Want our tips for enjoying Edinburgh on a budget? Let us know in the comments and we will be happy to put that together.

Maybe I am inspired by this great creative environment - I just wrote a whole post on a bunch of practical stuff and then decided it was a little too boring. So, I’ve started over (and will save those more stodgy things I thought were share-worthy for another post).

So here’s a little bit of practical and joyful to inspire your upcoming days and travels.

The Practical

When Polite Complaining Pays Off

We recently stayed at two great properties that hit unexpected snags: Canal House in Amsterdam (Hyatt) and Hotel Indigo in Bath (IHG). In Amsterdam, the hotel was leaving the Hyatt network, resulting in three hours on customer service calls to avoid double billing—eating into our limited time in the city. In Bath, we were double-billed nearly $400 on an award stay where we spent $0 on-site. Luckily, I routinely audit our expenses and caught it within a day of it hitting our credit card.

I sent both corporate teams a polite, fact-based email:

“Although I am grateful for the efforts of your team to assist, the situation significantly impacted my overall experience. As a frequent traveler who often chooses [Brand] properties, I value consistency and service. Given the time and inconvenience involved, I wanted to kindly ask whether you might consider offering a gesture of goodwill—whether as a partial refund, points, or other compensation. I remain appreciative of your team’s efforts and hope to continue staying with [Brand] in the future.”

The Result: Both brands deposited 10,000 points into our accounts as a goodwill gesture.

Takeaways:

• Always request a folio/checkout receipt, even on award stays.

• Politely escalate issues. If you’re stuck on phrasing, AI is great for drafting customer service emails.

Solving the Early Check-In Gap: Luggage Storage vs. ResortPass vs. Day Rooms

Elite status often gets us early check-in, but when that’s not possible and standard check-in is around 4:00 PM, we need a place to go or leave our luggage. Dragging our 5 bags around is an option, but rarely the best one (2 35L backpacks, 2 rolling suitcases that fit in overhead compartments, and Levon’s paragliding wing in its own duffle). Here are a few resources on our short list (and thanks to our friend Kate for inspiring this post!):

1. Luggage Storage Networks - Bounce.com and Stasher.com (apps and online)

• Best For: Light travelers exploring walkable cities on foot

• Cost: $5–$8 USD per bag/day.

• Pros: Flexible, thousands of partner spots (shops, hotels, cafes), location ratings by users

• Cons: No private space to shower or rest. Plus, costs scale fast when you have 5 bags.

2. ResortPass.com (app and online)

• Best For: Relaxing by a pool or possibly a cruise port stop.

• Cost: Costs vary by location, most are listed per person per day - I found $40 USD for an Autograph Collection hotel in Houston, $25 at the Embassy Suites in Charleston, and $100 at the Marriott in Cancun.

• Pros: Day access to luxury hotel pools, fitness centers, Wi-Fi, and spa showers.

• Cons: 75% of properties are in the US (you can find a full list of their properties by location here); may be weather-dependent; no private space unless you upgrade to a cabana or day-room combo.

3. Day Rooms Dayuse.com and HotelsByDay.com (apps and online) or Coworking Space (search on Google Maps for “coworking near me”)

• Best For: Digital nomads, a private space to shower & relax.

• Cost: $60–$140 USD (typical 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM block; 30%–75% off overnight rates), typically $25+ per person per day at coworking spaces (we’ve seen it as low as $2/hour in Edinburgh).

• Pros: Private room, hot shower, hotel amenity access, and hotel points! Or a quiet work environment with fast WiFi.

• Cons: Highest upfront cost.

Rule of Thumb:

• Need high-focus work or quiet and private recovery space? A Day Room or at a coworking space (as low as ~$17/hr) may pay for itself.

• Pleasant weather and a slow itinerary? A ResortPass (as low as ~$9/hr), if you can find one, could turn transit time into a spa day.

• Light gear and a walkable city center? Luggage storage (as low as ~$5 per bag) may be your winning solution.

The Whimsical

5 Quick Reads & Activities to add a bit of sparkle

We’ve recently gotten back into playing card and board games. Finding easily packable games that we want to come back to time and again has led us to some amazing game stores in the UK (particularly Bath and Edinburgh). And as a result, we’ve ended up exploring delightful neighborhoods and met wonderful local people we never would have found if we hadn’t been on that quest. That has led us to think about additional twists we can add to our travels to keep it extra creative:

Beaches Searcher — An interactive global directory of over 33,000 coves, coasts, and shores. We’re heading to Dune du Pilat in a couple of weeks - I love seeing everything that is available at the beach as we finalize our plans. And since I just spent an hour exploring other beaches around the world, this could end up being an activity I come back to even when not in travel planning mode.

Ordinary Abundance — A beautiful, perspective-shifting digital project that pairs everyday modern comforts (like instant music, photography, and indoor plumbing) with historical quotes from people who would have viewed them as pure miracles.

Find Your Fascination — Financial writer Ben Carlson makes a compelling case for ditching the heavy pressure to “find your passion” and simply follow your curiosities instead. Lean into whatever topic makes you tick.

The NYT “Good List” — A quick, joyful roundup newsletter celebrating cultural treasures, from pop-culture icons to deep-sea wonders. Inspired by their latest newsletter, here are some instructions to create your own digital geoglyphs like Skip Snow:

• Visualize your shape: Examine a digital map or open park to find street layouts that look like simple line art, animals, or letters.

• Map out the route: Use a planning app like Strava or RouteDoodle to lock in a continuous, turn-by-turn path along the grid.

• Track your movement: Head outside with a GPS app or fitness watch and hit record, following your pre-planned trail exactly.

• Save and share: Stop the recording once you finish to generate the final line drawing superimposed over the map.

We are next off for almost three weeks exploring Ireland with Belfast as our base. It’s our first time there and I am excited to do some more genealogy research since a large percentage of my (Ashley’s) family are Scots Irish from the Antrim area. We plan for lots of day trips from there so please share any advice or tips!

That exact scenario happened to us last night, and it exposed a massive safety blind spot in how we and many other nomads and international travelers set up their phones. (We are ok, by the way. Fantastic experience getting care from the NHS that we will share in an upcoming post).

Like many full-time travelers, our phone setup relies on a phone tech stack that works great 99% of the time:

Tello provides a true mobile SIM line (our plan is around $6/month each for 1GB of data, 100 minutes of calling in the US, and unlimited texts) that reliably receives automated bank 2FA texts globally via phone data and/or Wi-Fi Calling. When we travel to the US, we can simply toggle off Wi-Fi Calling, scale up our monthly data tier in the app instantly, and use Tello as our high-speed primary carrier on T-Mobile’s native network. If you want to try Tello for yourself, our promo code will get you $10 off.

For data, we use data-only travel eSIMs like Airalo and Ubigi (there are other great ones out there too like Holafly and Gigsky, but these are working well for us). Levon has Ubigi’s world plan which gives him 5GB for $18 per month and I use Airalo’s Discover Global eSIM with 20GB for 365 days for $66. These global plans are a bit more expensive than if we bought country-specific or regional plans as we traveled, but these allow us to use the same eSIM no matter where we go - they pick up local services as soon as we cross borders and by having 2 different plans, it gives us a bit of redundancy if one of our plans has issues.

We keep a free US VOIP phone number with Google Voice as a back up and as a number for sites that make us sign up for stuff and we’re pretty sure they are going to sell our information which leads to spam calls. Plus, it is easy to use on a laptop/computer vs only phone.

However, and this is a big one……when it comes to local health and emergency services in the UK last night, this setup left us completely stranded.

Why Your Travel eSIM and Roaming Line Can’t Dial 111

When you’re in the UK and need urgent medical help that isn’t quite a 999 emergency, 111 is the free NHS helpline designed to connect you with a nurse, doctor, or local urgent care center.

However, three-digit short codes like 111 are not standard phone numbers. They rely on local cellular network routing:

• International Phone Services (e.g., Tello): When roaming on a foreign SIM, your phone attempts to process 111 through your home carrier’s routing logic rather than passing it directly to local UK cell towers. Because 111 isn’t a valid international number format, the network drops the call. Even adding country codes and international dialing numbers have no effect - the calls simply won’t go through.

• Data-Only eSIMs (e.g., Airalo, Ubigi): Services that provide internet data without a native voice line don’t have a cellular dialer attached to a local network.

• Virtual Phone Apps (e.g., Google Voice): VoIP apps operate over Wi-Fi or mobile data. Because they lack physical cell tower location integration, virtually all consumer virtual number providers block short-code dialing.

What Actually Works in a Medical Emergency?

If you find yourself needing medical assistance in the UK without a local voice line, here is how to navigate the system:

1. For Life-Threatening Emergencies: Dial 999

If someone is severely injured or their life is at risk, dial 999 directly from your phone’s regular keypad. International safety regulations require all mobile networks to connect 999 calls over whichever cell tower is closest, regardless of whether your foreign SIM has roaming active or even has a local signal.

2. For Non-Emergency Medical Advice: Use 111 Online

If you only have a data connection, do not bother trying to dial 111. Instead, open your browser and go straight to 111.nhs.uk (or nhsinform.scot if you are in Scotland). The online portal walks you through a quick symptom assessment. If your situation requires medical evaluation, the system will either recommend a local pharmacy or suggest you go directly to your closest NHS medical facility.

3. The Ultimate Setup: Switch to a Local Cellular eSIM

The most reliable way to avoid this safety gap entirely is to include an additional local cellular eSIM to your phone tech mix. Most late model phones now allow for multiple eSIMS. Providers like giffgaff or spusu in the UK offer month-to-month plans via eSIM for non-residents. For roughly £5 to £10 a month, you get a full package: local UK data, an authentic +44 phone number, and native voice connectivity that connects to local short codes like 111 without issue.

Local eSIM Battle: giffgaff vs. spusu

Both giffgaff and spusu are top-rated MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) in the UK that cater exceptionally well to non-residents. Neither requires a UK credit check or a permanent local residential address, and both allow instant setup via eSIM before or after you arrive in the UK.

Coverage Across the UK: What You Need to Know

Mobile coverage in the UK varies significantly by region—especially if you’re traveling through rural Scotland, Wales, or national parks.

• spusu (EE Network): EE consistently holds the widest overall 4G landmass coverage in the UK. Because EE builds out infrastructure for the UK’s national Emergency Services Network, it generally offers the strongest signal in remote rural areas, coastal paths, and highland glens.

• giffgaff (O2 Network): O2 provides excellent coverage across cities, towns, and transit corridors. In dense historic centers, O2’s lower-frequency signal penetrates thick stone buildings effectively, though it can trail EE in deep rural or mountainous terrain.

Before You Buy: Check the exact postcodes of your accommodations, national parks, or road-trip stops using the free Ofcom Official UK Coverage Checker. Ofcom is the UK’s independent telecom regulator, providing unbiased coverage maps. Here’s what the maps looks like for EE vs O2 for our Airbnb and neighborhood:

I ended up going with spusu’s £4.90 plan since we plan to do more remote exploring over the next two months. Of course, I will report back if I end up with additional thoughts worth sharing!

The Nomad Safety Checklist

Before heading off on your next international trip, take five minutes to prep your phone for health and safety:

1. Research local short codes: Know the local equivalents for both life-threatening emergencies (e.g., 999 in the UK, 112 in Europe) and non-emergency medical advice.

2. Bookmark health portals: Save local health assessment sites (like 111.nhs.uk or nhsinform.scot) to your mobile browser before traveling.

3. Add a local carrier eSIMs to your phone tech mix: Pick a cheap local carrier eSIM (like giffgaff or spusu in the UK) that includes native voice service alongside data. This might not be necessary for everyone, but this is now going into our permanent travel plan.

Have you needed to access emergency medical services by phone in your travels? We would love to know more about other experiences and get our community’s shared wisdom for other countries!

The Reality of Points as Full-Time Travelers

Points and miles aren’t a religion for us—they’re a tool in our full-time-travel-living-kit. We aren’t trying to collect and redeem tons of points for nights in an overwater bungalow/once in a lifetime mega redemption or optimize every single redemption every single time. We care about reducing decision fatigue, getting a good/great deal, and making our travels as easy as possible. That means, consistently comfortable beds, reliable Wi-Fi, optimal locations in a city or near an airport/cruise terminal, and useful perks like free nights, early/late check-out, and the occasional upgrade. Free food and drinks are a bonus, but they aren’t a deciding factor for us. If a point redemption saves us real money, fantastic. But, if paying cash for a hotel or booking a full apartment through Airbnb, etc. makes more sense in a particular location, we do it.

If this sounds like something you care about too, before diving into any credit card* or hotel loyalty program, the most important step is asking yourself a few basic questions:

• What is most important to you? (Comfort and simplicity vs. free nights, breakfast, lounges, and upgrades?)

• How much effort do you want to put in? (Set-and-forget vs. tracking multiple credit cards and loyalty programs?)

• What does your travel pattern look like? (A few hotel stays a year vs. long stays and/or moves around the world?)

*Beware, don’t get into this game if you can’t pay off your credit cards in full each month. Otherwise, this quickly becomes a money losing option.

For us, the goal is reducing decision fatigue balanced with keeping our fixed living expenses reasonable.

1. Build Around a Few Core Ecosystems

Trying to earn points everywhere usually means having useless balances scattered across wildly different programs (been there, done that). We now keep our setup focused:

• Transferable Points: Earning transferable points with Chase and Amex credit cards and Rove (no credit card required) so we can shift points to airlines or hotels as needed. We hold multiple Chase and Amex cards plus multiple hotel brand specific cards, all acquired when we could get great sign up bonuses.

• Our Top Hotel Brands:

  • Marriott and IHG (tied for first place): Our primary programs due to their massive global footprints, wide range of apartment-style properties, easy to obtain high level status, and excellent credit card sign up bonuses that we’ve been able to leverage into significant free night redemptions.

  • Hyatt: High quality properties, great customer service, and strong redemption value, though with a smaller footprint and much harder to achieve status.

  • Best Western & Hilton: Great “gap-fillers.”

  • Independent Hotels: When we can’t find a good fit using the brands above, we book independent hotels through Rove.

Want to know more about how these brands and more compare across the globe and short cuts to getting status? Scroll down to the end of this post.

2. Let Geography Shape the Strategy

Hotel loyalty depends heavily on where you are. In the Americas, US brands are everywhere. In Southeast Asia, IHG and Marriott offer incredible status recognition and value. In Europe, regional options or independent boutique networks often beat traditional US chains.

We use whichever hotel brand in our points stack fits best. If no chain makes sense, we shift to cash bookings via platforms like Rove, Booking.com, or Airbnb.

3. Use Points Where They Offer the Best Value

Our basic rule is simple: earn points/pay cash where hotels are less expensive and spend points on high-cost locations or peak seasons.

• Expensive, “Landing Pad,” or Pass Through Cities: Staying in expensive destinations (like we did recently in London or Los Angles), where we want an easy landing for a week or so to find a longer term stay (like we did in Buenos Aires, Warsaw, and Bordeaux), or where we only need to stay for a few nights (like we did pre-cruise in Tampa and Miami), is where hotel points and loyalty shine.

• Cash for Budget Regions: This is where we pay cash for brands we are loyal to in order to generate more points.

• Quick Valuation Check: We use simple benchmark calculators (like The Points Guy) to confirm we’re getting solid value before clicking “Redeem.”

4. Our Tech & Tracking Stack

Keeping track of perks, free night certificates, and points balances can take hours, even with the best tools. But there are quite a few that make this a whole lot easier. These are the systems we are currently using and/or testing out:

• AwardWallet: Tracks all our balances, elite status tiers, credit card bonuses, and expiration dates in one place.

• CardPointers and Kudos: Helps us keep track of card-specific credits and rotating offers and suggests the best card to use for specific purchases.

• MaxMyPoint and Gondola.ai: Great for comparing award night availability and points costs across multiple hotel brands.

• Shopping Portals: We route regular purchases and booking stays that may offer additional stacked rewards through shopping portals like Rove and Rakuten to collect extra rewards on spending we’re doing anyway.

New to Rove? Here’s a referral link for 500 points to get you started: www.rove.com/?signup&referralCode=CYLJ2Q1B

How Stacking Works in Real Life to Maximize Earnings: A 3-Way Layered Stay

Stacking points earnings deals is the real big game hunt for us and where it can get really fun - it doesn’t take that much more time than a simple hotel search and can result in seriously valuable points earnings and cost savings. Let’s look at a real-life example of a recent search I did.

Say we want to book a stay at the Staybridge Suites, an IHG property, in Cardiff, Wales. First, we launch Rove and search for the city, toggle the “Loyalty Eligible” tab, and then click on only the brands we want to search.

This shows us results which earn us 2030 transferable Rove Miles on the booking while still preserving our elite status and direct loyalty credit, meaning, we ALSO earn 1402 points from the hotel.

Second, we would pay for the room using our IHG One Rewards Premier credit card. I achieved Platinum status by signing up for this card last year. Thanks to all of our recent stay activity (most of it paid for with the sign up bonus I got for opening the card), I am now at Diamond status. This means even more points earned for this stay.

Finally, we look for opportunistic bonuses, when available, by booking our stay during an active IHG seasonal promo (like their recurring “2,000 bonus points every 2 nights” promotion) or by activating a targeted Chase/Amex Offer on our card for 10–15% cash back.

The Bottom Line

You don’t need to master every loyalty program or open a dozen cards to make travel significantly more affordable. Pick one or two ecosystems that match where you actually want to go, use tools and bonuses to maximize earning additional points, use points to soften the blow of expensive stops, and keep your system as simple as possible.

If you you’ve done all of this already and want to dive deeper, here are two resources we recommend to get even more out of your hotel points:

Strategic Early Retirement - blog and YouTube resources. Their posts on how they are saving a ton by leveraging IHG, Marriott, and Hyatt, amongst others, are excellent.

Grounded Life Retirement Travel - YouTube. They share a lot of helpful information on how they are leveraging points, credit cards, and hotel loyalty to live almost full time in hotels in Asia and around the world.

We are happy to share several “cheat sheets” we created for our own travel planning: How to Get Hotel Elite Status Without Staying 50 Nights, Extended-Stay & Kitchen-Equipped Brands Comparison, and a Global Hotel Footprint Reference Guide. We’ve broken down global coverage across 9 major hotel chains to help us (and you!) choose the right loyalty stack.

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We didn’t see the first heatwave coming, or at least we weren’t actively tracking it. But the second one came with just enough warning for us to put our systems in place to stay cool, fed, and hydrated for days on end — even if that meant camping out in the living room and eating the coldest food we can find in a two block radius.

This latest heatwave sparked a lot of conversation over wine at Le Bar à Vin last Friday night with new friends who have made Bordeaux their permanent home in the last year, one who is considering it, and two who have just arrived. Can we still trust historical temperature norms? Should we be looking instead at averages and extreme-weather alerts from the last three to five years? If we’re chasing 75-degree weather, is Bordeaux — and maybe France or Western Europe more broadly — still a realistic destination?

That sent me down a research rabbit hole. I thought a quick question to AI would solve it. But there isn’t a simple dataset that captures recent heat extremes in a way that makes it easy to compare year to year. So I pulled together what I could from WeatherSpark.com, Meteoblue.com, Copernicus Climate Change Service, current reporting, and a handful of other weather sources.

I want to share two tools developed by our community that we now use constantly when thinking about future travel: WeatherWiseWanderer, which maps global comfort zones using a decade of feels-like temperature trends, and Travel With Goldilocks, created by our dear friend Natasha at Batch Processing, which helps identify our ideal times to travel to countries by month, season, and temperature range.

Are we overreacting to an anomaly, or is this part of a bigger trend?

In Bordeaux, the answer may be a little of both. Recent research shows western European heatwaves are rising much faster than in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, and Copernicus reported that late May 2026 brought one of the most intense early-season heatwaves ever observed in western Europe.

If we only consider historical data, Bordeaux is the ideal place for us to spend our summers if not most of the year. The weather, along with the amazing vibe, beautiful city, great transportation, a friendly and welcoming community, and lots to see and do and eat, Bordeaux has become one of our favorite places.

But can recent extreme weather trends tell us something about the future? In the last 5 years, there have been 4 extreme heat alerts - 2 of them since we arrived here less than 2 months ago.

Bordeaux extreme weather alerts 2021-26

What about future trends?

I asked Perplexity AI this question and here’s what it came up with: Most operational agencies and research groups expect the next 1–3 years to be warmer than average across Western Europe, with increased odds of seasonal extremes (heat and drought in summer, and enhanced storminess and heavy precipitation risk in winter), driven by the developing El Niño and ongoing background warming from climate change.

Why experts say that

• El Niño increases the probability of a stronger Atlantic jet stream and altered storm tracks in winter, which tends to bias western Europe toward milder, wetter, and stormier winters in many models and seasonal forecasts.[cpc.ncep.noaa]

• Climate model ensembles and European seasonal outlooks show elevated temperature anomalies through the next 12 months, and a higher chance of extreme heat and reduced frost days across much of Western Europe.[climate.copernicus]

• Several forecast groups and independent climate analysts also flag an increased drought/heat risk for parts of continental Europe in summer (especially central and western areas) because El Niño, a North Atlantic warm-hole pattern, and warm sea surface anomalies can combine to favor ridging and reduced summer rainfall in some scenarios.[climateimpactcompany]

Regional expectations

• France & Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg): Higher probability of wetter and stormier winters and warmer summers, with pockets of summer dryness and heightened drought risk in central/western France in some model runs.[climateimpactcompany]. Southern France is expected to see more frequent heatwaves and occasional drought spells, along with rising wildfire risk, though less extreme than Iberia or parts of the central Mediterranean.[eea.europa]

• UK & Ireland: Increased odds of a milder, wetter winter with a more active storm track; summers lean warmer than average with elevated heatwave risk.[climatestrategies]

• Scandinavia & Northern Europe: Winters may be milder but precipitation responses are variable; summer temperature anomalies trend positive but rainfall outlooks are uncertain.[climatestrategies]

• Spain & Portugal are expected to see more intense heat, longer droughts, and rising wildfire risk, especially inland and in the south.[climatechangepost]

• Italy & Greece are expected to remain major heat hotspots, with more frequent heatwaves, more hot nights, and persistent drought stress in the south and on the islands.[climatechangepost]

What does that mean for our travel to Europe in the future?

