expected to break with convention set by Deng Xiaoping and receive a third term. Uncontrolled spread of Covid (and invasion of Taiwan, for that matter) represent too much risk to take on for the Chinese leader before that.
Spain has barred all commercial buildings from setting their thermostat below 80 degrees in summer. It would also ban setting thermostats above 66 degrees in winter. The moves are prompted by the country’s reliance on Russian gas.
The Loyalty Lobby blog recently wrote a post, that apparently went viral, claiming that immigration lines in Bali were five hours long, that the airport had “Become A Total Hellhole” and warning people to stay away. He said people were crying and needed medical attention during their waits.
In fact it took the blogger who writes under the name Sebastian Powell 53 minutes to get through immigration. His story was apparently based on what one traveler told him about their experience.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s military plane has touched down in Taiwan. It’s been the most tracked aircraft movement in history. The Boeing C-40C using call sign SPAR19 took off from Kuala Lumpur and over 300,000 people were tracking the plane in real time at once. So many people were watching it that tracking sites couldn’t handle the server loads.
U.S. immigration is hard-nosed in Toronto, especially for Canadians entering for temporary work. Portland used to have a reputation as “Deportland.” At most ports of entry to the U.S. they’re looking for terrorists, and people with immigrant intent. In Australia they’re looking for… snacks.
It was only last month that Australia fined a woman $1750 for failing to declare a half-eaten subway sandwich. Now a passenger has been fined $1870 after McDonalds McMuffins were found in their backpack.
The Economist produces a research report on the top 10 most livable cities in the world. How many have you been to? How do your favorites fare? What Are The World’s Most Livable Cities? This year’s top 10 most livable cities are ranked as: Vienna Copenhagen Zurich + Calgary Vancouver Geneva Frankfurt Toronto Amsterdam Osaka and Melbourne Can this list make any sense at all? Many of these cities are awesome, I'm sure, but these lists tend to be biased towards cities that are cold, expensive, or boring, which suggests that the listmakers have a shitty definition of "livability". — Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 25, 2022 Vienna is incredible, but I wouldn’t want to live there though I’ve been attached to it since Richard Linklater’s 1995 classic Before Sunrise where young American Ethan Hawke is…
U.S. immigration deported an Australian woman after repeatedly asking her whether she’s had an abortion. They suspected her of planning to cat sit while vacationing in Canada as well as on a future visit to the U.S.
In the first 72 hours since the announcement that the U.S. requirement for a negative Covid-19 test to fly to the country would end United Airlines reported 2.4 million searches for international travel on its website.
To be clear, people still should not travel if they’re sick. But the testing requirement wasn’t just keeping people from traveling when sick. It was keeping them from travel because of hassle and uncertainty.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