Climate stress is no longer just a weather story — it’s a mobility story. Climate-related heat, drought, water stress, and wildfire risk are increasingly shaping where people can comfortably live, work, and travel.

We love Bordeaux, and we’re not ready to give it up — but we are ready to be more selective about when we spend time here and the rest of Europe. For now, that means thinking more seriously about shoulder seasons and shifting even more toward early spring and late fall. And likely heading further into northern Europe in the summers, staying in the cool of the Mexican highlands, or heading to the global South to enjoy their mild winters. It’s getting harder to ignore what climate change means for our everyday comfort.

We know how fortunate we are to be able to change course when a place becomes uncomfortable. That kind of flexibility is a privilege, and it’s one we don’t take for granted. For many people here — and for millions more around the world — there is no easy escape from extreme heat, rising costs, or homes that no longer feel livable.

How we can make a difference

We’re doing what we can to reduce the impact of our own travels. We try to reduce emissions first by choosing direct flights when we can and traveling slower. For the emissions we can’t avoid, we are going to start looking for verified offset options. One resource that looks promising is Sustainable Travel International, which offers a travel footprint calculator and offset options tied to climate projects.

We’re also adding three organizations into our regular donation plan. These organizations work on solving climate related challenges and providing resources for people who need them in emergencies.

• World Central Kitchen provides fresh meals to communities hit by humanitarian and climate-related crises, often getting food to the front lines within hours.

• The International Rescue Committee helps refugees worldwide plus vulnerable communities responding to climate shocks through resilience, water, livelihoods, and emergency programs, while also advocating for longer-term climate solutions.

• The International Red Cross and Red Crescent network responds to emergencies, supports recovery, and helps people prepare for future disasters.

Donations, monthly giving, and sharing their work are all meaningful ways to help them reach people faster when extreme weather hits.

We would love to know how are you changing your own living and traveling plans to compensate for changing climates in the comments below.

This month, we looked at data sets from the World Population Review, Visual Capitalist, and others to see where there are countries with some good news. We looked at these six dimensions — cost, happiness, health, safety, climate, and air quality. Some of this data may not be much of a surprise. But we guarantee that there’s some “woah, really?” moments here as well.

• Northern Europe is the strongest “life is good” cluster, but it is also the most expensive and has the harshest winter weather.

• Western Europe has the best mix of livability and value.

• Eastern Europe is an emerging affordability and quality of life region.

• Southeast Asia has the lowest cost of living and mega city wins.

• Latin America offers strong lifestyle potential.

Note, for the purposes of this post, we’re focusing on locations outside of the US. I know there are places worth highlighting… but that’s for another day.

And for paid subscribers, we’ve included a list of the countries covered below in the text in a handy table.

Let’s dive in…..

Cost of Living

According to Where Living Costs Are Surging Most Right Now and 2026 Global Cost of Living Index, countries like Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, Egypt, Madagascar, India, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Kosovo, and Fiji offer some of the lowest cost of living in the world. In Switzerland, Singapore, and Vietnam, the cost of living has remained stable with prices rising more gradually than many other countries.

On the flip side, some countries once known for low living costs are quickly losing that reputation. Mexico has seen rising prices in popular places like Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende, and Playa del Carmen. Thailand, long a budget-friendly destination, is experiencing sometimes significant cost increases in rent and food in tourist-heavy regions. Spain remains relatively affordable compared to Western Europe, but cities like Barcelona are seeing upward pressure on rents and utilities and property prices in Madrid are at all time highs.

Global Happiness by Population

The Nordic nations still lead the pack per capita, but China and India now dominate happy headcount simply by virtue of population size.

Drilling down a bit further to the city level offers a clearer picture of where people report being the happiest:

Countries With the Best Healthcare and the Best Places for Aging

Ranked: Countries With the Best Health Care in 2026 lists Taiwan first globally for healthcare quality while spending far less per person than the U.S. European (Netherlands #2, Austria #5) and Asian (South Korea #2, Japan #4) countries dominate the top 5 rankings thanks to broad access and efficient care systems. The top Asian countries combine universal coverage with dense hospital networks, helping drive strong public satisfaction. Nordic and Western European countries consistently score highly due to broad access, lower financial barriers, and strong patient care performance - Finland #7, Denmark #9, and Spain #10 also made the top 10. Thailand #8 and Ecuador #6 both rank surprisingly high despite spending only a fraction of what wealthier countries spend per capita on healthcare. Their rankings suggest that broad access and system efficiency can matter as much as total spending.

The Best Countries for Aging: It’s Not What You Think highlights Japan, Switzerland, Singapore, Italy, Spain, and Australia for their healthcare innovation, while countries like the Netherlands and Denmark score high in life satisfaction for seniors. The future of aging seems less about traditional retirement or warm weather locales, and more about support systems.

Where Mental Health Is Improving Worldwide highlights steady progress in countries like Japan, Australia, Portugal, Canada, and Singapore — all seeing public health systems integrate mental wellness more holistically. And Finland has one of Europe’s lowest burnout rates despite high productivity.

Livable Climates

The World’s Most Livable Climates highlights regions balancing natural geographic advantages, micro-climates, and and weather patterns: much of Spain; Italy; Portugal, and Greece; plus Medellín, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; Nairobi, Kenya; Cape Town, South Africa; Tokyo, Japan; Mendoza, Argentina; and Central Otago, New Zealand.

Clean Air Comeback

The Clean Air Comeback report celebrates environmental rebound stories — notably in Japan, Sweden, South Korea, Chile, Canada, and Portugal — where emissions control policies have started to pay off. “Different cultures. Different economies. One shared lesson: air quality improves when policy is steady, boring, and enforced.”

The Great Crime Drop

In The Great Crime Drop Few Saw Coming, it’s noted that El Salvador and Colombia overall are experiencing major improvements. Sao Paolo, Brazil has also seen impressive gains. Spain, Portugal, and Italy have become steadily safer over the past generation.

Some of the world’s largest urban areas are also among its safest — challenging the idea that density automatically creates disorder. Asia’s safest megacities - Tokyo, Seoul, and Singapore - show how strong institutions and social trust can support safety even at large scale. In Africa, Rwanda, Botswana, and Morocco are notable for their stability, lack of crime, and rising international investments (and there are plenty more than these three on the continent!).

For Paid Subscribers: Where Life Is Getting Better: A Regional Guide to the Countries to Watch

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We spent two and a half weeks in Kuala Lumpur (aka KL) and then eight days in Penang - both on the mainland and on the island in its capital - George Town. Kuala Lumpur is a place you should visit just to eat. (And if you can’t, run, don’t walk, to your closest Malaysian restaurant to discover this amazing cuisine). KL is a huge modern city. But it is also HOT and huge - a great city to spend time in or settle into if you want a Singapore-city-of-the-future experience but significantly less expensive… and you love malls. Lots and lots and lots of malls.

But George Town on the island or Penang stole our hearts.

Our trip to Penang served two purposes - to get comprehensive health checks (we will share our outstanding experience at Sunway Penang in a separate post) and to explore George Town, a UNESCO world heritage site. We took the train from Kuala Lumpur to the Butterworth Station in Penang- about three hours, super comfortable and with some great views of Malaysian jungles and countryside. After staying on the Penang mainland for four days focusing on our health and wellness, we then traveled to Penang island by ferry, which felt like the right way to arrive in a historic port city.​

George Town is a great place for a short stay, but if you are like us, you are going to want to make plans for a longer trip as soon as possible.

Some History

George Town began as a British colonial outpost when Captain Francis Light of the East India Company founded a free port on Penang Island in 1786, drawing trade away from Dutch‑controlled harbors and rapidly attracting Chinese, Indian, Malay, Arab, and European settlers. Over the next two centuries, Chinese clan houses, Indian temples, Malay kampungs, mosques, churches, and Anglo‑Indian mansions grew side by side, creating the distinctive multicultural streetscape that eventually earned George Town’s historic core UNESCO World Heritage status in 2008 as part of the “Historic Cities of the Straits of Melaka.” Today, it is both Penang’s modern economic hub and a living museum that still reflects its trading‑port origins.

Tourism now shapes daily life in George Town, bringing both welcome energy and real strain. Recent years have seen sharp growth in visitors to Penang, with millions of domestic and international guests drawn by food, heritage architecture, and short regional itineraries, and many locals are genuinely enthusiastic about welcoming travelers. At the same time, heritage‑driven tourism and broader gentrification have pushed up property values and rents, and local advocates estimate that the resident population in the historic core has fallen dramatically since UNESCO inscription as traditional families move out and once‑communal spaces are commercialized. For long‑stay visitors and expats who love the city, that mix of preservation, prosperity, and displacement raises a key question: how to enjoy and support George Town without accelerating the very pressures that threaten its living culture.

Our Life in George Town: First Impressions & Daily Rhythm

Arriving by train and ferry set the tone. Our hotel was a renovated merchant’s mansion in the heart of Little India and an easy walk from the ferry port, even with our rolling suit cases and backpacks (one of each, each). ​

Our days here quickly settled into a rhythm:

• Mornings usually started early to beat the heat (out the door by 7:30 am), with an exploratory walk in different historic neighborhoods followed by breakfast at one of the many, outstanding cafes. ​

• Late mornings and early afternoons were our siesta time to get out of the heat for a bit.

• Afternoons and evenings —we headed out again for food and more exploring.
  

George Town is energetic but very manageable on foot. It felt busy and stimulating, and the sidewalks can disappear in the blink of an eye, but the town never felt overwhelming.

Where We Stayed: Little India & East Indies Mansion

We were originally thinking about using hotel points for our stay in George Town and there are lots of good choices for that (Marriott - 4, Hilton - 2, Accor - 1). But we found a great deal paying cash through Rove Miles at the East Indies Mansion, and what a gem it turned out to be. The hotel is located in the heart of Little India - one of the most atmospheric neighborhoods in the UNESCO core: colorful saree shops, Hindu temples, and loads of delicious food that we wish we had more time to sample.

East Indies Mansion is a charming restored 18th‑century mansion tucked just off the main hustle and bustle:

• The building itself is a 240‑year‑old former merchant’s home, restored into a boutique heritage stay with courtyards, open walkways, and high‑ceilinged rooms. The rooms stayed so cool naturally that we often only needed a ceiling fan to keep things comfortable.

• Our favorite thing about it was the contrast: you step from the noise and color of Little India into a quiet inner courtyard full of greenery, antique furniture, books, and photos of George Town’s past.

• The location meant we could walk to most of George Town’s core sights within 10–15 minutes.

• We only ate breakfast there one day, but it was absolutely delicious and their dining room was delightful.

• And the staff were some of the kindest and most generous we’ve encountered anywhere. Every day brought a new little gift - fresh, cold nutmeg juice made from the fruit that surrounds the nutmeg “nut”; a little hand crocheted Christmas wreath; rice balls in syrup; chocolates - every day something that made us feel incredibly welcomed and appreciated.

This little hotel convinced us that from here on out, sometimes a great little independent hotel is going to be a more interesting and enriching experience than pursuing free nights at a big brand (not all of the time, but when we find the right match).

If we came back for a similar‑length stay, we’d happily base ourselves here again. For longer stays, we would look a bit farther up the coast where the temperature is generally a bit cooler and there are modern high rise apartments, great grocery stores, popular restaurants, and a vibrant international community.

Getting There & Getting Around: Trains, Ferries, Planes, and Feet

We loved our overland arrival: train from Kuala Lumpur to Butterworth, then ferry across to Penang island.

• The train ride up the peninsula was smooth and uncrowded, with glimpses of rural Malaysia along the way. If you want to guarantee you are on the fastest electric train with the most comfortable seats and room for luggage, book ahead at this site or on the KTMB app - seats do sell out. Cost: $88 USD for the two of us for first class seats (there are cheaper options, but this worked best for us), which included a snack and free WiFi.
  *A note on the Butterworth station - there is one small elevator for arrivals and departures and long lines to access it. Otherwise, plan to hoof it up or down the rather large flight of stairs with your luggage.

• At Butterworth, it’s a short walk from the train station to the ferry terminal via covered walkways, and the ferry crossing itself is quick (so quick that we didn’t take any photos!) but scenic. There’s a tap to pay ticket machine right by the entrance to the ferry and there were people there to help when we bought our tickets and boarded the ferry. Cost: $1 USD for the two of us.

• If you are arriving by plane, there are lots of direct flight or connecting airport options from throughout the region and slightly beyond. If you’re arriving by air into Penang International Airport, Grab and taxis connect you to George Town in around 30–45 minutes, depending on traffic. Our Grab from our hotel to the airport when we left cost about $17 USD and was easy to order ahead of time so it was ready to go when we were.

Once on the island, we mostly got around by:

• Walking: The heritage core is wonderfully walkable. A lot of the best of George Town—street art, temples, cafes, clan houses, parks—is within a couple of kilometers, and we enjoyed letting ourselves get lost on purpose in the grid of old streets.

• Grab: For anything outside the core (hills, nature parks, malls, some coastal stretches), Grab rides were affordable and easy to hail in the Grab app.

• Tuk Tuks/Trishaws: definitely touristy and not the most cost efficient for going longer distances around town, but they sure did look like fun (we didn’t try).
  
  

The main lesson: basing yourself in or near the core means you can do most of your exploring on foot and only use vehicles when you genuinely need them.

What We Actually Did

We didn’t try to do everything - we immediately knew that we had booked too little time here and that we wanted to come back again. So we layered core sights with wandering and food.

Walking, Street Art, and Heritage

George Town is famous for its street art and heritage architecture—and both are best appreciated slowly.

• We spent our mornings doing self‑guided walking loops through the core, roughly following well‑known routes that pass Penang Town Hall, Fort Cornwallis, the Blue Mansion, and some of the most photographed murals on and around Armenian Street.

• Rather than racing to tick off every mural, we allowed ourselves time and space to discover pieces wherever we found them: around corners, behind parked cars, tucked into alleyways.

• Each morning when we started our walks, we picked a new direction, thinking - “well, might as well go here since we haven’t done it yet, but it can’t be any better than we’ve already seen.” And then we were rewarded with more delightful and unexpected finds.
  
  

This is a great place to put down the Google map and just wander. The mix of Chinese shophouses, Indian temples, mosques, and colonial remnants makes even aimless walks feel rich.

Clan Jetties, Parks, & Waterfront

The Clan Jetties were another highlight, especially in the quieter hours around early morning and sunset. And the parks and waterfront are particularly lively on the weekends with families enjoying picnics, flirting along the waterfront promenade, flying kites, and enjoying snacks by the sea.

• Chew Jetty is the most visited, with souvenir shops and food stalls; it’s still interesting but undeniably touristy. We really enjoyed watching the sunset from Tan Jetty (and its rickety pier). We tried to balance curiosity with respect, remembering that these are actual communities, not just Instagram backdrops.

• The Penang Esplanade in front of the town hall is a wonderful, cooling lush green park with great views of the mainland and up the island.
  
  

Eating & Everyday Life in George Town

Penang is often described as one of Asia’s great food capitals, and we understand why. The Michelin Guide recommends 68 restaurants and hawker stands. Taste Atlas lists 15 regional dishes worth trying and where to find them. For vegans and vegetarians, this is an excellent guide to 17 restaurants and street food options and Happy Cow lists 277 options across the wider Penang area.

But for anyone looking for a… wait for it…. TIRAMISU BAR… they’ve got that covered too.

Our food rhythm looked something like this:

• Breakfasts sampling various cafes and coffee shops around town.​

• Snacks ​including maybe a few too many coconut shakes, but who’s judging.

• Evenings were for restaurants, night‑time street food, or a specific place we’d earmarked earlier in the day.

The joy of George Town is that you can eat very well, just about any time of day, at many price points, and just about everywhere.

Weather & When We’d Come Back

George Town has a tropical climate: warm to hot year‑round, with humidity and scattered rain more than dramatic seasonal swings.

• Typical temperatures hover around 23–32°C/74-90°F throughout the year, with warm nights and hot days.

• There’s no cold season, but there are wetter and drier periods; generally, December–February is a bit drier and popular for visitors, while April–October sees more frequent rain showers.

When we return (because we WILL), we’ll aim again for a relatively dry month—but not necessarily peak holiday weeks.

Tips for Travelers: Money, Cards, & Practical Stuff

George Town is easy to love and relatively easy to travel around, but a few practical details make a difference.

Money & Credit Cards

George Town is firmly in modern‑banking territory:

• ATMs are plentiful.

• Shops, hotels, and many restaurants accept major credit cards and most offer tap to pay. Hawker stalls, markets, and small places are still mostly cash‑only.

Apps We Actually Used

The apps that earned a permanent place on our home screens in George Town:

• Maps: Google Maps worked well for navigation and opening hours; we downloaded offline maps in case of patchy data.

• Ride‑hailing: Grab handled most journeys beyond walkable distance.

• Translation: No need for English speakers. Everyone we met spoke English fluently or enough for us to easily communicate.

• eSIMS: Our Airalo and Ubigi global eSIMS worked seamlessly.

How Long to Stay

If you travel more like we do:

• 3–4 days “highlight mode”: Good for a first taste—enough to get oriented, see key sights, and sample the food scene.

• For slow travelers and nomads, we could easily see spending a month here without running out of stuff to explore (and delicious things to eat).

Traveling Responsibly in George Town

George Town’s UNESCO‑protected core is both lived‑in and heavily visited, which means how we move through it matters. There are some encouraging examples in George Town of tourism businesses and activities that try to keep money, skills, and attention flowing back into the community, even as visitor numbers rise. Here are a few types of places and activities to explore to maximize visiting George Town responsibly and bring home a story, not just a souvenir:

Social‑Enterprise Cafés & Community‑Minded Eateries

A caveat, we did not have enough time to try these places out ourselves. But we were so happy to see so many places focused on supporting the people and environment of this very special region. Several Penang cafés explicitly combine food with social impact, training, or “pay it forward” models. We plan to check these out next time and are sharing them here in case you want to make these places part of your own trip.

• Lighthouse Cafe (Jalan Penang) A homestyle cafe that doubles as a social enterprise, offering vocational training and channeling part of its proceeds into charity and education funds for people in need. The same building typically houses a thrift shop, bakery, and laundry, all with a community support focus—eating here means directly supporting those programs.

• WTF Studios (Lebuh Carnarvon) - currently closed, but due to reopen in 2026. A cafe‑bar‑studio that runs workshops and has a “Pay‑It‑Forward” program: with every order, they donate a hot meal to someone in need.

• Kommune plant-based cafe and store a B Corp-certified purpose-driven business. Kommune supports aspiring brands and social enterprises that uplift communities, preserve nature, and advocate conscious consumerism. When you make a purchase or dine at their cafe, you are contributing to conservation efforts at The Habitat Foundation (more on that below).

Heritage‑Led Tours & Conservation

• Penang Heritage Trust (PHT) guided walks PHT is a long‑standing NGO founded in 1986 that promotes Penang’s cultural and built heritage and offers small, in‑depth walking tours led by knowledgeable local guides. Reviews highlight that their walks through Little India, the Chinese quarters, and waterfront not only cover history but also current community issues, and tour fees help support PHT’s broader work, including lectures and support for local artisans.

• Tours by With Locals As their tag line says, always private; it’s just you and your local host; no strangers; no groups. Offers 8 tour options with local guides.

• The Habitat This nature reserve on Penang Hill is a rainforest “discovery center” with 2500 species of flora and fauna, heritage trails that were built in the 1880s, a panoramic viewing platform and tree canopy bridge, and nature education. Offerings: guided walks, star light camping, and sunrise yoga, amongst others.
  

Have you spent time in George Town or elsewhere in Penang? What did you love most—and what surprised you? We would love to hear your stories and tips in the comments.

A note for paid subscribers, let us know if you would like our Google Map with all of our favorite places. We’re happy to share it with you (and anyone else who would like to become a paid subscriber).

We did not have the option of self-serve kiosks as I described below in the original post. We had machines for taking photos and fingerprints accompanied by immigration officers. Levon only required a photo. I (Ashley) required photo and fingerprints. We were not asked any questions about onward travel or where we planned to stay. Weirdly, most of the women on our ship reported being asked for fingerprints while the men were not. No idea why. Levon and I flew to Bordeaux, France a few days later and since we were already in the EU, we did not have to go through any immigration points.

Original Post:
If you’re heading to Europe soon like we are, expect big changes at the border. I received a few questions on this after our last post, so here’s a detailed post on what you (and we) can expect.

The European Union’s new Entry/Exit System, or EES, is now fully in place as of April 10, 2026, which means the classic passport stamp is giving way to a digital record for non-EU travelers. In its place: biometric checks, including a facial image and fingerprints, along with passport and travel data. The EES applies at all Schengen borders, so no matter how you arrive in Europe, you will run into the same new biometric checks.

The good news is that EES is designed to make border processing more modern and more secure. The bad news is that currently, it can be pretty chaotic:

• Both Ryanair and Easy Jet on flights to the UK left over 150 passengers behind in Milan last week after it took 3+ hours for passengers to make it through the new biometric sign up process (passengers with EU passports were the only ones sailing through immigration).

• In Vienna and Salzburg, the system is reportedly working well and there are hardly any delays.

• By rail, EES systems are set up in St. Pancras station in London for the Eurostar to Paris, but the systems are not yet working on arrival in Paris.

• There are also reports that even after registering at one border, travelers are being asked to register again at other borders, even though they should be able to pass right through the biometric scanner.

That’s why I’d tell any traveler heading to Europe right now to do one thing above all else: build in extra time and make sure you have all of the required travel documents and plans organized.

Checklist of what you need

• Give yourself plenty of extra time and be prepared for longer lines while the system settles in.

• Here’s a great video that shows you exactly what to expect:

  • Face scan

  • Fingerprint scan

  • Purpose of your trip

  • Proof of accommodation

  • Proof of onward ticket

  • Your return/departure date

  • Proof of travel insurance (not required by the EES but it is one of the questions you will likely encounter)

  • Once you are through the kiosk, you still need to go to a border control desk for a manual check

Where will you have to go through EES?

EES is being implemented in the following countries:

• Austria

• Belgium

• Bulgaria

• Croatia

• Czech Republic

• Denmark

• Estonia

• Finland

• France

• Germany

• Greece

• Hungary

• Iceland

• Italy

• Latvia

• Liechtenstein

• Lithuania

• Luxembourg

• Malta

• Netherlands

• Norway

• Poland

• Portugal

• Romania

• Slovakia

• Slovenia

• Spain

• Sweden

• Switzerland

Are there any exemptions?

Yes. Nationals of the European countries using the EES, as well as Cyprus and Ireland, will be exempt. So, too, will non-EU nationals who hold a residence card and are immediately related to an EU national. You can find the full list of exemptions on the Travel Europe website here. All other travelers won’t have the option to opt out.

There is an app… but

The Travel to Europe app is live and available in iTunes. Theoretically, you can use this app to prefill in some information required by the new system. As of writing this, it is only available for arrivals into Sweden and Portugal. If you are heading to either location and try the app out, please let us know what you think!

But wait, there’s more

This isn’t the only change on the horizon. ETIAS, the separate travel authorization for visa-exempt visitors, is still expected later in 2026 (right now, it looks like that may be the last quarter of 2026). That means this spring and summer are really a transition period — one system is already here, and another is waiting in the wings.

We will be arriving in Spain in mid May by cruise - first in the Canary Islands as a port stop, then Alicante as a port stop, and finally Barcelona as our disembarkation port. The chatter from our fellow passengers online shows that none of us yet knows which port will be the one where we must go through the biometric process, but it seems most likely that it will be Barcelona. We have family of friends flying through Frankfurt in the next couple of days, so we will add an update to this post if we learn anything useful from that experience.

If you expect to experience your own EES registration during a border crossing in the coming days, we would love to know more about your experience.

• Hyatt Globalist status and why it’s great for nomads/frequent travelers

• Best credit card points transfer partners ranked

• Airline miles programs ranked to maximize oneworld, Star Alliance, and SkyTeam alliances

• Amex Platinum’s new airfare discount program

• Canadian banking warning for travelers

• and celebrating people doing random acts of kindness…because we need more of that

We’ve been enjoying a couple of weeks of vacation - me (Ashley) in Charleston, South Carolina loving time with my sister, nieces, and cousins and Levon in Cape Canaveral, Florida enjoying some dune soaring instruction and practice. We meet up next week in Miami for a few days with friends and then we are off on our next repositioning cruise - this time to Barcelona where we have more wonderful friends we are looking forward to seeing.

We will use Barcelona as our jumping off point for the summer - first France and then Scotland. In the spirit of slowing our travel down in 2026, we plan to spend about 2 months in France - primarily in Bordeaux, and then we’re hopping over to Edinburgh when we’ve maxed out our Schengen time. Let us know if you will be in the neighborhood!

But first, we will need to brave the new EU Entry/Exit System (EES), a digital, biometric border check for non-EU citizens (including US and UK citizens) visiting the Schengen Area that went into full effect on April 10th. Wait times have been reported to be over 3 hours at some airports. We will arrive by cruise ship, so we have no idea if that may be better. We will be sure to report back.

We’ve got a lot of posts half written for the blog that I hope to finish on our repositioning cruise. Fingers crossed I have enough time to do that - there will be 150 other nomads on this cruise and the WhatsApp chatter already makes it sound like a busy time on board.

In the meantime, here’s some recent news I’ve found particularly interesting or useful for planning our own travels that I hope helps you with your own travel planning:

Hyatt Globalist - a great fit for longer stays

Our friends Kristine and Gean, from Strategic Early Retirement, shared a great new post breaking down the ins and outs of the Hyatt Globalist program. It’s not a program that can be achieved using credit card sign ups alone, so it’s generally harder to achieve. And the program has taken some hits lately with Hyatt increasing the number of points for booking many higher end properties. But Hyatt still offers one of the best hotel programs in the market, and getting Globalist status can really open up a lot of extra perks that make living in hotels or hotel branded apartments extra comfortable and really affordable.

Whether you are staying at a Hyatt for a few days or a month, the benefits can start to feel more practical than aspirational. Late checkout, breakfast, room upgrades, and a more consistent hotel experience can matter a lot more when you are settling in somewhere for a while and want to eliminate some of the wear and tear of travel-life decision fatigue.

Ranking the Best Credit Card Points Transfer Partners (2026)

Geobreeze Travel shared a really helpful video ranking the major transferable points programs by overall usefulness for award-based travel: Ranking the Best Credit Card Points Transfer Partners (2026). Here’s the gist:

• Bilt stands out because of instant transfers, strong partners like Hyatt and Alaska, and frequent transfer bonuses. We haven’t been taking full advantage of Bilt membership and don’t have any Bilt credit cards yet, and this video convinced me to push it much higher up our research list.

• Rove Miles is tied for the top spot because it’s easy to earn through hotel bookings, transfers are instant, it has unusual but valuable partners… and doesn’t require a special credit card. We’re loving Rove Miles — it’s an easy way to earn even more valuable points when we stack it with booking our favorite hotel brands, plus we still earn hotel points and benefits.

  Practical Globetrotters

  Rove Miles - The New Way to Earn Points for Travel Without Opening a Credit Card

  One of the newest, most exciting, and potentially most lucrative points currencies to emerge in the travel rewards landscape this year is Rove Miles. Rove is a new loyalty program seeking to disrupt the travel industry by offering a pathway to free, luxury, and discounted travel experiences, such as flights and hotels, without the traditional reliance o…

  Read more

  9 months ago · 12 likes · 10 comments · Practical Globetrotters

• Citi and Chase land in the A tier thanks to their transfer partners and general flexibility. We’ve benefited a lot from Chase over the last three years.

• Capital One is a strong catch-all, especially for easy earning and useful partners like EVA and Japan Airlines.

• Marriott ranks at the bottom for airline transfers because the value is usually poor and the process is often slow. That said, the points program for Marriott-branded hotels is still strong.

I’m not entirely sure why they included Marriott but left out American Express. But in our experience, Amex is comparable to Chase.

Best miles for each airline alliance

Frequent Miler recently compared the best award programs for each airline alliance: Star Alliance, oneworld, and SkyTeam. The focus was on practical award-booking value, including pricing, fees, transfer options, stopovers, and how easy each program is to use in the real world.

Their broad recommendations were:

• In Star Alliance, they favored United MileagePlus and Avianca LifeMiles.

• In oneworld, they favored American Airlines AAdvantage and Alaska Atmos.

• In SkyTeam, they favored Air France/KLM Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.

These airline programs offer some of the best opportunities to transfer points to partner airlines within their alliances, and they often have strong redemption options. We haven’t been aligned with any single airline in our travels — we typically choose the best flight that fits our needs and either offers a good cash fare or strong miles value, especially for business class. But I’m starting to think more seriously about airline alliances that match the places that are in our regular travel rotation (Mexico, Western Europe, the US East Coast), and whether it might make sense to pursue a specific airline award program to support that. Stay tuned.

Amex Rebrands International Airline Program As “Platinum Member Airfares”

Loyalty Lobby does a good job of explaining this new/rebranded perk from American Express. Amex has brought the International Airline Program (IAP) and Recommended Flights under one umbrella - Platinum Member Airfares. Amex Platinum members can book discounted premium fares on around 40 different airlines, and typically save around 10%. These tickets qualify for miles and points under airline frequent flier programs which Amex calls “Fly once, earn twice” as you also earn 5 Amex points per USD on these tickets. Platinum Member Airfares are only available for Amex Platinum cardholders and up to seven additional travelers on the same reservation. The Amex Platinum US card has a hefty $895 annual fee (fees vary for Amex Platinum cards in Canada). This benefit, with a handful of the other benefits we regularly enjoy (Global Entry, airport lounge access, digital entertainment credit, and more), make that fee feel a little more justified.

Canadian banking warning for travelers

For our Canadian readers, our friend and subscriber Kate flagged this article for us: Canadian banking warning for travelers. (Thanks Kate!)

It’s a good reminder that bank accounts can be frozen due to travel-related behavior that may look suspicious to fraud systems even when it’s completely normal. Examples include:

• Rapid location changes.

• Multiple large bookings in a short amount of time.

• Using a new device or SIM card abroad.

• Switching VPN locations frequently.

• ATM withdrawals in unusual patterns.

• Repeated booking cancellations or changes.

• Logging into multiple financial apps back to back.

Basically, an average day in the life of a nomad.

While this piece was aimed at Canadians, financial institutions around the world (particularly the US) are likely to be wary of the same or similar behavior.

Celebrating random acts of kindness

Let’s end on a high note: Drop Dead Generous is an experiment giving 1,000 people $500 each to spend on acts of kindness, to see how far trust and small gifts can ripple outward.

Some people have given out flowers. One person built a house in Uganda. The whole idea frames kindness as a practical way to strengthen communities, which I love. Wouldn’t it be fun to do something like this too? You can — apply here

Go forth and do great things.

So how did it all go?

TL;DR We made it through immigration, customs, and security at Dallas Fort Worth airport in 14 min and 11 seconds. With a two hour and 13 minute layover, that should have been plenty of time to make our connection according to the American Airlines agent we talked to on the phone before leaving Mexico, one of the apps we use to facilitate travel (Flighty), and the DFW website.

Shockingly, we arrived at our onward flight gate with less than 30 minutes to spare. This was barely enough time when everything went right. And that almost never happens.

So what did we do that worked to successfully arrive in the US and make it onto a connecting flight in time?

• Don’t rely on airport assistance to get you ahead - I just had major surgery 3 weeks ago, so I asked for assistance. If I had waited for a wheelchair and/or a people mover, we would not have made it. I managed to make it through on my own two feet- exhausted, but successful (with Levon doing all of the luggage heavy lifting and pulling our bags across the airport). If you need assistance or have any mobility issues, add at least 30 minutes to your travel plan.

• Carry on your luggage if humanly possible - We didn’t check bags. If we had, we would have had to pick them up in DFW and recheck them onto our forward flight. That could easily have taken at least 30 minutes more.

• Global Entry for the win- We have Global Entry and there were plenty of available kiosks. We were able to walk right up and get scanned - in and out in less than 2 minutes. The signs shown by the airport were right about Global Entry. But the regular lines were pretty long for immigration. 6 minutes through regular immigration? I don’t think so. The lines looked long enough to add at least 20-30 minutes. (We didn’t notice the MPC lines, unfortunately).

  

• Get Touchless ID if you have access to TSA Precheck - Finally, we needed to recheck-in through security once we made it through immigration and customs. In terminal D, there is a separate entrance for TSA pre-check - which was a good thing since there were probably close to 100 people in the regular security line. There were about 40 people in the TSA Precheck line - the airport estimated it was 14 minutes of in line wait time (this does not include the time it takes to actually go through the metal detectors). But we had signed up for Touchless ID, and it was incredibly fast - maybe a minute of wait time. Without either TSA Precheck or Touchless ID, that would have easily taken at least 30-45 minutes more.

  

So, could we have made our transfer without all of these tools? I really don’t think so. Even with all of these time savers, it took us over 40 minutes of walking and/or train time to make it from our arrival gate to immigration and then security to our onward flight gate. With the plane starting boarding 30 minutes before our flight took off, that only gave us 28 minutes extra minutes at the gate.

Oh, and what about all of those tools I mentioned in our last post? Well, they were interesting, but honestly, none of them gave us much useful information. In addition to the DFW app and website and Qsensor, I found another app called Flight Queue that I tested out. Here’s what we experienced with these apps:

• Qsensor - relies on real time information and user experiences. It was super basic. For international flights, it only covers customs and it’s displayed wait times seemed inaccurate.

  

• FlightQueue - relies primarily on user reports. It doesn’t have fields for Global Entry, Mobile Passport Control, TSA Precheck, or Touchless ID so it’s hard to tell the accuracy of the data feeding their time estimates.

  

• Airport - It’s impossible to know where they were getting their information. Based on our observation, their estimates were somewhere between accurate and wildly optimistic.

  

  Bottom line - if you can’t replicate the tools we used, are landing in a US airport from overseas that is even more chaotic than DFW and you need to make a connecting flight, or have any other issues that might slow you down, make sure you have at least an 2-3 hours more than recommended transfer times between flights.

Good luck and happy flying!

A prolonged U.S. government shutdown means TSA officers are working without pay, and more of them are understandably calling in sick. On a recent Sunday, about 10% of TSA officers nationwide called in sick—roughly five times the normal rate—and one airport (Houston Hobby) saw 55% of its screeners not show up. Combine that with spring break crowds and you get what many travelers are walking into: security lines that can easily stretch to 60–90 minutes or more at some U.S. airports.

We don’t want to be at the mercy of airport chaos. So we’re putting together a plan.

Below, I’m sharing the exact tools and checklist we’re using for our QRO–DFW–TPA trip, plus resources you can use to check TSA wait times, forecast airport security lines, and build yourself a “minimal‑drama” travel day.

In this post, you’ll find:

• The exact tools we’re using to check TSA wait times before and during our QRO–DFW–TPA trip, including airport websites, the MyTSA app, and Qsensor.
  

• How programs like TSA PreCheck, Global Entry, MPC, Touchless ID, and CLEAR+ can help you move through airport security faster—plus which ones we would prioritize.
  

• Our step‑by‑step “minimize-the-drama” travel‑day checklist, from one week before departure through worst‑case scenarios like missed connections.
  

• Practical tips on travel insurance fine print, credit‑card perks, and how to advocate for yourself if long lines derail your plans.

The Tools We’ll Use to Check TSA Wait Times

There are now a surprising number of ways to check TSA security wait times. Some are helpful, some are less so. Here’s how we are ranking them for our own trip.

1. Your Airport’s Website (Always Start Here)

Many large U.S. airports now publish live TSA wait‑time estimates by checkpoint on their official sites. Thrifty Traveler points out that while these numbers aren’t perfect, they’re often more accurate than third‑party apps and help you avoid the spammy, outdated “TSA wait time” sites you might stumble into via Google.

For our international connection in Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW), we’ll:

• Put the link to the DFW airport site on our phone home screens to monitor alerts about long waits or closed checkpoints.
  

• Check again while we’ve landed in Dallas to see how our international terminal checkpoint is looking and plan accordingly.

If you’re flying through a big U.S. hub, it’s worth spending two minutes finding and bookmarking your airport’s official TSA wait‑time page.

2. The MyTSA App (Official, But Imperfect)

Next up is TSA’s own app, MyTSA (free on iOS and Android).

What it does well:

• Shows historical data on how busy your airport typically is at a given time of day.
  

• Offers user‑reported current waits (with categories like “OK,” “Busy,” “Very Busy”) and general delay info.

Where it falls short: real‑time accuracy. Several outlets and frequent travelers have noted that wait‑time estimates can lag reality or reflect limited user check‑ins, especially during the shutdown.

How we’ll use it anyway:

• Add our U.S. airports to “My Airports.”
  

• Tap into “Plan for Your Trip” to see whether, say, Thursday at 2 p.m. in DFW historically looks calm or brutal.

We don’t treat these numbers as gospel. They’re one more data point to help us predict what we need to do next.

3. Qsensor (Data‑Driven and Crowdsourced)

Qsensor has quickly become a favorite among frequent flyers, and for good reason. What Qsensor offers:

• Live estimated TSA wait times for over 50 U.S. airports (plus many more abroad).
  

• Historical patterns that show which days and times are typically the worst.
  

• Breakdown by queue type (regular, PreCheck, etc.) and often by terminal.
  

They blend airport data, federal sources, user reports, and their own queue‑modeling to generate estimates. Their shutdown analysis confirms what travelers are feeling: average waits are up, spikes are more common, and some airports are seeing 100‑minute lines during the worst windows. Important caveat: Qsensor and others all say the same thing—treat the numbers as directional, not precise. Accuracy can vary widely by airport and how fresh the data is.

How we’re using Qsensor for our trip:

• On our travel day, we’ll track Qsensor’s DFW report, what we’re seeing on the airport site, and in MyTSA. If all three sources are screaming “Very Busy,” we’ll be mentally prepared for a potential missed onward flight.

• Note: A Qsensor app appears to be available on Android, but we haven’t yet seen it for IOS. We’ve instead saved the site to our iPhones’ home page.
  

4. TSA PreCheck, Global Entry, MPC, and Touchless ID

If you only take one action step from this post, make it this: make sure you’re using the right trusted‑traveler programs and that they’re correctly attached to your booking. If you have Global Entry or other fast track services, this is the time to maximize the use of those services. (Note, if you don’t currently have Global Entry or TSA PreCheck, they will be almost impossible to get until all government services are back up and running.)

A few key layers:

• TSA PreCheck: PreCheck lines are generally faster than standard lanes and involve less hassle (shoes and light jackets stay on, laptops stay in your bag).

• Touchless ID: This newer, free enhancement can supercharge PreCheck at many airports. With Touchless ID, you enroll via your airline (Alaska, American, Delta, Southwest, and United all participate), then at participating checkpoints you verify your identity with a quick facial scan instead of handing over an ID and boarding pass.

• Global Entry: When arriving from abroad, Global Entry speeds you through U.S. immigration—a huge help before you face a long TSA line for your connection.

• If you don’t have Global Entry, Mobile Passport Control (MPC) is a free U.S. Customs and Border Protection app that lets eligible travelers (including U.S. citizens, permanent residents, Canadians, and many Visa Waiver visitors) submit passport and customs‑declaration info on their phone, then use a dedicated MPC lane on arrival instead of the regular passport line. It doesn’t require an interview or background check like Global Entry and is available at dozens of U.S. airports, making it a great, fast‑track option for travelers who don’t have Global Entry—or for families where only some members are enrolled. Before we had Global Entry, the MPC lanes when arriving in the US saved us multiple times when making tight connections.

Right now, Touchless ID might be one of the best‑kept secrets in line‑dodging. Early reports suggest these lanes often move faster than regular PreCheck because you skip the ID‑check bottleneck. It’s already at around 65 airports and expanding.

For our trip:

• We have Global Entry, so we’ve made sure our Known Traveler Numbers are on our reservation so PreCheck shows on our boarding passes.

• We’ve opted into our airline’s biometric/Touchless ID program.
  

5. CLEAR+ (Sometimes Worth It, Sometimes Not)

We don’t have CLEAR+, but based on what we’re reading, it could be helpful if you already have it. CLEAR+ is the paid program you’ve probably seen advertised at many U.S. airports. It uses biometrics to verify your identity and then escorts you to the physical screening lanes. In the past, CLEAR+ could be hit or miss: great when ID‑check lines were long, useless when the TSA queue itself was the real bottleneck. Recently, though, newer automated e‑gates and expanded locations have made it more consistently helpful at some hubs, and several premium credit cards offer statement credits to offset the fee.

Quick note: Known Traveler Number vs. Redress Number
Your Known Traveler Number (KTN) comes from TSA PreCheck or programs like Global Entry and tells airlines you’re eligible for expedited security screening, so it needs to be added to every booking. A Redress Number comes from DHS’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program and is mainly for travelers who’ve been repeatedly misidentified for extra screening or watchlists; if you haven’t had those issues, you don’t need one.

Our “Minimize-The-Drama” Travel‑Day Checklist

This is the exact checklist we’re using for our own trip next week. Feel free to copy, tweak, and share with your traveling companions.

At Least One Week Before Departure

• Confirm all Known Traveler Numbers (KTNs) are attached
  Log into your airline account and confirm your KTN is in your profile and on each reservation so TSA PreCheck shows up correctly.

• Enroll in Touchless ID or your airline’s biometric program
  If your U.S. airports support it, opt in now. This is free and just requires a quick setting update with your airline.

• Install or update key apps or save key websites to your phone home page
  At minimum: your airline app, MyTSA, Qsensor, MPC (even if you have Global Entry), and the official apps or websites for your U.S. departure and connection airports.

• Check historical busy times and your connection
  Use MyTSA’s “Plan for Your Trip” and Qsensor’s historical charts to understand how your airports behave at your exact travel times. If your connection at a big U.S. hub is under an hour and the airport is trending ugly, consider moving to an earlier flight if you can.

• Check your travel insurance coverage
  Many travel insurance policies do not cover delays caused by U.S. government agencies, and some only cover round‑trip tickets. In our case, none of the policies I checked—nor the credit card we used to book—will cover this trip, so we are on our own. Better to know ahead of time than be surprised later.
  

Morning of Travel (Before You Leave Home)

• Re‑check live TSA wait times
  Look at your airport’s site, MyTSA, and Qsensor. If multiple sources show waits over 60–90 minutes, leave for the airport earlier.

• Confirm flight status
  Your airline app should be your single source of truth for delays, gate changes, or aircraft swaps. Catching a delay early can buy you time—or warn you about a tight connection risk.

• Save your boarding passes and details for use offline
  Screenshot your boarding passes and take a quick photo of your KTN. If something gets stripped off a reissued boarding pass, you’ll have proof at the desk even if you are offline.

At the Departure Airport

• Travel carry‑on only, if at all possible
  Checked‑bag drop lines can be as painful as TSA right now, and a missed connection with checked bags is twice the headache. If you’re arriving in the U.S., remember: you’ll go through immigration and customs at your first U.S. entry point. If you check bags, you must collect them, clear customs, and recheck them before heading to your next flight—burning precious connection time.
  

During Your U.S. Connection

Once you land:

• Check conditions as soon as you land
  On taxi‑in, we’ll:

  • Quickly check DFW’s site, MyTSA, and Qsensor for current TSA security waits by terminal.

  • Fill in our arrival data in the MPC app.

• Use your trusted‑traveler tools smartly
  If you have Global Entry, head straight to those kiosks for immigration. Or, head to the MPC lines. Then on to PreCheck and (if available) Touchless ID lanes.

• Ask for help if your connection is tight.
  If lines look impossible and your boarding time is approaching, ask a nearby agent or uniformed staff if there’s any accommodation for near‑term departures. During irregular operations, they sometimes will pull people forward.
  

If Things Go Sideways

Even the best preparation can’t control everything. Here’s how we plan to respond if things go sideways:

• Contact the airline while you’re still in line.
  Use the airline app, international phone numbers, or even social media DMs to get in the rebooking queue early if you suspect you’ll miss a flight.

• Use credit card perks.
  If you have a card with a “concierge” service and you used that card to book your flights, this may be the time to call in that resource.

• Document extreme waits.
  If you’re facing a clearly abnormal situation—like a wait board showing 120‑minute lines—grab a quick photo. It may help if you need to negotiate fees or advocate later.

• Know your plan B.
  Before you get to a gate agent, have one or two alternative flights or routings in mind. This turns the conversation from “Help” to “Can you move me to X or Y?” which is almost always more effective.

Final Thoughts

So much of travel on a good day is out of our control. Traveling in the U.S. right now is even more stressful. But we can control how prepared we are for the current reality: longer, less predictable airport security wait times while officers are working under impossible conditions.

For our QRO–DFW–TPA trip, we’re treating this like any other disruption: gather the best data we can (airport sites, MyTSA, Qsensor), stack the deck with the right programs (TSA PreCheck, MPC, Global Entry, Touchless ID), and build a schedule with enough breathing room that surprises don’t sink the whole day.

If you’re flying to or through the U.S. soon, we’d love to hear how you’re planning for the current TSA situation—and if you discover any other tools or tricks we should add to this checklist, please share them in the comments so we can all learn from each other.

With Cuba in the news, I couldn’t help revisiting our trip there in 2016 with our dear friends Diane and Denis. It was a magical trip and the Cuban people were amazing. May they have peace and an end to economic suffering soon.

As we sketch out the rest of our 2026 travels, we’ve been thinking less and less about moving around large swaths of the world, and thinking more about nesting in a small handful of places for several months at a time. Moving a little slower and with more intention will also help us pivot if necessary based on global events (and frankly, as Americans, how welcome we feel wherever we are).

We’re also considering how the cost of travel is likely to change, very likely in a pretty big way. As Thrifty Traveler shared in their most recent newsletter:

Flying is going to get more expensive. Where? When? By how much? For how long? Nobody can answer that. But there’s a growing chorus of airlines signaling - if not outright admitting - that fare increases and higher surcharges are on the way as jet fuel prices skyrocket.

• United’s CEO said it himself last week, saying fare increases will “probably start quick.”

• Over in Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific is preparing to increase fuel surcharges by more than 100% next week

• Both Air New Zealand and Air France/KLM have said much the same.

Importantly, these changes are bound to affect both cash ticket prices and award travel booked with miles, in the form of those higher fuel surcharges that get tacked onto award tickets.

Here are some bits and bobs that we are leaning on to help us with planning our next few months of living while traveling.

AwardTool: supercharged award searches

If you’ve ever spent hours hunting for airline seats using points and miles, AwardTool is basically an award search engine on steroids. It searches multiple airline loyalty programs across many dates and airports at once, shows real-time availability, and can send free alerts when seats open up. Try plugging in a few “home bases” and see at a glance where your existing points balances can actually get you instead of bouncing between airline sites.

pAiback and Junova: get money back when fares drop

The Points Guy recently highlighted a new wave of tools that track your already-booked flights and automatically pursue credits when the price drops. Services like pAiback and Junova work with major U.S. airlines, monitor your fares via forwarded confirmation emails or inbox connections, and charge around a 20% success fee only when they actually save you money.

MaxMyPoint and MaxFHR: squeezing more value from hotel bookings

MaxMyPoint is a hotel award tool designed to help you find outsized value redemptions and award availability. It lets you filter by brand, category, point cost, and even your credit card benefits, then surfaces concrete “you’d save roughly this much cash with points” examples, plus alerts when good deals or standard rooms and suites open up.

They also run a sister site, MaxFHR, focused on Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts (FHR) and The Hotel Collection (THC). MaxFHR helps you compare FHR and/or THC rates and benefits against regular cash prices so you can quickly see when it’s worth booking through Amex for perks like late checkout, breakfast, and property credits versus paying another way. Having a tool that shows when FHR meaningfully beats a standard booking is making it much easier to justify (or skip) the occasional fancy hotel option and get the most out of our most expensive credit card.

CardPointers AI Assistant: a brain for your wallet

We already use CardPointers as an app for tracking which cards to use where; the new AI Assistant turns it into an always-on, “which card should I use for this?” brain. It plugs your actual cards, bonus categories, and Amex/Chase/etc. offers into tools like ChatGPT or Claude so you can ask natural-language questions and get personalized answers. Our day to day expenses are easy to work out in the CardPointers app. But every now and then, we have more complex questions like “which card should we use to pay for this rental car so we get the most out of included insurance benefits?” or “which card should we use to book this hotel to use travel benefits from the card’s portal most effectively?” This new AI function promises to be very helpful.

One Mile at a Time: which card for which purchase?

And if you want something a little more analog, Ben at One Mile at a Time has a great evergreen guide laying out which specific cards he uses for airfare, hotels, dining, groceries, international purchases, phone/internet, gas, and “unbonused” spend. You can read the full article here: The Credit Cards I Use For Each Major Spending Bonus Category, And Why. You can scan his picks (Amex Platinum for flights, Sapphire Reserve for hotels, Amex Gold for dining and groceries, Bilt/other options for housing and foreign spend) and quickly spot gaps or overlaps in your own credit card setup. We’re using it less as “copy this exact wallet” and more as a cheat sheet for generally knowing what cards we hold to use for which categories of spend and when we’re deciding which new card to prioritize next for our slow-travel lifestyle, where international and everyday spend matter more than US gas stations and Door Dash perks.

On a lighter note….

Six museum openings worth detouring for in 2026

The BBC just rounded up six high-profile museum openings this year, from the flying-saucer-shaped Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles to the new Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and a stunning Islamic Civilization Center in Tashkent. You can see the full list here: The six most anticipated museum openings of 2026. The list also includes the Larrakia Cultural Centre in Darwin, the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, and Kanal-Pompidou in Brussels—each framed as a reason to build a trip around art, history, or Indigenous culture rather than just squeezing a museum in on a rainy day. We’re not going to chase all of them, but I love having a short “if we’re nearby in 2026, this goes to the top of the list” roster to check against our route planning.

And when it all gets just a little too much, visit Monterey Bay’s Live Jelly Cam

My current happy place for a few minutes of Zen is the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s live jellyfish cam on YouTube. It’s a 24/7 stream of sea nettles drifting in soft light, set up as a fundraiser for the aquarium and running continuously since late 2025. It’s been a gentle way to clear my head for a few minutes a day.

Over the next two months, we’ll be enjoying a Western Caribbean cruise (our first cruise for the sake of cruising cruise - we don’t know yet if this will be our “thang” but it will be a nice extra week of relaxing and recovering from my surgery), then the US for a bit of family and play time. In April, we take off for Europe and will be primarily in France and the UK until October (unless the world shifts once again).

How are you taking care of yourself during these turbulent times? We would love some self care advice!

In this post, we’ll share what our overnight visit was like, why Elephant Nature Park’s conservation and animal‑welfare model is so different from most “elephant experiences,” how the park supports its community (including refugees from Myanmar), how you can plan a visit or a longer volunteer stay of your own, and some creative ways to make a difference from afar.

What Makes Elephant Nature Park Different

Elephant Nature Park (ENP) was founded by Saengduean “Lek” Chailert, a lifelong elephant advocate who began rescuing elephants from logging, street begging, circuses, and riding camps in the 1990s. Today the park is home to dozens of elephants, many of them blind, injured, elderly, or carrying deep psychological trauma from decades of hard labor and abuse. The core idea is simple but radical in the Thai tourism context: no riding, no tricks, no forced interactions or human touch (except from their keepers and protectors)—just space, food, companionship, and veterinary care so these highly intelligent and social animals can live a more natural life.

At ENP, you watch elephants do elephant things: grazing in small family groups, wrestling and pulling each other’s tails, bathing in the river, gently nudging each other out of the way for a better spot in the shade or by the snack tables piled with melons and bananas. Visitors stay on the edges of their world—walking with them at a respectful distance, helping prepare their food, and listening to their rescue stories from staff and guides who know each animal by name.

We were told that in Thailand, most captive elephants can’t simply be “set free” because the conditions they’d need to survive as wild animals no longer exist for them. There isn’t enough connected forest left; much of what remains is fragmented, already home to stressed wild herds, and ringed by farms and villages. Releasing hundreds or thousands of previously captive elephants into that landscape would push them straight into human–elephant conflict as they raid crops or wander through communities.

On top of that, most “domestic” elephants have spent decades in logging or tourism and are deeply dependent on humans: they’ve lost survival skills, have chronic injuries or PTSD, and may not be able to forage, navigate, or integrate into wild herds safely. Under Thai law they’re also classified as livestock or private property, so they can’t just be turned loose in national parks. A few carefully selected elephants have been reintroduced into large, protected forest sanctuaries through specialized projects, but those are long, complex efforts involving screening, tracking, and years of monitoring. For the vast majority, the most realistic “wild” they will ever know is a well‑run sanctuary like ENP: large spaces, herd companionship, and as much freedom as possible within safe boundaries. For these elephants, ENP is home for the rest of their lives.

Our Overnight Stay: Beyond the Day‑Trip Snapshot

A typical day‑trip to ENP—morning or afternoon—includes transport from Chiang Mai, a tour of the grounds, feeding and observing the elephants, a delicious vegan lunch buffet, and a return to the city. It’s a powerful introduction, and our friends who’ve done it were happy with their experience. But the park can get crowded, and you only get a brief glimpse of sanctuary life. We wanted to see what happens when the tour buses leave.

Our overnight stay followed a similar rhythm at first: arrival and orientation, a generous vegan lunch, and an afternoon walking the grounds with a guide. We learned how to read elephant body language—how a flick of the ear or tail can signal contentment or irritation, and why giving elephants the choice to approach or walk away is at the heart of the park’s ethics.

The magic happened after the day visitors went home and only our small group of overnight guests, volunteers, and staff remained. The valley grew quiet, the mountains turned purple, and the elephants shifted into their evening routines. We watched small groups wander back toward their shelters while mahouts (elephant caretakers) prepared dinner baskets of fruit. From the terraces and elevated walkways of the main buildings, we saw elephants ford the river to return to the main sleeping areas and heard low rumbles and occasional trumpets echoing across the valley.

Back at our riverside room, we sat on the deck and watched the moon rise over the hills. Other buildings looked charming too, but we definitely scored with our view. It was surprisingly chilly, and we were glad for the thick blankets provided as we listened to the river and distant elephant noises in the dark.

In the morning, we were up early. There wasn’t much of a sunrise, but it was still wonderful to see the elephants’ first slow, sleepy movements of the day. Some clearly wanted to sleep in and soak up the lingering warmth from the heaters; others—especially the younger elephants—seemed eager to get out, gossip with their friends, and jockey for position at breakfast. There was no rush and no crowd pressing for the perfect photo—just time. Time to notice who prefers solitude, who always travels with a buddy, and how much quiet social complexity sits behind the word “herd.”

After breakfast, we enjoyed several more hours of exploring the park with a guide in our small group from the day before. We were able to spend more time with the elephants, but also meet lots of the other animals in the park and see more of the surrounding neighborhoods. We had a final lunch before saying farewell and being driven back to Chiang Mai.

If you can manage it in your schedule and budget, we can’t recommend the overnight stay highly enough. The park also offers week‑long and multi‑week volunteer programs where you live on site, work alongside staff, and see even more of the behind‑the‑scenes care that goes into running a sanctuary of this scale. More on that below.

Conservation, Welfare, and the Bigger Picture

Recent research and Thai government figures suggest there are roughly 230–240 elephant tourism venues across Thailand today, housing nearly 2,800–3,000 captive elephants. Roughly 63% of elephants there have been found to live in poor conditions: limited freedom, stressful environments, inadequate food. At the same time, Thailand has no single government agency responsible for overseeing elephant welfare, despite the elephant being the national symbol. Standards are patchy, and much depends on individual camp owners.

ENP’s model isn’t just about individual rescues; it’s an attempt to change the wider tourism economy. Many of the elephants here lived through the transition from logging (banned in Thai national forests in 1989) to tourism, swapping chainsaws for saddles, circus rings, and bars (yes, bars - some even become alcoholics). As trekking camps closed or owners aged, there were few good options for older or injured animals. Sanctuaries like ENP stepped into that gap, purchasing elephants outright or providing lifetime care agreements so they could finally retire from work.

Seeing genuinely old elephants at ENP brings all of this into focus. The oldest elephant we saw there was about 90, with a couple of other ladies in their 70s. In the wild, both African and Asian elephants typically live into their 60s. Working elephants generally die much younger, especially in intensive tourism or hard labor. Large studies comparing semi‑captive timber elephants in Myanmar to truly wild elephants show that even under regulated workloads, working animals have a median lifespan in the low‑40s. In harsher captive environments (zoos, circuses, elephant riding camps), typical lifespans can be as short as 17–40 years, with many dying early from chronic stress, foot and joint disease, malnutrition, and other preventable issues. The elders you see at ENP are, quite literally, elephants who’ve beaten the odds.

ENP has also become a model and hub for other projects in the region. Through initiatives like Asian Elephant Projects, the park supports independent camps that agree to shift away from riding and performances toward observation‑based, welfare‑centered experiences in more natural forest settings. When you visit ENP or one of its partner projects, you’re not just funding one valley; you’re voting with your money for a different kind of elephant tourism in Thailand.

Visitors and volunteers at ENP help fund the care that keeps these animals thriving. A single elephant can eat up to 200–300 kg of food per day, and ENP’s herds collectively consume mountains of fresh fruit, vegetables, grass, rice, and corn. Volunteer programs are structured around those basic needs: cutting and hauling grass, washing and chopping fruit, cleaning shelters, maintaining fences and paths, and occasionally helping with special diets or enrichment tasks for elephants with dental or mobility issues.

Beyond the elephants, ENP has quietly become a multi‑species refuge. Staff told us there are around 5,000 animals in the park, including water buffalo, cows, dogs, cats, and a scatter of ducks, rabbits, and other rescued farm animals—many pulled from floods, the meat trade, or abusive homes, others simply dumped at the park gate. Walking the grounds, it sometimes felt like an improbable rural ark: cows grazing alongside elephants in quiet fields, dogs trotting between guests and napping in tire‑bed “nests” or rolling happily in their wheel braces, and cats surveying everything from their own “Cat Kingdom.”

Each group has its own project and dedicated team. The Dog Project, for example, grew out of a 2011 Bangkok flood rescue and now cares for hundreds of dogs, with its own clinic, long‑term volunteers, and adoption program. Many dogs live in separate areas, but quite a few also wander the shared spaces. Some are known food thieves (looking at you, Keena), while others wear red bandanas to signal they need more space. For visitors and volunteers, this broader rescue work is a vivid reminder that ENP’s mission isn’t just “elephant tourism done better,” but a much wider experiment in compassionate, large‑scale animal welfare—and your visit helps feed and care for all of them, not just the biggest residents.

2024 Flood and Tragedy

In October 2024, Elephant Nature Park was hit by the most severe flooding in its history after heavy monsoon rains linked to Typhoon Yagi swelled the Ping and Mae Taeng rivers. Flash floods rose several meters in under half an hour, overflowing riverbanks, submerging shelters and food‑storage areas, and forcing a massive emergency evacuation of around 100 elephants and thousands of other animals to higher ground. Staff and mahouts used boats and ropes to guide elephants through deep, fast‑moving water to nearby hills, focusing first on those that were injured, elderly, or blind.

Despite those efforts, two elephants—16‑year‑old Fah Sai and 40‑year‑old Ploy Thong, a blind female rescued years earlier from street begging—were swept away and later found dead several kilometers downstream. Footage and eyewitness accounts describe how difficult it was for disabled elephants to orient themselves in the current and how traumatic it was for staff to watch animals they had cared for for years disappear in the floodwaters. In the aftermath, ENP and partner organizations documented the damage, called for volunteers and donations to rebuild shelters and food supplies, and used the tragedy to highlight how increasingly erratic floods—driven by climate change—are becoming an added threat even for animals that have already survived so much.

In response, the Thai government introduced new standards for all elephant camps, including a permit system that ties approval to meeting basic welfare and environmental criteria. Camps must now show that they provide adequate space, ban torture, minimize environmental harm, and ensure regular veterinary checks and trained mahouts. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a step forward.

People of the Valley: Local Communities and Refugees

It would be easy for a place like Elephant Nature Park to focus only on the elephants and ignore the humans in the story. Instead, community work is woven into daily life.

A large number of mahouts and support staff we met were from Myanmar, part of a refugee and migrant community that now lives in a village near the park. ENP and its parent charity, Save Elephant Foundation, try to make sure that as the sanctuary thrives, so do the human communities around it—through jobs in the park, support for families, and occasional volunteer visits to local schools to help kids practice English. On the edge of the park is a settlement of Karen and other ethnic‑minority families who have crossed the border to escape conflict. ENP provides jobs in the park—everything from construction and maintenance to cooking and housekeeping—as well as support for local schools, clinics, and small businesses.

Elephant Nature Park employs roughly 200–500 staff, spanning guides, mahouts, animal‑care teams, kitchen and housekeeping staff, drivers, maintenance crews, office staff, and program coordinators. For a rural valley north of Chiang Mai, that’s a major employer—especially when you add in the indirect jobs: local farmers growing corn and fruit for elephant food, small shops and markets supplying the park, transport providers, and the families of mahouts and migrant workers from Myanmar who depend on park salaries.

Studies of ethical elephant sanctuaries in Thailand suggest that this high‑welfare model generates more revenue per visitor and more stable, year‑round employment than traditional riding camps, with a strong multiplier effect into surrounding communities. That means each overnight guest or week‑long volunteer at ENP isn’t just funding elephant rescue and veterinary care; they’re also helping sustain hundreds of local and refugee families who rely on the park.

Staying Longer: Volunteer Programs and Ways to Help

If our overnight stay was a glimpse behind the curtain, the week‑long volunteer program is stepping fully backstage. ENP’s “Living with Elephants” volunteer offerings typically run up to two weeks and include simple accommodation (some shared), vegan buffet meals, and a structured schedule of work and free time. Cost: (per week or part of a week) Adult or accompanied Children over 12 years old: 15,000 Thai Baht (as of January 2026).

Volunteers usually work around 4–5 hours a day, with the rest of the time free to explore the grounds, meet people from around the world, or simply sit on a balcony and watch the elephants roam. The work can be hot and a bit muddy, but the consensus from volunteers seems to be that the physical effort is more than worth it for the chance to be part of something so meaningful. Longer‑term volunteers sometimes join community projects—visiting a local school, helping with English conversation, or supporting farm work that supplies food for both elephants and people.

If you can’t visit in person or stay overnight, there are still ways to help. Our guides encouraged guests to get creative: skilled knitters and crocheters can make thick, durable blankets to help keep elderly or underweight elephants warm during cool nights and rainy season—ENP can advise on suitable sizes and materials if you get in touch directly. You can also “adopt” an elephant or sponsor a special fruit birthday cake—an enormous, beautifully stacked platter of pumpkins, bananas, rice, vitamins and other favorites that’s delivered to your chosen elephant on their birthday or rescue anniversary and helps cover their ongoing food and medical costs. The easiest way to plug in is to check the “How to Help” or “Get Involved” pages on the Elephant Nature Park site, where they list current needs, remote volunteer projects, and sponsorship options.

Planning Your Own Visit: Practical Tips

If you’re considering a visit to Elephant Nature Park, a few practical pointers:

• Book directly and early. ENP’s website lists all day visits, overnights, and volunteer options with real‑time availability. Popular dates can sell out months ahead, especially in the cool/dry season.
  

• Choose your experience intentionally.

  • Half‑day or full‑day visits are a good introduction if you’re short on time.

  • The overnight stay adds space for quiet observation and deeper conversations.

  • Week‑long (or longer) volunteer programs are best if you want to contribute hands‑on and see the park’s rhythms in more depth.
    

• Pack for a farm. Quick‑dry clothes, shoes that can get muddy (wellies are provided on site), a hat, sunscreen, insect repellent, a reusable water bottle, and any personal medications are essential (shops nearby carry only basic food and drink items). The park provides bedding, mosquito nets, and filtered water— they even have massage therapists on site if you need a post‑shoveling massage and a coffee bar selling cappuccinos and other coffee drinks using only non-dairy milks.
  

• Check the weather. It’s noticeably cooler in the mountains than in Chiang Mai city, especially in winter. Layers will make early mornings and evenings much more comfortable.
  

• Remember: the elephants’ needs come first. There may be times you can’t approach a particular elephant or when activities are adjusted for weather or veterinary care. That’s a feature, not a bug, of a welfare‑led model.
  

  

Why This Kind of Tourism Matters

Once you’ve stood in a field watching a once‑broken elephant nap in the sun, leaning against a trusted friend under a colorful blanket knit just for her, it’s hard to unsee the cost of the more common alternatives. It’s also hard not to feel hopeful when you look around and realize how many people—from local staff and refugee families to short‑term visitors and week‑long volunteers—are positively contributing to a different way of doing things.

If you’re planning time in northern Thailand and want your tourism dollars to line up with your values, Elephant Nature Park is one of those rare places where a trip can be both unforgettable and genuinely helpful. Whether you come for a day, stay overnight like we did, or sign up for a full volunteer week, you’ll leave with a deeper understanding of elephants, of the people who live alongside them, Thailand, and of what it takes to build a more humane kind of tourism in the first place.

Want to learn more?

Check out this documentary

“Love & Bananas: An Elephant Story” (2018). This documentary follows actress/director Ashley Bell and a small rescue team led by ENP founder Lek Chailert on a 500‑mile mission across Thailand to free a partially blind, 70‑year‑old trekking elephant and bring her to Elephant Nature Park, while also telling the story of ENP and Lek’s work more broadly.

And these YouTube videos

• Finding Gina Marie - half day trip to ENP

• Eat Walk Learn - week of volunteering at ENP

What’s helping us travel a little better

Google City Guides

Google City Guide is a experimental feature that just launched in the Google Arts & Culture app for Android or iOS that looks beyond logistics to help you decide where to go and what to see. Instead of generic “Top 10 sights,” it surfaces a mix of landmarks and live cultural events tailored to your interests and time frame (today, this weekend, etc.) across 12 categories like Visual Arts, History, and Hidden Gems. You can also filter for “live events only” to catch exhibitions and performances actually happening while you’re in town. The pilot currently covers 11 cities: London, Tokyo, New York, Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Istanbul, Osaka, Berlin, Madrid, and San Francisco.

There’s also alot of other fun stuff to play around with in this app, including highlighting a Museum of the Day, podcasts on specific famous European artworks, and virtual tours of famous landmarks around the world.

SeatGuru replacement: Aerolopa

If you mourned the loss of SeatGuru like we did, Aerolopa is a promising partial replacement. LOPA stands for “Layout of Passenger Accommodations,” and Aerolopa recreates detailed cabin layouts so you can see seat locations, exit rows, galleys, and lavatories before you book a flight. For frequent flyers and occasional travelers alike, knowing whether a seat has a misaligned window or is right by the toilets can make a big difference in comfort.

What we miss from SeatGuru is the color‑coded seat advice—green for great seats, yellow for caution, red for “avoid if you can.” The good news: that historical info is still accessible via the SeatGuru archive, but it’s no longer updated. Our current strategy: check Aerolopa for the latest layouts and cross‑reference with the old SeatGuru notes when we care a lot about a specific flight.

What’s making life and travel harder

Top global risks in 2026

This Visual Capitalist infographic summarizes the World Economic Forum’s view of the top global risks in 2026. The headline: geoeconomic confrontation—including great‑power competition between the U.S. and China and fraying transatlantic alliances—is now ranked as the number‑one risk to global stability. In practical terms, that means more uncertainty around supply chains, sanctions, and regional tensions.

We’ve adjusted our own travel strategy in response. Instead of planning a six months to a year or more ahead, we’re focusing on rolling three‑month windows so we can pivot if political, economic, or climate‑related shocks suddenly make a destination less wise than it looked on paper.

U.S. border searches of phones and laptops

This piece from TheTravel—“US Customs & Border Control Is Searching Travelers’ Phones More Than Ever”—is important if you have plans to travel to or through the United States. A few key points from the article:

• Who can be searched: Anyone entering the U.S.—including U.S. citizens, Green Card holders, and foreign nationals—can have their devices searched by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

• Refusing to unlock your device:
  -U.S. citizens and Green Card holders cannot be denied entry, but CBP can temporarily seize the device (often for days, up to 15) to attempt access.
  -Foreign travelers who refuse may face extra questioning and can be denied entry.

• Domestic vs. international: These rules apply at the border. TSA agents on purely domestic flights do not have the same authority to search your phone; it falls outside their scope.

The article has practical advice on how to prepare, including powering off devices before reaching the border, minimizing sensitive data you carry across, and what to do if you’re selected for a search. If U.S. border crossings are part of your life or route planning, it’s worth a careful read.

What’s keeping us optimistic

If you aren’t subscribed to the Reasons to be Cheerful newsletter, we encourage you to get on that stat. It is a little (sometimes big) ray of sunshine when things seem just a bit too bleak. Here are two recent pieces that made us sigh, in a good way.

“The Right to Wind in Your Hair”

“The Right to Wind in Your Hair” profiles Cycling Without Age, a global volunteer movement that combats loneliness among older and less mobile people by offering free rides in electric trishaws. Volunteers (called “pilots”) sign up to take residents of care homes and others in their communities out for slow, social rides—literally giving them the “right to wind in their hair.”

Founded in Copenhagen in 2012 after one simple rickshaw ride, it has grown to more than 3,600 chapters and 50,000 volunteers in 41 countries. Research is now catching up with what riders and pilots report anecdotally: these rides improve mood, reduce social isolation, and boost life satisfaction, turning a basic bike outing into what one study called a “bubble where magic happens.” This is something we’ll be actively seeking out in future destinations.

The payphone experiment bridging political divides

This short piece highlights an experiment that uses two old‑fashioned payphones—one in liberal San Francisco, one in conservative Abilene, Texas—to connect strangers across the political divide for unscripted conversations. The project, run by Matter Neuroscience, tests whether simply talking to someone with very different views can increase empathy and happiness. Callers pick up the receiver, get randomly paired with someone at the other phone, and are invited to talk about anything from daily life to politics. Early results suggest that most people are pretty good at finding common ground, and that even brief, anonymous conversations can leave participants feeling more optimistic about “the other side.”

And that’s a wrap on our four months in Southeast Asia. Tomorrow we’re heading back to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for a couple of months. If you’ll be in the neighborhood, let us know.

This year, we decided to dig deeper. We looked at the 2026 lists from Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, The Points Guy, AFAR, The New York Times, BBC Travel, and The Wall Street Journal to see which places they’re pushing—and why. There are some genuine gems, a few spots already struggling with overtourism and environmental impacts (like Mexico City, Venice, and Da Nang), and some clear trends about where global travel is headed.

This isn’t just an excuse to write another “best places” post. It’s also helping us think through our own 2026–2027 travel plans. We’ve already booked two transatlantic repositioning cruises (Miami–Barcelona in April and Southampton–Galveston in September), but what we do in between and afterwards is still evolving. We’re very aware that global events can upend even the best‑laid plans, so we’re keeping things flexible—and we’re also thinking about the “go‑go, slow‑go, no‑go” rhythm of retirement. Right now we’re firmly in our go‑go years, and we want to prioritize places that may be harder to enjoy later.

If you’re planning your 2026 travel—whether you’re a slow traveler, digital nomad, early retiree, or simply planning a big holiday—this guide is meant to separate a bit of hype from genuine opportunity, with quieter alternatives if the “it” destinations don’t sound like you.

A quick nerdy note: we’ve been experimenting with a paid Perplexity AI account to help sift through the 2026 lists and surface lesser‑known options. The footnotes and links at the end show the sources we drew from, in case you want to go down your own rabbit holes.

The Big Themes Driving 2026 Travel Lists

A few patterns kept showing up across the major lists as we worked on this top 10 list:

America’s 250th birthday
2026 is the United States’ semiquincentennial, and American cities—especially Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Route 66 stops—are suddenly everywhere again.

The rise of “second cities”
AFAR’s 2026 list is almost entirely “overlooked” places—Bucharest, Birmingham (Alabama), Buffalo (New York), Adelaide, and more—reflecting an industry‑wide pivot toward alternatives to overtouristed hubs.

Sustainability (at least in theory)
BBC Travel and others highlight destinations that position themselves around “sustainable tourism” and “positive impact,” even as some are still grappling with their own crowding and infrastructure issues.

We’ve split our top picks into two groups: places we’ve already visited and would happily recommend (and return to), and places we haven’t been yet but can’t wait to check out.

Places we’ve been and highly recommend

These are destinations we know first‑hand and would send friends to without hesitation.

1. George Town, Penang Island, Malaysia – a vibrant island city of food, heritage, and incredibly friendly people

The New York Times put George Town on its 52 Places list for 2026, and we absolutely fell in love with it when we were there in December. Penang is a Malaysian state (island + mainland); George Town, on the island, is its lively capital. The UNESCO‑listed core is a living museum of multicultural heritage: Chinese clan houses, Indian temples, mosques, Malay kampungs, and colonial mansions all side by side. It’s also widely considered one of Asia’s great food capitals—and we completely agree.

For slow travelers, Penang offers walkable heritage neighborhoods, incredible hawker food, and a fraction of the tourist intensity you’ll find in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, or Singapore. On top of that, the medical tourism infrastructure is excellent; we did comprehensive health screenings and specialist follow‑ups at Sunway Medical Centre Penang and were seriously impressed.

When to go

• Peak: December–February (24–30°C / 75–86°F). Slightly less humid and marginally cooler, plus peak time for regional visitors and winter‑sun travelers.
  

• Shoulder: March–May and September–November (24–31°C / 75–88°F). Still warm and humid but with fewer crowds and better prices.
  

• Low: June–August (24–32°C / 75–90°F). Hotter, stickier, and wetter, but great if you prefer a slower pace and don’t mind downpours.
  

UNESCO & cultural sites

• George Town UNESCO World Heritage Site – Recognized for over 500 years of trading history along the Straits of Melaka. Don’t miss the clan jetties, Khoo Kongsi, temples, and shophouses scattered through the core.
  

Festivals worth planning around

• Chinese New Year (Jan/Feb) – Dragon dances and temple celebrations across George Town.
  

• Thaipusam (Jan/Feb) – Major Hindu festival with processions to temples.
  

• George Town Festival (July–August) – Month‑long arts and culture celebration.
  

• George Town Heritage Day (July) – Street‑level celebrations of multicultural rituals, food, and games.
  

• Nine Emperor Gods Festival (Sept/Oct) – Taoist festival with colorful street processions.
  

If you want something similar but quieter

• Ipoh, Malaysia – Colonial architecture, famous white coffee, cave temples, and far fewer international tourists, on the train line between Kuala Lumpur and Penang. Friends have enjoyed it for a couple of days but found it a bit too quiet for longer stays unless you really want to unplug.
  

• Melaka, Malaysia – Shares the same UNESCO inscription as George Town, with Peranakan culture, Portuguese/Dutch architecture, and great food. More compact and a bit more touristy, but easy to explore in a day or two from Kuala Lumpur.
  

2. Guadalajara, Mexico – a big, culturally rich city with intimate neighborhoods and amazing food

Condé Nast Traveler included Guadalajara in its 2026 global list, and if you’ve read us for a while you know it’s one of our favorite places anywhere. We’ve spent more than six months there over the last three years and need very little excuse to go back. Mexico’s second‑largest city is the birthplace of mariachi and tequila, but it’s also a modern, cosmopolitan hub with a thriving arts scene, innovative restaurants, and far fewer international visitors than Mexico City.

For slow travelers, Guadalajara offers walkable historic neighborhoods, an excellent cost of living, easy access to agave country (the town of Tequila and its UNESCO‑listed agave landscape), and warm, mostly dry weather for much of the year.

When to visit

• Peak: October–April (20–28°C / 68–82°F, dry). Pleasant for city wandering and day trips; December–January can be busy with domestic holiday travel but has never felt overwhelming to us. The zocalo (town square) in the historic center is particularly beautiful and festive at Christmas.
  

• Shoulder: May and September (12–30°C / 54–86°F). Warmer and edging into rainy season, but fewer crowds.
  

• Low: June–August (16–28°C / 61–82°F). Rainy season, with hot, humid days and afternoon thunderstorms—but lower prices and lush, green surroundings.
  

UNESCO & cultural sites

• Agave Landscape and Ancient Industrial Facilities of Tequila (UNESCO) – Blue agave fields and distilleries about an hour from Guadalajara. It’s gorgeous, but very focused on tequila tasting; the José Cuervo Tequila Train from Guadalajara is the classic, very boozy way to experience it.
  

• In the city: Hospicio Cabañas (UNESCO), the historic center, café‑packed Colonia Americana, and artisan‑focused Tlaquepaque (more commercial than San Miguel de Allende, but great if you only have time for one region).
  

Festivals worth planning around

• International Mariachi Festival (Aug/Sept) – Performances across the city.
  

• Guadalajara International Book Fair (late Nov/early Dec) – One of the world’s largest Spanish‑language book fairs.
  

• Día de los Muertos (Nov 1–2) – Colorful celebrations citywide;. Our top pick for Day of the Dead, though, is still Pátzcuaro, about three hours away.

If you want something similar but quieter

• Querétaro, Mexico – Beautiful colonial core (UNESCO), wine‑and‑cheese country nearby, far fewer international visitors than Guadalajara or Mexico City, and a small airport with good US connections. And only about 1-1.5 hours from San Miguel de Allende.
  

• Oaxaca City, Mexico – Extraordinary food, strong Indigenous culture, markets, mezcal, and ruins; more touristy than Guadalajara but with a very strong local identity.
  

3. Warsaw, Poland – Central Europe’s underrated capital

Warsaw ranked #2 on the New York Times 52 Places list for 2026 and it is at the top of our own favorite places - we spent a wonderful month there in the spring of 2025. It’s a major European capital that still flies under the radar compared with Prague, Vienna, or Kraków. Almost completely destroyed in WWII and rebuilt from scratch, Warsaw combines a reconstructed Old Town (UNESCO), Soviet‑era blocks, and modern glass towers in a way that feels surprisingly cohesive.

Editors keep calling Warsaw a “surprising” capital: creative, young, layered, and still relatively under‑visited. For slow travelers, there are walkable neighborhoods, beautiful parks, an excellent and affordable food scene, strong public transport, and far fewer international tourists than you’d expect.

When to visit

• Peak: June–August (22–25°C / 72–77°F). Parks are full, outdoor festivals are everywhere, and the Vistula River turns into Warsaw’s living room.
  

• Shoulder: May and September (9–20°C / 48–68°F). May brings Constitution Day and strawberries; September brings marathons and autumn events with fewer crowds.
  

• Low: November–March (-6–6°C / 21–43°F). Cold and dark, but Christmas markets are atmospheric and museums are blissfully empty.
  

UNESCO & cultural sites

• Warsaw Historic Centre (UNESCO) – Recognized for its post‑war reconstruction.

• The Polin Museum, The Royal Castle, Łazienki Park (free summer Chopin concerts), and Wilanów Palace are highlights.
  

Festivals worth planning around

• Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival (around Easter).
  

• Mermaid Parade (June) - Celebrating the city’s symbol

• Wianki (Midsummer Night) – Riverfront music and fireworks in late June.
  

• Warsaw Uprising Anniversary (Aug 1) – City‑wide 5 p.m. moment of silence.
  

• Warsaw Autumn International Festival of Contemporary Music (autumn).
  

• Royal Garden of Light at Wilanów (winter light installations).
  

If you want something similar but quieter

• Wrocław, Poland – Gorgeous main square, colorful buildings, student energy, and a more compact, often cheaper alternative to Warsaw.
  

• Vilnius, Lithuania – Beautiful UNESCO‑listed Old Town, strong café culture, and a fraction of Prague’s or Kraków’s tourist numbers. We loved our two days there in 2025 and would happily go back for longer—ideally timed with the highly entertaining and delicious Pink Soup Festival.

4. Namibia – desert skies, quiet roads, and a long‑planned return

Namibia is where sand dunes meet the Atlantic and wildlife shares space with vast, sparsely populated landscapes, which is why it keeps showing up in “best of Africa 2026” pieces. Years ago, Ashley spent time in Windhoek when we were based in Johannesburg and she was working in global health and economic development. She left knowing we needed to come back together—properly this time—to see more than the capital (and its excellent German bakeries) and to explore the coast and interior.

For a longer trip, the classic loop strings together Windhoek, the Namib Desert’s Sossusvlei and Deadvlei, the Atlantic‑side town of Swakopmund, the rock engravings and desert‑adapted wildlife of Damaraland, and the waterholes of Etosha National Park. It’s a road‑trip country: long drives, huge skies, and nights under stars that feel almost unreal.

When to go

• Peak: May–September, the dry “winter” months, with clear skies and excellent wildlife viewing. Inland daytime highs are usually around 19–24°C / 66–75°F, and desert nights can be very cold.
  

• Shoulder: April and October–November (24–28°C / 75–82°F). Warmer and greener, with fewer visitors and better value at many lodges.
  

• Low: November–March (15–32°C / 59–90°F). Rains bring dramatic skies and some green; wildlife is less concentrated, and some roads are trickier, but coastal towns stay relatively cool and dry.
  

UNESCO & festivals
Namibia has two UNESCO World Heritage Sites: the Namib Sand Sea and the Twyfelfontein rock engravings. On the cultural side, Windhoek carnival events, regional harvest festivals, and kapana (grilled meat) street‑food gatherings offer small‑scale, local windows into contemporary life rather than mega‑events.

Why it keeps pulling us back
Namibia appears in 2026 Africa‑focused round‑ups as an alternative for travelers who want quiet, space, and night skies rather than packed game‑drive convoys. For us, it’s the combination of a familiar starting point in Windhoek and the promise of a true slow, multi‑week road trip that keeps it lodged near the top of our list.

If you want something similar
If Namibia is booked out, too pricey, or you just want a similar feel elsewhere in Africa, there are some good “dupes”:

• Quiet, conservation‑focused safari regions – Zambia’s Kafue or Lower Zambezi and Zimbabwe’s Matusadona show up in “remote parks” and “hidden‑gem safari” lists as lower‑traffic alternatives to the Serengeti/Masai Mara, with great walking, driving, and boat safaris. And a visit to Victoria Falls is still essential. Zimbabwe was Ashley’s first African country in 1997, Hwange National Park was our first safari together in 2000, and we lived in Lusaka, Zambia from 2001–2002. Our love for Zambia and Zimbabwe (and their people) runs deep.
  

• Botswana’s Kalahari & Makgadikgadi – Huge horizons, semi‑desert landscapes, wildlife adapted to arid environments, and salt pans that feel as otherworldly as Namibia’s dunes. We spent time in Botswana back when it was our “neighbor” and always loved the combination of remoteness and comfort.
  

  

Places we haven’t been yet (but really want to)

These destinations came up repeatedly on 2026 lists and feel like a strong match with how we like to travel, even though we haven’t made it there—yet.

5. Oulu, Finland – European Capital of Culture 2026

Oulu shows up on Condé Nast, BBC, CNN, National Geographic, and AFAR lists, and for good reason: as the 2026 European Capital of Culture, it’s hosting hundreds of events, from the Frozen People electronic music festival to the Air Guitar World Championships. International arrivals were already up sharply in 2024, and the city seems genuinely excited—and prepared—to welcome more visitors.

When to visit

• Peak: June–August (15–20°C / 59–68°F), long days/very short nights around the solstice.
  

• Shoulder: May and September (3–15°C / 37–59°F). Cooler, with late spring blossoms or autumn color and fewer visitors.
  

• Low: December–March (-13–5°C / 9–41°F). Cold, snowy, and ideal for Northern Lights and winter sports.
  

If you want something similar but quieter

• Tampere, Finland – A smaller city with lakes, saunas, culture, and fewer 2026‑specific crowds.
  

• Kuusamo, Finland – Edge‑of‑Lapland forests, reindeer farms, and deep snow, without the full Rovaniemi price tag or crowd levels.

6. Montenegro (interior & mountains) – the Balkans’ active alternative

BBC and others list Montenegro as an “attractive alternative” to more famous Adriatic destinations. The Bay of Kotor is already very busy in high season (we experienced it ourselves in 2025), but the interior is the real draw for us: Durmitor National Park (UNESCO), Tara River Canyon, and the new Balkan Peaks hiking route across Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro.

This is outdoor‑focused, small‑scale tourism designed to support mountain communities, which is exactly the kind of development we like to see.

When to visit

• Peak: July–August (coastal highs around 25–30°C / 77–86°F). Beaches packed; big music festivals in full swing.
  

• Shoulder: May–June and September–October (roughly 3–18°C / 37–64°F in higher areas). Ideal for hiking and for enjoying the coast without cruise‑ship chaos.
  

• Low: November–March (often -7–5°C / 19–41°F in the mountains). Ski season inland, quiet on the coast.
  

If you want something similar but quieter

• Albania’s Alps (Theth, Valbonë) – Dramatic hiking, stone villages, and the Valbonë‑to‑Theth trek at a fraction of Montenegro’s cost and crowds.
  

• North Macedonia (Ohrid, Mavrovo) – Lake Ohrid (UNESCO) plus mountain hiking and almost no international tourist infrastructure yet.
  

7. Bucharest, Romania – Eastern Europe’s budget‑friendly capital

AFAR includes Bucharest in its “overlooked destinations” for 2026: a capital people often skip on the way to Transylvania’s medieval towns. Bucharest offers Belle Époque buildings, Soviet‑era boulevards, a growing arts scene, and some of the best value of any major European city right now. The city is also marking the 150th anniversary of Constantin Brâncuși in 2026, with programming across multiple venues.

When to visit

• Peak: May–September (20–30°C / 68–86°F), when festivals and outdoor events dominate.
  

• Shoulder: April–May and September–October (6–20°C / 43–68°F). Pleasant weather and wine festivals with fewer visitors.
  

• Low: November–March (-3–10°C / 27–50°F). Colder, darker, but with Christmas markets and lower prices.
  

If you want something similar but quieter

• Brașov, Romania – A medieval Transylvanian city with mountains at its doorstep.
  

• Sinaia, Romania – Mountain resort town with Peles Castle, an easy hop from Bucharest.
  

• Timișoara, Romania – European Capital of Culture 2023, with lovely plazas and a strong student presence.
  

8. Armenia (Yerevan & beyond) – the Caucasus’ cultural crossroads

The New York Times includes Armenia in its 52 Places for 2026, and it feels like exactly our kind of place: monasteries, mountains, wine, and very warm hospitality at reasonable prices. Yerevan is a lively, walkable capital with great cafés and easy connectivity to historic sites across the country. Check out this video by our friends Judy and Kevin on their recent trip.

When to visit

• Peak: May–October (20–30°C / 68–86°F in Yerevan). Warm, dry, and perfect for monastery visits and hiking.
  

• Shoulder: April and October (7–23°C / 45–73°F). Pleasant, with fewer visitors and autumn color.
  

• Low: November–March (-5–9°C / 23–48°F). Cold, especially in the mountains; some roads and routes may be limited.
  

If you want something similar but quieter

• Gyumri, Armenia – A quieter second city with 19th‑century architecture and a strong arts scene.
  

• Tbilisi, Georgia – Not quieter anymore, but a close cultural cousin with outstanding food and wine; firmly lodged on our wish list - Georgian food is some of our all-time favorite.

9. Basque Country, Spain – culinary excellence meets coastal beauty

The Wall Street Journal ranked Basque Country #2 on its 2026 list, just behind Philadelphia, and we can see why. This northern Spanish region combines world‑class cuisine (from pintxos bars to popular Michelin starred restaurants), dramatic coastline, and a very distinct regional identity. We technically “went” in 2024—but we caught Covid and spent a week isolated in a Bilbao hotel, seeing almost nothing. We will be back, maybe as soon as this spring!

San Sebastián and Bilbao anchor the region, with coastal villages and countryside in between.

When to visit

• Peak: June–September (20–25°C / 68–77°F). Warm beach weather and peak crowds.
  

• Shoulder: April–May and September–October (10–20°C / 50–68°F). Ideal for food and culture trips, plus September harvest season for Txakoli.
  

• Low: November–March (6–15°C / 43–59°F). Cool and rainy, but cheaper and quieter; great for museums and urban wandering.
  

If you want something similar but quieter

• Galicia, Spain – Atlantic coastline, phenomenal seafood, and Santiago de Compostela, with fewer international visitors; we’ll be stopping in Vigo on our September transatlantic cruise crossing.
  

• Asturias, Spain – Cider culture, Picos de Europa mountains, and fishing villages; much less touristy than the Basque coast.
  

10. Antigua & Lake Atitlán, Guatemala – volcano views and village life

Antigua and Lake Atitlán are increasingly paired together in 2026 “emerging destinations” coverage as the heart of a Guatemala trip: a UNESCO‑listed colonial city ringed by volcanoes plus a highland lake surrounded by Maya villages. Writers talk about how easy it is to fall into a slower rhythm here—Spanish classes and café mornings in Antigua; then boats between lake towns like Panajachel, San Juan, and San Marcos.

It looks like exactly the kind of place we’d stay for weeks rather than days, with strong everyday culture as well as big, cinematic scenery.

When to visit

• Peak: December–April (15–27°C / 59–81°F). Dry season, comfortable temperatures, and the busiest period—especially Christmas/New Year and Semana Santa.
  

• Shoulder: late April–June and October–November (16–27°C / 61–81°F). More afternoon showers but clear mornings, thinner crowds, and friendlier prices—ideal for longer stays in one town.
  

• Low: July–September (16–25°C / 61–77°F). Rainiest stretch, with frequent afternoon storms and cloudier volcano views; still very livable in the highlands.
  

UNESCO & cultural sites

• Antigua Guatemala (UNESCO) – Baroque architecture, cobblestones, ruined churches, and cloisters (now hotels), cafés, and museums, framed by Agua, Fuego, and Acatenango.​
  

• Lake Atitlán – Not UNESCO, but often called one of Latin America’s most beautiful lakes; ringed by Maya towns with strong textile, pottery, and weaving traditions. A combined itinerary gives you both colonial and Indigenous cultures without long internal journeys.
  

Festivals worth planning around

• Semana Santa in Antigua – One of the world’s most elaborate Holy Week celebrations, with alfombras (sawdust carpets), massive processions, incense, and music; Guatemala’s Holy Week is recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage.
  

• Giant kite festivals (Nov 1–2) – Nearby Sumpango and Santiago Sacatepéquez host huge kite festivals for All Saints’ and Día de los Muertos; Antigua makes a perfect base.
  

• Local fiestas at Lake Atitlán – Each town has its own patron‑saint days with fireworks, parades, and traditional dress, offering close‑up glimpses of community life.
  

Many guides suggest exactly the pattern that appeals to us: anchor in Antigua for part of Semana Santa, then retreat to a quieter lakeside town once the crowds peak.

If you want something similar and quieter

• Nicaragua (León or Granada + Ometepe) – Colonial cities plus a lake‑and‑volcano island that echo Antigua and Atitlán, usually with fewer tourists and a more low‑key vibe.
  

• San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico – High‑altitude colonial town with strong Indigenous culture, cool climate, strong café and market life, and lots of day‑trip options; very high on our wish list for our upcoming Mexico trip.

Our take: where we’d actually go

Across all of these lists, 2026 really does look like the year of the “second city”: places that offer much of what their famous neighbors do, but with less intensity, lower prices, and (for now) fewer Instagram hordes. Whether that stays true once every outlet has told everyone about them is another question.

Looking just at our ten:

• For genuinely “welcoming new visitors” energy: Oulu, Montenegro’s interior, and Armenia are actively investing in cultural programming and infrastructure and seem to genuinely want more visitors.
  

• For avoiding overtourism while still getting great value: Warsaw, Bucharest, and Guadalajara give you big‑city amenities without big-city crowds or pricing. Because we already love Warsaw and Guadalajara so much, Bucharest feels especially interesting for our own travels.
  

• For natural beauty + hiking: Montenegro’s interior, Armenia’s monastery‑studded landscapes, and Guatemala’s volcanos and lakes all look spectacular and still relatively uncrowded.
  

• For food enthusiasts: Penang, Basque Country, and Guadalajara are all world‑class—but Penang might be the best value of the three, and Malaysian food is extraordinary.
  

• The wild cards: Namibia, if you want a genuinely special African experience, and Oulu, if you’re up to experience Arctic life.
  

If you’re planning your own 2026 travels, we’d love to hear which of these destinations speak to you—or which under‑the‑radar alternatives you think the big lists have missed.

Sources & References

Major Travel Lists (2026)

1. Condé Nast Traveler - “The Best Places to Go in 2026” (November 2025)

2. Travel + Leisure - “The 50 Best Places to Travel in 2026” (November 2025)

3. The Points Guy - “Where to go in 2026: The 17 best places to travel” (January 2026)

4. AFAR - “The Best Places to Travel in 2026” (December 2025)

5. The New York Times - “52 Places to Go in 2026” (January 2026)

6. BBC Travel - “The 20 Best Places to Travel in 2026” (December 2025)

7. The Wall Street Journal - “The 10 Best Places to Visit in 2026” (December 2025)

In 2025, we traveled through 23 countries and still came in 13% under budget, thanks to slow travel, geoarbitrage (choosing lower‑cost destinations to balance pricier ones), and a healthy dose of travel hacking with points and miles. This post breaks down what we spent, where we went, how we traveled, and what we learned about designing a sustainable nomadic lifestyle in early retirement.

Our Nomadic Lifestyle & Travel Style

We’ve lived outside the US as expats for over 12 years (Egypt, Zambia, South Africa, Kenya, and Mexico), so international life isn’t new to us—but full‑time nomadic living is a different kind of adventure. For us, this isn’t a 365‑day vacation - it’s our everyday life, just lived in different places around the world.

A few important context points for anyone comparing budgets:

• We’re not bare‑bones budget travelers, and we’re not “bougie” either—we sit squarely in the “comfortable but practical” camp.
  

• We prioritize comfort for longer travel: business class flights for routes over four hours primarily using points and miles, and repositioning cruises when they match our location goals and cost the same or less than business class flights​.
  

• We often stay in 4–5 star or boutique hotels, especially for short stays or when first arriving somewhere new, and we eat out when we want to rather than only when it’s “cheap.”
  

If you’re wondering, “Can I afford a nomadic retirement?” or “What does a realistic nomad budget look like for a couple?”, keep reading for where we went, what worked, what didn’t, and our real numbers.

Where We Traveled in 2025

In 2025, we started the year in Buenos Aires, Argentina and had a pretty good outline of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do throughout the year. We had the first quarter of the year pretty locked in - travel to Mexico for some medical care and to spend time with friends, a trip to the US to visit with family and friends, and a repositioning cruise from Tampa to Rome in the spring. We then originally planned to go to Italy for our three months of Schengen time, but big events there (like the death of the Pope) made us rethink that plan knowing that crowds would be at their peak.

So we pivoted to explore Central and Eastern Europe - a region we were always curious about but really didn’t know much about (fast forward - we ended up loving it). We also knew we wanted to be back in Mexico over the North American summer months for big birthday celebrations, visits with family and friends, and to enjoy being still for awhile in a place we know and love so well. Decision-fatigue is a thing when traveling fulltime and being in a place that feels like home is rejuvenating on many levels. We also knew from the start of 2025 that we wanted to spend the winter holiday season in Thailand with friends, but we didn’t really finalize those travel plans until we found over the summer a great transpacific repositioning cruise that took us from Los Angeles to Tokyo in September.

Ultimately, we mixed longer stays with shorter visits, which is a key factor in keeping annual travel costs under control.

• Longer stays (2+ weeks to multiple months): Argentina, Mexico, Poland, Japan, Thailand, and Malaysia, plus time with friends and family in the US, and more than a month total on two repositioning cruises.
  

• Shorter visits (2–10 days): Panama (leveraging the Copa Airlines stopover program), Italy and the Vatican, Croatia, Montenegro, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Austria, and Singapore, all selected based on our interests in exploring these countries balanced with route efficiency or regional proximity.
  

• Transit / cruise port days (<1 day): Spain, the UK (Bermuda and Gibraltar), Latvia, Czechia, and Germany—brief tastes rather than deep dives.
  

This mix of long stays and strategic “sampler” stops is a big part of how we balanced cost, energy, and curiosity over a full year.

What Worked Well (That We’ll Keep Doing)

How we travel

• Prioritizing comfort on long stretches. Repositioning cruises have been incredible value for covering long distances in comfort. A bonus is no jetlag. We often pay the same or less than business class flights on similar routes, with accommodation and food included. For flights over four hours, upgrading to business class—most often with miles—has made the wear and tear of long‑term travel much more sustainable.
  

• Choosing local neighborhoods over tourist hotspots. We love getting to know a city through everyday routines and food, so we gravitate to lived‑in neighborhoods rather than bucket‑list districts. Walking food tours have become one of our favorite ways to understand a place quickly.
  

• “Land first, then choose long‑term housing.” When we plan to stay at least a month, we book a hotel for the first week, explore neighborhoods, and visit long‑term options in person before committing. Meeting the host, seeing the apartment (light, noise, layout, Wi‑Fi, kitchen, a comfortable bed without a footboard for the 6’2” half of our team), and getting a feel for the neighborhood (markets, parks, cafes) has led to some of our most memorable stays in places like Buenos Aires and Warsaw. When we’ve skipped this step and booked only from online research (hello, Chiang Mai), we’ve been less happy.
  

• Dialed‑in luggage and clothing. We each travel with one rolling suitcase (that can be checked if needed), one 35L backpack, and one packable daypack. We carry enough clothing to do laundry about once a week, which strikes the right balance between flexibility, comfort, and not schlepping heavy bags on and off of trains and over cobblestones.
  

Community

• Building in time with “our people.” Regular time with family and friends is non‑negotiable for our mental and emotional well‑being. We love when they join us on the road or we meet up somewhere in the world.
  

• Finding fellow nomads. Connecting with other nomads and slow travelers via meetups was a huge upgrade in 2024 and 2025, and we now actively plan routes to intersect with nomads who have become “our people”.
  

Spending & budgeting

• Annual budget with real‑time adjustments. We set a yearly spending target, track it via a couple of apps (Monarch and one tied to our financial advisors), and adjust destinations and pace as we go rather than trying to predict everything 12 months in advance. After a full year, we now know our average monthly costs and spending by category, and we still managed to come in under budget in 2025—even with some big medical bills.

• Leveraging points and miles. Treating points and miles as a second, valuable currency let us book long‑haul business class flights and hotels with barely any impact on our regular spending or budget. For anyone planning a nomadic retirement budget, running the numbers with and without travel rewards makes a big difference. In 2025, we estimate it would have cost us an additional $17,244 USD for the hotels and flights we booked using points and miles.
  

• Budgeting for emergencies. Healthcare is one of the top concerns for retirees considering a nomadic lifestyle, and our year underscored why planning for medical surprises is essential. Our healthcare costs were still significantly lower than what we likely would have paid in the US, but they spiked in 2025 due to urgent dental work, a hospital stay for food poisoning in Chiang Mai, comprehensive health scans, a series of specialist appointments, and colonoscopies for both of us. (We’re ok on all fronts!)
  

• Insurance reality check. We use an IMG Bronze plan with high deductibles, no coverage in the US and a handful of other expensive countries like Japan and Singapore, and limited coverage outside urgent care. This meant we paid the vast majority of healthcare out of pocket plus some temporary supplemental policies for specific locations and amounts of time. Thankfully, we had enough cushion in our budget that the extra costs didn’t derail our year.
  

What Didn’t Work (That We’ll Change)

Overtourism and “must‑see” fatigue

Crowded, over‑hyped destinations are not our happy place. If a city is on every “must visit” or “ultimate travel guide” list, it’s probably not for us. Dubrovnik and Kotor, with multiple cruise ships in port, often felt more exhausting than magical. Going places just because everyone else is going rarely leads to our best travel experiences, so in the future we’ll lean harder into paths less trodden, like Luang Prabang, Laos where we are happily sitting on a terrace surrounded by gorgeous mountains and palm trees and it’s 70 degrees fahrenheit while we are writing this post.

Prioritizing price and location over comfort

Hotels like the Moxy brand can be fun for short trips with minimal luggage, but they simply don’t work for our version of full‑time travel. Tiny wardrobes, no real luggage storage, limited bathroom counter space, and no in‑room kettle may sound minor, but they add up when a hotel is your “home”. We’ve learned to factor in everyday livability—not just nightly rate and neighborhood—when booking.

Not tracking inflation and currency shifts closely enough

When you plan trips far in advance, it’s easy to assume your cost estimates will hold—but exchange rates and local inflation can change fast. We’re two for two on planning Christmas and New Year in places that became significantly more expensive right before arrival: Argentina’s inflation spiked and the local currency in Thailand surged against the dollar. Going forward, we’ll keep monitoring currency and inflation in the months leading up to longer stays and adjusting budgets accordingly.

Travel hacking without a clear strategy

In our “learning phase” of points, miles, and elite status, we sometimes chased status that didn’t actually align with how we now know that we prefer to travel. We’ve had recent fantastic experiences at small, family‑owned, and independent hotels that are often less expensive and more memorable than big‑box brands, and we genuinely enjoy eating at local restaurants rather than relying on free hotel breakfasts (although we do enjoy those on occasion in great hotels!). Moving into 2026, we expect to get more value out of flexible programs like Chase, American Express, and Rove Miles than from focusing heavily on a single chain.

Big Takeaways About Ourselves

Maybe we’re not big‑city people anymore

We assumed we were big‑city lovers - and there are some mega cities that we still adore, like Mexico City and Buenos Aires. But our 2025 experience suggests that not all cities will offer what makes us most happy. We didn’t enjoy the crowds and density of Tokyo and Bangkok nearly as much as smaller cities and large towns with lots of great historical character, architecture, and parks such as Georgetown, Warsaw, Krakow, Tallinn, Vilnius, San Miguel de Allende, and Singapore. As we plan 2026, we’re leaning into more mid‑sized cities and regional hubs with good walkability, local culture, and manageable scale.

Lower expectations, better surprises

When we arrive somewhere with low or no expectations, we’re often delighted, as we were throughout the Baltics - particularly Poland, Estonia, and Lithuania. When the hype is sky‑high (Bangkok, Chiang Mai), it’s harder for reality to match the narrative. This has nudged us toward less‑publicized destinations and away from places that dominate travel headlines.

Health insurance questions for 2026

Health insurance is one of the most common search topics for people researching nomadic retirement, and it’s top‑of‑mind for us after 2025. We paid roughly what many mid‑range nomadic couples pay for global policies, but our out‑of‑pocket costs were high enough that we’re now asking: does it make more sense to pay higher premiums for better coverage, or stick with lower‑premium, high‑deductible plans and self‑insure more? We plan to revisit our insurance options in 2026, run scenarios using our 2025 actuals, and decide whether upgrading our policy would meaningfully reduce risk and stress.

How does our spending compare to similar nomadic retired couples?

Here are some resources by our friends and trusted resources:

• In their post on living “around the world at 72 degrees,” Chris and Steve share that their annual travel budget started around $48,000 and has risen closer to $58,000 as they’ve refined their lifestyle. You can read their breakdown here: We’ve Been Around the World at 72 Degrees

• Judy and Kevin from Finding Gina Marie shared that a full year of world travel—from November 2023 to November 2024—cost them $73,938 as early‑retired, full‑time travelers. They break down exactly how that money was spent in their video, How Much We Really Spent to Travel the World in 2024

• Kristine and Gean from Strategic Early Retirement talk about points and miles the same way we do—as a second, incredibly valuable currency in early retirement travel. Their post, Credit Card Points & Miles for Early Retirement: Travel 101 , is a great primer if you want to see how another early‑retired couple uses rewards to shrink the cash cost of long‑term travel.

So, How Much Did Our Nomadic Life Cost in 2025?

For anyone Googling “How much does a year of full‑time travel cost for a couple?” or “What is a realistic nomadic retirement budget per month?”, here is our actual breakdown:

2025 Core Living Expenses

Here are our numbers broken down in more detail:

Read more

In this post, we’re looking back on our travels and adventures throughout the year. Next post, we’ll share how much it all cost us. So let us know if you have any questions and we’ll do our best to answer them in that post.

We had one post that went viral in 2025 (by our standards) with over 12,000 views. Here’s a link:

2025 was a rollercoaster of a year. As the United States Agency for International Development was decimated, Ashley’s international development and global health career of 30+ years officially ended. So many amazing, talented, and committed people who dedicated their lives to making the world a better place lost their jobs and careers and the people they supported lost incredibly valuable and life saving support. The world is a more fragile place with the loss of this most iconic agency, everything it did, and represented. And way too many friends are still looking for work and what is next for them.

The yin to this yang (or yang to this yin?) is our vibrant year of travel, making new friends, discovering new foods, and learning more about leading a successful and fulfilling nomadic/slow traveling life and retirement. Here are some of our stats for the year:

• Traveled to or through 23 countries on 4 continents

• Slept in 40 beds

• Took 2 repositioning cruises (Tampa to Rome and Los Angeles to Tokyo)

• Won our first “free” cruise at a casino (we’ll be taking that one in March 2026)

• Our Flighty app shows that we took 20 flights. Only 4 of those were over 4 hours long (Buenos Aires to Mexico City with a multiday stopover in Panama, Vienna to Mexico City, and Tokyo to Singapore).

• And shocker - 60% of our flights were delayed for a total of 8 hours. We really don’t remember much about these delays, but it is helpful to think about as we plan for travels in the future. Always make sure to have enough travel wiggle room!

• We’ve lost track of how many trains we took this year!

This all sounds like A LOT in retrospect. And yet, we feel like we’ve had a pretty relaxing year. We stayed longest in Mexico (4.5 months), Poland (1.5 months), Japan (almost 1 month), and Thailand (a bit over 1 month) with faster exploratory travels in between. We did come to the realization, however, that 2 months or more in a “hub” is our sweet spot - the perfect amount of time to enjoy getting to know the fabric of a place balanced with short adventures launched from there.

We did a pretty good job of chasing 75 degrees - the Baltics were still a little chillier than that when we were there and 7-8am was the sweet spot in most of South East Asia to be out and about without melting. We are still happiest at 75 degrees, but we are now widening that apeture a bit and to explore more places when they are between 65 and 80 degrees in the future.

What places surprised us the most and we can’t wait to go back?

• San Pancho, Mexico

• all of the Baltics - particularly Poland

• George Town on the island of Penang, Malaysia

• Singapore

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico City, and Guadalajara remain the homey comfortable places we’ll gladly go back to time and time again. But, honestly, there isn’t a single place we went in 2025 where we wouldn’t gladly explore further one day.

Here are a few things we saw, did, and ate along the way:

January: Buenos Aires, Argentina; Panama City, Panama; Mexico City, Mexico

February & March: Mexico: San Miguel de Allende, San Pancho, and Guadalajara; United States: Phoenix, Arizona and Charleston, South Carolina

April: United States: Charleston, South Carolina; Winston Salem, North Carolina; Tampa, Florida; Repositioning Cruise (Tampa, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Cartegena, Barcelona, Rome); Rome, Italy; Vatican City

May: Dubrovnik, Croatia; Kotor and Tivat, Montenegro; Helsinki, Finland; Tallinn, Estonia; Vilnius, Lithuania; Warsaw, Poland

June: Poland: Warsaw and Krakow; Vienna, Austria

July & August: Mexico: Mexico City, San Miguel de Allende, Queretaro, Tequisquiapan, and Bernal

September: Mexico: San Miguel de Allende and Mineral de Pozos; United States: San Diego and Los Angeles, California; Repositioning Cruise (Los Angeles, Sapporo, Hakodate, Tokyo)

October: Japan: Yokohama and Tokyo; Singapore

November: Chiang Mai, Thailand

December: Malaysia: Kuala Lumpur and Penang; Bangkok, Thailand

We’ve had quite a first year on Substack. We are so grateful for all of our 788 subscribers! And 26 of you generously support us with paid subscriptions. We’ve donated all proceeds to:

• Giving Joy providing microgrants to women entrepreneurs around the world

• Impact Network/PEAS USA providing education and empowerment programs to children in rural Zambia and special programs for girls and young women to ensure they can continue in school and thrive

A hearty and heartfelt THANK YOU for the support of every single one of you!

Wishing you all a peaceful, joyful, and healthy holiday season. See you in 2026!

We do our best to use as many credit card “perks” every month as we can, but there are a bunch that we just can’t use. But this holiday season, there is one credit card benefit we are absolutely not letting go to waste: monthly Instacart credits.

Many popular US and Canadian credit cards offer “free” monthly credits to use on Instacart.com. If you don’t need groceries delivered yourself right now, you have a powerful alternative. You can use those credits to buy food that Instacart delivers straight to a local food bank—often with zero delivery fees.

It’s the perfect way to turn an unused bank perk into a warm meal for someone in need without spending an extra dime out of pocket. (Of course, you certainly can spend more if you have the resources!)

Here is how to find out if you have these credits and the easiest way to donate them.

💳 Which credit cards offer Instacart credits?

Several major issuers have integrated monthly Instacart statement credits as a built‑in perk. Most of these offers currently run through at least late 2027 if you enroll.

Chase Personal & Co-Brand Cards

Chase has rolled Instacart+ memberships and monthly credit benefits into many of its most popular cards. Benefits generally require activation.

• The Offer: Typically three months of complimentary Instacart+ and a $10 monthly credit.

• Eligible Cards include:

  • Airline Cards: Select United, Southwest, Aer Lingus, Iberia, British Airways, and Aeroplan Visa products.

  • Hotel Cards: IHG One Rewards, Marriott Bonvoy, and World of Hyatt consumer cards.

  • General Travel: Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Chase Ink Business Cards

Small business owners get even higher credits on certain cards.

• The Offer: Chase Ink Business Cash and Ink Business Unlimited often receive around $20 USD per month in credits when using the enrolled card on Instacart.

• (Note: There is also a specific Chase Instacart Mastercard focused purely on Instacart rewards and cashback.)

American Express and Mastercard (Canada & US)

• Amex (Canada): The American Express Platinum Card offers a recurring benefit, currently structured as up to $240 CAD in annual statement credits (usually split into two $10 credits per month when meeting minimum purchase amounts).

• Mastercard (US): Various Mastercard programs provide Instacart+ access and a monthly credit (around $10 USD) when you enroll on the dedicated Instacart offer page. Check the fine print of your specific World or World Elite Mastercard.

🕵️ How to find your unused credits

Not sure if your card has this perk? Here is the quickest way to check.

1. Check your email: Search your recent promotional emails from your bank for “Instacart” or “Instacart+.”

2. Visit enrollment pages: Go directly to the Instacart partner enrollment pages for Chase or Mastercard and sign in to see if your card qualifies.

3. Use a tracker tool (Easiest Method): Use apps like CardPointers or MaxRewards to instantly see which of your cards has active Instacart offers.

   

🛒 The Best Way to Donate: “Community Carts”

You could just order random groceries to a food bank’s address, but Instacart has a much better, dedicated feature called Community Carts.

This feature lets you shop from a wish list created specifically by participating food banks. This ensures you are donating exactly what they need most right now, rather than guessing.

Even better? Instacart usually waives the service or delivery fees on Community Carts orders. This means 100% of your credit goes toward the actual food.

Steps to donate your credits:

1. Find the Hub: In the Instacart app or website, go to instacart.com/donate or look for the “Community Carts” banner on the home screen.

2. Choose a recipient: Pick a local food bank or participating nonprofit from the list.

3. Shop their list: Add items from their curated wish list to your cart. (There is typically a small order minimum, around $10).

4. Checkout with your credit: At checkout, ensure your enrolled credit card is selected. Your monthly statement credit should apply automatically.

An Instacart shopper will then deliver the goods directly to the organization within a few days. You just turned a credit card perk into a hassle-free donation!

💡 Alternative Idea: Gift Cards

Some smaller mutual aid groups or pantries that aren’t listed on Community Carts might prefer Instacart gift cards so they can buy perishables when needed.

Caution: Read your credit card terms carefully. Some monthly statement credits do not trigger if you buy a gift card; they only work on actual grocery orders. However, if you have credit card points you want to cash out, redeeming them for Instacart gift cards to donate is another great option.

👇 What are your “giving hacks”?

Do you have other strategies for leveraging points, miles, and credit card perks to support local organizations during the holidays? Let us know in the comments which organizations you support and how! We would love to highlight more creative opportunities to give back this season.

• Start collecting and spending valuable points and miles for free without signing up for a new credit card, and

• Stack multiple miles and points programs (Rove, airline/hotel, and credit card) to double or even triple dip rewards.

• Get 500 points just for signing up (for a limited time) - see the link at the end of the post

But is it too good to be true?

What Exactly is Rove Miles?

If you’ve ever wanted to get into the points and miles game but didn’t want to sign up for more credit cards or, you are an avid points and miles collector and want to maximize as many rewards as possible for every dollar you spend, Rove Miles is designed for you. The program allows users to quickly generate points that will transfer to any airline alliance without having to open any special credit cards.

The program officially launched in May 2025 and combines a variety of major loyalty programs into a single currency. Rove Miles bills itself as the first “universal airline mile” or universal airline currency. It is a standalone rewards platform, not a credit card. The core mission of Rove is to democratize access to award travel, making great deals that were previously limited to high-spending cardholders accessible to the average consumer. All you need is a US phone number and you can sign up and start using the program immediately.

The Business of Miles: How Rove Makes Money

A key differentiator of Rove is its financial structure: it does not charge the customer a penny. There are no annual fees, subscriptions, or booking fees, unlike many mileage-earning credit cards that rely on fees or interest payments to subsidize rewards.

Rove operates on a commission and affiliate marketing model. The company generates revenue by taking affiliate commissions from other businesses—such as hotels, shopping platforms, and airlines—where the consumer is already spending money. Rove then passes this commission back to the user in the form of Rove Miles.

The primary ways users earn Rove Miles include:

1. Shopping: Users can earn miles on all online shopping by utilizing the Rove shopping portal or the Chrome extension. Rove works with thousands of stores, passing back the affiliate commission earned when the user clicks through the Rove link.

2. Booking Flights and Hotels: Booking travel through the Rove platform generates bonus miles on top of any credit card rewards the user receives.

Hotel bookings are particularly lucrative and a powerful source of earning miles. Rove offers up to 25x miles on cash hotel stays, and in some searches, this multiplier can be as north of 45 miles per dollar spent (see the example below). The commission structure on hotels is robust because some hotels share up to 40% of their sales as commission, and Rove gives all of its share back to the user.

Sample search for Miami, Florida for 2 nights in December 2025

Sample search for Bangkok, Thailand for 2 nights in December 2025

Maximizing Value: How Rove Miles Saves You Money

Rove Miles can save you significant money by allowing you to earn valuable points on everyday spending that can then be converted into high-value award flights and good value (but not as good as flights) for hotel stays.

Rove assigns specific valuations to its currency based on the redemption method:

• 100,000 Rove Miles are valued at 1.8 cents each for hotels.

• 100,000 Rove Miles are valued at 2.2 cents each for economy flights.

• 100,000 Rove Miles are valued at a whopping 6 cents each for business class flights.

To get the most value out of Rove Miles for flights as you accumulate them, transfer them to an airline to book your flights. Rove provides two distinct ways to redeem miles for flights:

1. Direct Booking: The flight is booked and ticketed by Rove, using dynamic pricing, typically yielding a redemption rate of 1.3 to 1.5 cents per mile.

2. Transfer Booking: When a transfer booking is selected, Rove automatically moves the necessary miles into your partner loyalty account, and transfers are almost always instant. This option is designed for savvy travelers sourcing the flight from one of Rove’s partners to achieve optimal “travel-hacked” rates.

Rove also offers high-value redemption on hotels. Users can pay for hotel stays using Rove Miles, often achieving values of 1.5 to 2.2 cents per mile, which can be much better than the redemption values offered by competing hotel travel portals. This includes major brands like Marriott and Ritz Carlton, though the highest multipliers often come from boutique hotels.

Sample flight redemptions

Sample hotel redemptions

Current Rove Miles Promotions

Rove Miles is currently running three promotions:

• 20% transfer bonus from Rove Miles to Finnair Plus — ends December 31, 2025

• Earn 5,000 bonus miles on hotel bookings of $500 or more with the promo code “AwardWallet” at checkout — No end date

• Earn 250 bonus miles when you complete a survey — No end date

Your Gateway to Global Travel: Rove Miles Transfer Partners

Rove is rapidly expanding its portfolio of partners, which currently includes 13 airline and hotel loyalty programs and more are being added all of the time. The program covers all three major airline alliances—Oneworld, Star Alliance, and SkyTeam—providing numerous options for both domestic and international travel.

Crucially, Rove transfers to all airline partners at a 1:1 ratio, making the calculation of rewards straightforward.

Current Transfer Partners:

Rove’s list of transfer partners includes several programs that are unique in the flexible points ecosystem, particularly in the U.S. market.

This list highlights Rove’s appeal as it provides access to niche and typically less accessible programs like Air India and Lufthansa Miles & More, which were previously difficult to accrue through standard transferable U.S. credit card points.

The Art of Stacking: Earning and Redeeming the Most from a Rove Miles Deal

Rove’s architecture is built for “stacking” rewards, allowing users to earn Rove Miles in addition to their existing rewards. Rove explicitly states that every earn method on the platform stacks on top of credit card rewards, even those earned from programs like Amex Offers and Chase Offers.

1. Triple-Dipping

When booking a flight or hotel through Rove, you can often “triple dip” on rewards:

1. Credit Card Points: Earn points from the credit card used for the purchase (e.g., 2X or 3X on travel).

2. Rove Miles: Earn Rove Miles from the booking (1x to 10x miles on cash flights).

3. Airline Miles or Hotel Points: Link the booking to your airline or hotel loyalty program to earn brand specific points and miles (more on that below).

2. Instant Miles for Flight or Hotel Redemption (The Hotel Strategy)

The most popular and powerful stacking strategy involves using high hotel multipliers to instantly generate miles for flight redemption.

• The Strategy: Book a prepaid, nonrefundable hotel stay through Rove to instantly generate Rove Miles. You can then transfer those points immediately to book your flight, often for the same trip, or even extend your hotel stay by redeeming the points in the same hotel or another in your travel city.

• The Math: By sorting hotel searches by the “highest miles multiplier,” users can find hotels earning upwards of 70 points per dollar. For example, a $172-per-night hostel in Bangkok could yield 12,000 miles. This amounts to essentially buying points for less than 1 cent per point once they are transferred out for a high-value redemption.

3. Stacking with Gift Cards

For everyday spending categories that don’t traditionally earn high rewards, users can purchase Mastercard or Visa gift cards through the Rove shopping portal. This purchase can earn north of 3x Rove Miles, which are stacked on top of the points earned by the credit card used to buy the gift card. This offers a floor rate of earning 3.2x Rove Miles on purchases, effectively allowing users to earn Rove Miles on almost anything they buy.

4. Rove Launches Loyalty Eligible Hotel Bookings

Rove just launched a booking option allowing you to:

• Earn your hotel points, including fan-favorites such as World of Hyatt, Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, and IHG One Rewards.

• Enjoy the benefits of elite status, including complementary breakfast, suite upgrades, and late check-out.

• Earn Rove Miles for every dollar you spend on your hotel bookings. These can then be transferred to 12 different hotel and airline partners or redeemed directly with Rove.

• Use your credit card to earn even more rewards for your hotel stays.

• Accrue additional elite nights contributing towards your loyalty status.

You will most likely be rewarded with fewer Rove Miles if you choose this option, however, you will be able to stack Rove Miles with the points you earn from your loyalty program, making this an excellent way to double or triple dip (if you also leverage your credit card points system).

Sample search for Madrid for December 2025 using the “loyalty eligible hotels” search feature

Sweet Spots in Action: Real-World Redemption Examples

Rove Miles are most effectively used when leveraging partner airline sweet spots for high cents-per-mile redemptions, particularly in premium cabins.

A. Domestic US Flights via Air India

Air India, a Star Alliance partner, offers a fantastic way to book domestic United flights. By transferring Rove Miles 1:1 to Air India Maharaja Club, you can access favorable distance-based pricing.

• The Deal: A flight from Denver to Chicago in United Economy class can cost as little as 5,500 points when booked through Air India. Similarly, a one-way economy flight from New York to San Francisco requires 13,500 points (or 27,000 in business class). This represents significant savings compared to booking directly with United MileagePlus or other Star Alliance partners. Generating 5,500 miles is relatively easy with Rove.

B. Affordable Business Class to Asia via Thai Airways

If traveling between Thailand and the Asia Pacific region, transferring Rove Miles to Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus offers major savings compared to using other partner programs.

• The Deal: A one-way business class flight from Bangkok (BKK) to Perth (PER), a 7-hour lay-flat flight, might cost 90,000 points if booked using United miles. However, by transferring Rove Miles instantly 1:1 to Thai Airways, the same flight costs only 47,500 points per person one way. This redemption saves nearly half the points required.

C. Transatlantic Business Class via Flying Blue or Turkish Airlines

Rove opens up access to prized transatlantic sweet spots.

• Turkish Airlines (Istanbul): Business class flights into Istanbul (IST) are considered a sweet spot, pricing out around 65,000 miles per person one way. Turkish Airlines is lauded for having one of the best business class products and catering in the sky.

• Flying Blue (Europe): Alternatively, you can transfer Rove Miles to Air France-KLM Flying Blue to book business-class flights to Europe starting from just 60,000 miles. In one example, a New York to Paris business class flight was available for 60,000 miles, yielding a redemption value of 12 cents per point.

D. Value-Focused Flights to Asia via Cathay Pacific

For travelers focused on getting to Asia using as few points as possible, Cathay Pacific is a strong option.

• Economy Deal: Transferring Rove Miles to Cathay Pacific can unlock very affordable economy flights. For instance, flying one-way in economy from San Francisco through Hong Kong into Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, costs only 38,000 miles.

• Premium Economy Deal: The premium economy product is also affordable; the same route from San Francisco to Kuala Lumpur costs 75,000 miles.

• Business Class Deal: Even long-haul direct business class flights, such as Dallas to Hong Kong, are bookable for 115,000 points through Cathay Pacific after transferring Rove Miles.

By focusing on generating points quickly through high-multiplier hotel bookings and leveraging these specific partner sweet spots, Rove Miles allows savvy travelers to achieve massive savings on international premium travel, proving that high-value miles are no longer exclusive to those with specialized credit cards.

What are some of the risks and potential downsides of using Rove Miles?

The Rove Miles program presents a new and innovative way to earn transferable currency outside of traditional credit cards, but it comes with certain risks, limitations, and potential downsides, particularly concerning award availability and status recognition. Plus, it is a new company led by young entrepreneurs who are backed by venture capital so there is always a risk that the business model could be change quickly if money becomes tight or it is forced to sell.

From TechCrunch article May 7, 2025

Here are some of the potential risks and downsides of using Rove Miles:

1. Award Availability and Search Tools Limitations

It can be challenging to find and verify award availability, especially for high-value premium cabin redemptions:

• Reliance on Cached Data: Rove’s flight search utilizes cached data, which means the displayed deals are based on data that was seen recently. When searching for flight deals, users must still check that the deals still exist and that no one booked them just minutes prior, as the system is not searching the entire world and every airline live every time.

• Difficulty Confirming Niche Partner Availability: When attempting to utilize some unique transfer partners, the process of confirming award space can be difficult:

  • Vietnam Airlines Lotusmiles is not supported by common search aggregator tools like seats.aero or roam.travel. Furthermore, attempting to search for flights using miles on the Vietnam Airlines website requires additional verification for the account before redemption, making the process complex.

  • Lufthansa Miles & More places a frustrating restriction on users: you must have at least 1,500 miles in your account before you can see live award availability.

  • Searching for specific sweet spots, like domestic United business class flights bookable through the Air India Maharaja Club, can be challenging.

2. Non-refundable bookings generate the most points

The type of booking that generates the most Rove Miles and offers the highest earning multiplier is overwhelmingly non-refundable hotel stays. This earning method is considered “particularly lucrative” and a powerful source of miles because Rove gives back all of the high affiliate commission it earns from hotel partners directly to the user as miles. However, with higher rewards comes more risks to you as the traveler:

1. Total Loss of Funds Due to Unforeseen Circumstances - A nonrefundable booking is a contract: you get a discount in exchange for giving up your right to a refund. If you cancel, the hotel keeps 100% of your payment.

2. Inability to Benefit from Price Drops - Hotel rates are dynamic and often fluctuate. If you book a refundable rate and the price drops after your booking, you can usually cancel and immediately rebook at the lower price

3. No Leverage for Unsatisfactory Stay - Since you pre-paid in full for a nonrefundable room, the hotel already has your money before you even arrive.

3. Loss of Hotel Status Benefits

If you don’t use the Loyalty Eligible Stays option, booking hotels through Rove can be lucrative for earning miles (sometimes up to 70 points per dollar), but it can be a little trickier with hotel loyalty benefits:

• Third-Party Booking Status: When a hotel with its own loyalty program (like Marriott) is booked through Rove not using the Loyalty Eligible Stays option, it is considered a third-party booking (OTA). The hotel knows if the booking was made via Rove versus their own Bonvoy app, for instance.

• Status Benefits Not Honored: Because Rove operates as an OTA, they might not honor any of your status benefits (such as complementary upgrades, late checkouts, or earning elite stay credit). Travelers with elite status should be aware they might “lose out on” status benefits, although this can vary by hotel chain.

• Lack of Premium Perks: Rove currently does not offer a specific “perk” or have a “fine hotels and resorts collection type of equivalent” (like free breakfast or food and beverage credits) often seen when booking through high-end credit card portals like American Express. Rove intentionally avoids subsidizing these benefits, prioritizing giving the maximum amount of commission back to the user as miles instead.

4. Limited Redemption Value for Flexible Uses

To achieve the program’s highest valuations (up to 6 cents per mile), Rove Miles must be transferred and redeemed for premium flights. Using the miles for other purposes yields significantly less value:

• You will generally get less value when redeeming Rove Miles for things such as cash-back or gift cards.

• While Rove Miles can be used for hotels, the value obtained often caps around 2.2 cents per mile, and they will not reach the high redemption values (like 12 CPM) seen with premium airline redemptions.

5. Program Immaturity and Missing Features

As a new loyalty program launched in 2025, Rove is still getting up and running efficiently:

• Some planned features, such as the ability to earn Rove Miles on dining and private jets, are not available yet.

• The website is a little clunky with way too many hotel filters (810!) to make that feature too useful…. Unless you are looking for farming classes, birdwatching nearby or on site, or area rugs in public areas.

So, Is It Worth It?

For us: Yes.

We’re already using Rove Miles—mainly through the shopping portal—and expect to try hotel bookings in the future. But we’re not planning to hoard miles. Because Rove is new, we prefer earning and redeeming quickly.

If you want to try it, using this link will get you 500 free miles: rovemiles.com

Have you used Rove Miles yet? Share your experiences in the comments—we’d love to hear how it’s working for you.

Luckily, we are in a super comfortable apartment located in Yokohama’s Chinatown, so we have loads of amazingly delicious options for various forms of chicken soup (with noodles, with vegetables, with dumplings, inside of dumplings, and all of the above in one bowl) right outside of our door.

The ‘Why’ Behind Our Global Health Strategy

We are deeply committed to prioritizing our health and staying as proactive as possible. We both have parents who died too young and experienced serious health issues, some of which could have been prevented or delayed if they had been caught earlier. This commitment is one of the key reasons we decided to embrace the nomad life and get the most out of our retirement years.

Comprehensive aka Executive Health Check-ups are something we plan to do about once a year. And there is no shortage of great options around the world at a very reasonable cost, especially compared to the US. Our friends Chris and Steve from Eat Walk Learn on Substack have a great YouTube video on their experience getting screened in Fethiye, Turkey last year. And we’ve done a kind of DIY approach in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where our last two rounds cost between $250-$350 each, covering all the basics.

Establishing a Health Hub in Southeast Asia

We decided to focus our research on Thailand and Malaysia because we’re interested in establishing a long-term health “hub” in Southeast Asia, similar to what we’ve done in Mexico.

After watching many hours of YouTube videos and talking to other retired and digital nomads with first-hand experience in medical tourism, we decided to start first with Chiang Mai, Thailand. Check out our friends Judy and Kevin from Finding Gina Marie who had a great experience there last year which they shared in this video.

Chiang Mai offers excellent and reasonably priced healthcare, a vibrant local and international community, and we plan to be there the longest on our upcoming itinerary. This gives us plenty of time for any follow-up appointments we may need. We still haven’t decided on which hospital to use, but we are happy to share our research with you.

What is a Comprehensive Health Screening?

A full “Executive” or “Comprehensive” health screening package is designed to give you a full snapshot of your current health. It typically includes the following core components, with higher-priced packages adding more advanced imaging and specialist consultations:

Executive packages are often categorized by age (e.g., under 40, 40-50, 50+) and gender, as health risks change with age. Remember, advanced tests like MRI/MRA, Colonoscopy, or CT Angiography are typically optional add-ons to a core package and will significantly increase the final cost.

Comparing Top Health Screening Options: Thailand vs. Malaysia

The hospitals listed below are all widely known in Medical Tourism circles and hold Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation—a global benchmark for quality patient care.

Want more global health services research?

The Global Health Reviews Facebook group members offer a ton of helpful first-hand information on personal experiences with these kinds of health services and much more. If you are an expat, nomad, or simply a traveler who may take advantage of medical tourism, this group is worth checking out.

If there’s enough interest from our readers, we will be happy to report back and share about our final hospital choice and the full screening experience when we visit Chiang Mai.

Have you pursued medical tourism or a comprehensive health screening anywhere around the world? We would love to know about your experiences. Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

For a brief moment, U.S. fliers were on track to join travelers in places like Europe and Canada, where cash payouts and covered expenses are standard when airlines cancel or delay flights for reasons deemed within their control: for example, mechanical issues, staffing shortages, or system outages. A rule finalized in the last months of then President Joe Biden’s administration would have required airlines to pay cash—$200 to $775, depending on whether the delay was three hours or longer—plus cover meals and hotel rooms when delays or cancellations were the carrier’s fault. It was a sweeping protection modeled after Europe’s compensation system, long considered the gold standard for passenger rights.

Now that safeguard is on track to be dismantled. The Trump administration has stated that it plans to roll back the rule entirely, citing regulatory overreach and the need to stick only to requirements mandated by Congress. The move will put the United States back where it started: with airlines largely deciding for themselves what, if anything, to offer travelers when disruptions strike.

For now, U.S. passengers are left with:

• Refunds for canceled flights: This requirement still stands, though travelers may need to contact the airlines to ensure that the reimbursement is processed.

• Credit card travel protections or third-party travel insurance: When the airlines won’t cover costs incurred from flight delays or cancellations, travelers should investigate the options they have through their credit card or through the travel insurance they purchased.

Our original post below has been edited to reflect the new rollback.

Whenever we are traveling and things don’t go according to plan, I always think “what the heck did I do with that amazing article, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, etc that told me what I should do next and what my rights are?” So, I decided to collect as much info as possible in this post for you!

Since this is a long one, here’s what this post covers to make it easier to scroll to what you need when you need it:

Air Passenger Rights in the United States (updated as of September 2025)

Air Passenger Rights in the European Union and United Kingdom

Air Passenger Rights in Canada

When you can’t get flight issues resolved on your own, there are services that can help for a fee

Understanding your rights as an air passenger can help reduce stress and ensure that you’re compensated when things go wrong. Whether you’re dealing with flight cancellations, delays, overbooked flights, or mishandled baggage, these regulations offer more protections and transparency for travelers. By staying informed and proactive, you can make sure your travel experience is as smooth as possible—even when things don’t go according to plan. In this post, we strive to offer the latest rights available to passengers on carriers or locations in the US, UK, Europe, and Canada. Other countries also offer some protections under their own rules or the Montreal Convention, but we aren’t covering those here, since most of our subscribers are based in North America or Europe. But we do offer links to services that can help you resolve your travel issues with airlines, no matter where you or they are. Note, we’ve included as much information here as you might need in an emergency during a flight delay or cancellation. Actual policies may offer additional information or benefits, so be sure to check links provided below as needed:

Air Passenger Rights in the United States

Traveling by air can be stressful, and knowing your rights as a passenger can make a big difference when things go wrong. As of October 28, 2024, passengers are entitled to automatic refunds for flights that are canceled, significantly delayed, or experience a “significant change” for any reason—including “uncontrollable” factors such as weather. This applies only if alternative transportation or travel vouchers aren’t available or are rejected by the passenger. That’s the key condition. If an airline is able to book you on another flight—on the same day or even the next—and you accept it, then the new rules don’t apply. But if you refuse the rebooking, then you are entitled to the automatic refund. Here’s a breakdown of the key changes and your rights when traveling by air to, from, or in the U.S.

The best way to ensure you are protected is to purchase travel insurance and/or to purchase your trip with a credit card that offers travel insurance and protections. See this article from Nerd Wallet from July 2025 with the credit cards that offer the best protections.

1. Automatic Refunds for Cancellations and Significant Delays

The new rules require airlines to automatically refund passengers for cancellations or significant delays. Here’s how it works:

• Domestic Flights: If your flight is canceled or delayed by more than 3 hours, you’re entitled to a full refund.

• International Flights: For international travel, the delay must be longer than 6 hours for a refund to be issued.

This rule applies to all flights to, from, and within the U.S., whether operated by domestic or foreign carriers. Even if you purchased a non-refundable basic economy ticket, you’re still entitled to a cash refund if the airline cancels the flight.

What constitutes a significant delay or change?
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) defines a “significant change” that qualifies for a refund. These include:

• Changes to departure or arrival times of more than 3 hours for domestic flights, or 6 hours for international flights.

• Departure or arrival from a different airport.

• Increased number of connections or significant changes to the accessibility of connections, particularly for disabled passengers.

• Downgrades in service class (e.g., from business to economy).

Refunds must be issued automatically and promptly—within 7 business days for credit card payments and 20 calendar days for other payment methods.

2. What If the Airline Cancels Your Flight and Can’t Rebook You?

If your flight is canceled and the airline can’t offer an alternative flight check with teh airline’s policy to see if you are entitled to a refund. For large carriers with extensive route networks, rebooking options are often available, but budget airlines (like Avelo or Breeze) may have fewer alternatives. If you’re willing to fly to a nearby airport, such as changing your destination from Portland, Maine, to Boston, you can request this accommodation. However, if no replacement flight is available, a full refund is your right.

3. Compensation for Overbooked Flights

While it’s rare to be involuntarily bumped from a flight, overbooking can still happen. Airlines will first ask for volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for compensation, which could include travel vouchers, food, and lodging if necessary. The more flexible you are, the higher the compensation. If you’re involuntarily bumped, compensation is based on the length of the delay:

• Domestic Flights:

  • 0–1 hour delay: No compensation.

  • 1–2 hours delay: 2x the one-way fare (up to $775).

  • 2+ hours delay: 4x the one-way fare (up to $1,550).

• International Flights:

  • 0–1 hour delay: No compensation.

  • 1–4 hours delay: 2x the one-way fare (up to $775).

  • 4+ hours delay: 4x the one-way fare (up to $1,550).

Airlines decide who gets bumped based on factors like frequent flyer status, fare class, and check-in time. Premium passengers and those with higher fares are typically less likely to be bumped.

4. The 24-Hour Rule

Did you know that under federal law, you can cancel a flight or change it without penalty within 24 hours of booking? This applies as long as the flight:

• Is booked directly with the airline.

• Is at least 7 days before the departure date.

• Originates in or goes to the U.S.

This rule is helpful for securing the lowest fares or locking in a great deal without fear of being stuck with a higher-priced ticket.

Exceptions to the 24-Hour Rule:

• Flights booked through third-party sites like Expedia, American Express, Chase, etc may not be eligible.

• Flights booked within 7 days of travel or not originating in the U.S.

To take advantage of the 24-hour rule, ensure you book a new flight at the best price before canceling the old one. This way, you avoid missing out on the deal.

5. Refunds for Late Baggage

For some airlines (like Delta), if your checked bag is delayed, you can now claim a refund for any baggage fees. Be sure to check your airline to understand their policies. The timeline for filing a claim is:

• Domestic Flights: If your bag isn’t delivered within 12 hours.

• International Flights: A bit longer—between 15 to 30 hours, depending on the flight’s length.

To file a claim, visit the airline’s baggage office at the airport and request a “Property Irregularity Report” (PIR), which you’ll need to complete the claim online.

6. Refunds for In-Flight Services You Didn’t Receive

If you pay for add-ons like in-flight Wi-Fi, seat selection, or entertainment, but these services are not provided, you are entitled to a refund for those charges. Airlines are now required to issue these refunds automatically if the service you paid for is unavailable.

7. Sick or Unable to Travel?

If you haven’t purchased travel insurance to cover this kind of trip disruption, check the credit card you used to pay for your trip to see what kind of coverage they may offer.

If a serious communicable disease (such as COVID-19) prevents you from traveling, the new regulations offer additional protections. If advised by a medical professional or government authority not to travel, airlines must issue travel vouchers or credits valid for at least five years. Passengers may need to provide documentation, such as a doctor’s note, to qualify for this compensation.

8. Fee Transparency and Bait-and-Switch Protections

Airlines are now required to provide upfront disclosures of additional fees and charges before booking. This includes mandatory explanations of any extra costs, such as checked baggage, seat selection, or in-flight services. Additionally, airlines must stop misleading advertising practices, where they promote low fares without disclosing the full costs. Moreover, passengers are now guaranteed that their seat will be honored once a ticket is issued—eliminating practices where airlines advertised one fare but charged hidden fees that made the trip more expensive than advertised.

9. What to Do If Your Airline Isn’t Following the Rules

If you believe an airline isn’t following the new refund or compensation rules, you can file a consumer complaint with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Airlines are now required to notify passengers of their rights, including refund eligibility in case of delays or cancellations, so always be aware of your options.

Air Passenger Rights in the European Union and United Kingdom

The EU and UK have strong regulations in place to protect air passengers, ensuring that travelers are fairly compensated and treated with dignity when disruptions occur. These protections stem from Regulation EC 261/2004 (commonly known as EU261), which was established in 2004 by the European Parliament and Council. For the UK, the equivalent of EU261 is the Air Passenger Rights and Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019, which applies to flights departing from or arriving in the UK.

Here’s what you need to know about air passenger rights when flying in the EU and UK, including when you’re eligible for compensation and what kind of treatment you’re entitled to during disruptions.

EU261 applies to flights within the 27 EU countries and several additional territories:

• EU Countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.

• Other Territories: Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Réunion Island, Mayotte, St. Martin (French Antilles), the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland. (The Faroe Islands, Isle of Man, and Channel Islands are not covered.)

When Are You Covered?

You are eligible for protections in the following scenarios:

1. EU or UK Carrier: If your flight is operated by an EU or UK airline.

2. Non-EU Airline Departing from the EU or UK: If your flight is operated by a non-EU airline but departs from the EU or UK.

However, if your flight is operated by a non-EU or non-UK carrier departing from a non-EU country, EU261 protections do not apply. For example, if you’re flying from a non-EU country like the U.S. with a non-EU airline, you will not have EU261 protections.

Compensation for Delays and Cancellations

Under the regulations, you’re entitled to compensation in certain situations, especially when a flight is delayed or canceled. The compensation depends on the length of the delay and the distance of the flight.

Delayed Flights

If your flight is delayed by more than 3 hours upon arrival, you could be entitled to compensation. The amount varies based on the flight’s distance:

• Up to 1,500 km: €250

• Between 1,500 km and 3,500 km (within the EU): €400

• Over 3,500 km: €600

Cancelled Flights

If your flight is canceled, you may be entitled to:

• A full refund of your ticket price.

• Compensation if the airline is at fault and the cancellation occurs within 14 days of the scheduled departure.

Passenger Rights Beyond Compensation

EU261 also guarantees several other rights, including assistance, care, and information, which are designed to minimize the inconvenience caused by disruptions. These rights apply to passengers in cases of delays, cancellations, and when they are denied boarding.

1. Obligation to Inform Passengers of Their Rights

Airlines are required to inform passengers of their rights. This includes displaying information at check-in counters at all airports where they operate. Additionally, you can always refer to the full text of the regulation if you need more detailed information.

2. Right to Reimbursement or Re-routing

If your flight is delayed by more than 5 hours, you have the right to:

• A full refund for the unused portion of your ticket.

• A return flight to your point of departure if the delay occurs while you’re en route.

3. Right to Care

Airlines are required to provide care during extended delays. This includes:

• Meals and refreshments: Provided based on the length of the delay.

• Communication access: Two phone calls, telex or fax messages, or emails.

• Accommodation: If the delay requires an overnight stay, airlines must provide hotel accommodations and transport to and from the airport.

4. Upgrading or Downgrading

If you are rebooked on a flight in a higher class than the one you originally booked, you won’t be charged any extra. However, if you’re rebooked in a lower class, you’re entitled to a partial reimbursement:

• 30% of the ticket price for flights up to 1,500 km.

• 50% of the ticket price for flights over 1,500 km within the EU and for flights between 1,500 and 3,500 km outside the EU.

• 75% of the ticket price for flights over 3,500 km outside the EU.

5. Further Compensation

In some cases, you may be entitled to additional compensation beyond what EU261 provides, particularly if the airline’s service was exceptionally poor or you experienced other hardships. This doesn’t apply if you voluntarily gave up your seat on an overbooked flight.

Time Limits to File an EU261 Claim

It’s important to know that the right to compensation under EU261 has time limits. These limits vary depending on the country and where the airline’s headquarters is located, rather than your nationality. The statute of limitations ranges from 2 to 6 years, depending on the jurisdiction. If you are unsure about the time limit for filing your claim, you can check the details on the airline’s website or consult the specific laws of the country where the airline is based. You can find a full list of countries and their time limits here.

What About Codeshare Flights?

Many travelers book flights through codeshare agreements, where you purchase a ticket with one airline, but the flight is operated by a partner carrier. For example, you might book a flight through Delta Airlines but fly on a KLM-operated flight. In these cases, the airline that operates the flight is responsible for adhering to EU261, not the airline from which you purchased the ticket. This means:

• If your flight is operated by KLM, and you bought your ticket from Delta, you would still be covered by EU261.

• If the flight is operated by Delta, even though you booked with Air France, you wouldn’t be covered by EU261, unless you’re flying from the EU or UK.

How to File an EU or UK Claim

To claim compensation, you need to have a valid ticket and booking confirmation. This applies whether you booked a revenue ticket or used frequent flyer miles. However, free or reduced fares not available to the public are excluded from compensation.

Here’s how to file a claim:

1. Check Eligibility: Ensure your flight meets the criteria for compensation (e.g., more than 3 hours delayed or canceled less than 14 days before departure).

2. Gather Documentation: You’ll need to provide your boarding pass, ticket information, and a description of the disruption.

3. Submit a Claim: Airlines typically allow claims via their website, email, or even through a paper form. Check the airline’s site for instructions on submitting your claim.

Airlines are often slow to respond, and it may take several weeks or even months to hear back. If you don’t receive a response, or the airline refuses to compensate you, you can escalate the issue by filing a complaint with the relevant national enforcement body or using an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) service.

Air Passenger Rights in Canada

In Canada, air passenger rights are governed by a combination of regulations designed to protect travelers in the event of flight disruptions, such as delays, cancellations, denied boarding, and issues with baggage. The Air Passenger Protection Regulations (APPR), which were finalized by the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) on May 24, 2019, outline the minimum standards airlines must meet. These regulations cover flights to, from, and within Canada, including connecting flights. Airlines must also adhere to other international conventions, such as the Montreal Convention, and their own terms and conditions, which are detailed in their Tariff (the contract between the passenger and the airline when purchasing a ticket). The APPR ensures that passengers are treated fairly, compensated appropriately, and provided with adequate services in case of disruptions.

Situations Within and Outside Airline Control

Understanding the nature of flight disruptions is crucial in determining which rights apply. Here’s a breakdown of situations that airlines must address:

1. Situations Within Airline Control:

   • Commercial overbooking (selling more tickets than available seats).

   • Scheduled maintenance to ensure legal compliance.

   • Mechanical malfunctions identified during scheduled maintenance (not emergencies).

2. Situations Within Airline Control but Required for Safety:

   • Unforeseen events that are legally required to reduce safety risks, such as mechanical problems or pilot decisions made under the airline’s Safety Management System.

3. Situations Outside Airline Control:

   • Natural disasters, meteorological conditions, political instability, illegal acts, security threats, air traffic control instructions, medical emergencies, wildlife collisions, airport operation issues, labor disruptions, manufacturing defects, and more.

   • These disruptions are typically outside the airline’s control and do not require compensation.

Flight Cancellations and Delays (3+ Hours)

Airlines are required to compensate passengers for cancellations or delays of 3 hours or more when the disruption is within the airline’s control (except for safety reasons). Compensation applies if the airline fails to notify passengers about the disruption at least 14 days in advance. For smaller airlines, passengers are entitled to at least $125 CAD for cancellations or delays in these circumstances, even if they choose a refund instead of rebooking.

Passenger Rights in the Event of a Disruption

When a disruption occurs, airlines must:

• Inform passengers about their rights and available remedies.

• Provide the reason for the disruption.

• Give regular updates during delays.

Involuntary Denied Boarding Compensation

If passengers are involuntarily denied boarding (e.g., due to overbooking or aircraft changes), airlines must provide compensation based on the length of the delay upon arrival at the final destination.

Compensation for Denied Boarding (In Airline’s Control)

Length of Delay

0-6 hours $900

6-9 hours $1,800

9+ hours $2,400

Airlines must offer compensation at the time passengers are notified of denied boarding. If a delay exceeds the initial compensation timeframe, the airline must supplement the payment accordingly. If payment cannot be made before the new departure time, the airline has 48 hours to provide compensation.

Airlines are also required to rebook passengers free of charge, providing the same treatment as for flight delays or cancellations.

Flight Disruptions – Compensation and Standards of Treatment

When a flight is disrupted, airlines must compensate passengers and provide certain standards of treatment.

Compensation for Delays or Cancellations in Airline’s Control (Not Safety-Related):

Length of Delay

3-6 hours $400

6-9 hours $700

9+ hours $1,000

For small airlines, the compensation is reduced:

Length of Delay

3-6 hours $125

6-9 hours $250

9+ hours $500

Claim Time Limits:

• Passengers have one year to file a compensation claim with the airline.

• Airlines have 30 days to respond to claims by either issuing payment or explaining why compensation is not owed.

• Airlines must offer compensation in monetary form but can offer vouchers or rebates if they are of higher value than the required monetary compensation and do not expire.

Minimum Standards of Treatment

Airlines must provide passengers with basic amenities if there are delays within their control or delays related to safety. These include:

• Food and drink in reasonable quantities after 2 hours of delay.

• Communication access (e.g., free Wi-Fi or phone calls).

• Accommodation (hotel or similar) and transportation if passengers need to stay overnight due to delays.

Rebooking and Refunds

When a flight is delayed or canceled, airlines must rebook passengers on the next available flight or provide alternative travel arrangements. Rebooking and refund policies depend on the nature of the disruption:

1. If the disruption is within the airline’s control (not safety-related):

   • The airline must rebook the passenger on the next available flight.

   • If no flight is available within 9 hours of the original departure time, the airline must book a seat on a competing airline.

2. If the disruption is outside the airline’s control (e.g., weather, strikes):

   • Large airlines must rebook passengers on another airline if the next available flight is more than 48 hours away.

   • If no seat is available at the original airport, the airline must rebook passengers at a nearby airport.

Refunds:

Passengers can request a refund instead of rebooking if:

• The offered arrangements do not meet their travel needs.

• The purpose of the travel is no longer valid due to the disruption.

For disruptions within the airline’s control but not related to safety, if the passenger opts for a refund, compensation is still owed. Large airlines must pay $400, and small airlines must pay $125 for the inconvenience.

Tarmac Delays

Tarmac delays are broken into two categories:

1. At departure: The delay begins after the aircraft doors are closed.

2. At arrival: The delay begins after the aircraft lands.

During a tarmac delay, airlines must provide:

• Working lavatories and proper ventilation (heating or cooling).

• Food and drink (reasonable quantities).

• Communication access (free of charge if feasible).

If the tarmac delay exceeds 3 hours at a Canadian airport, the airline must return to the gate, allowing passengers to disembark. However, the airline is allowed an additional 45 minutes if there is a reasonable chance the flight will take off within that time.

Lost, Damaged, or Delayed Baggage

Under the Montreal Convention, airlines can be held liable for baggage that is lost, delayed, or damaged during international travel. Compensation is limited to $2,350 CAD (subject to exchange rates).

Claim Deadlines:

• 7 days for damaged baggage.

• 21 days for delayed baggage (international flights).

• As soon as possible for lost baggage or delayed baggage (domestic flights).

Failure to file a claim within these timeframes may result in the airline rejecting your claim.

When you can’t get flight issues resolved on your own, there are services that can help for a fee

There are third-party companies, like the ones listed below, that will handle your claim application for you for a percentage of the amount owed (typically, 15%-25%):

• Yource - in addition to their claim services, you can check their claim calculator here to estimate what your payout might be.

• Airhelp - a friend pays $25 per year for Airhelp payout and luggage insurance since they spend most of their time in the EU.

• EUclaim

• Flightright

Did I miss anything? Please let us know! And happy flying!