Recorded in the beautiful home office Chateau’Relaxo, FL.
Around this time each year I add up the year's travel numbers, thank you free version of TripIt.
2022 - 20 Trips, 69 Days & 26,357 Miles
2021 - 11 Trips, 28 Days & 12.173 Miles.
2016 - 51 Trips, 248 Days & 75,280 Miles.
I’ve been using TripIt since 2010. It’s excellent at organizing and managing my trips but another nice feature is that it keeps a tally of my yearly travel stats in one easily accessible table.
The best trip of the year was a 4-day stay in San Antonio Texas. I was born in Dallas and have lived there twice, but San Antonio was one of those Texas cities that I had never been to.
The highlight of the trip was an evening at Knibbe Ranch. Knibbe offers activities such as armadillo races and live music. On our visit, we had the chance to watch a rodeo. Think Yellowstone minus John Dalton but with at least a ½ dozen Rips wandering around.
In the early part of the year masks were still being required on a plane by mid-year there were more maskless passengers than there were masked passengers.By late year the monthly crazy travel roundup was void of all the maskers vs. anti-vaxxer altercations. 2022 was another year of changes.
This year I did take more road trips than normal, and on some of these road trips I would’ve gotten on a plane had COVID never happened.
There was one travel first in 2022. This was the first year in 22 years of business travel that I didn’t rent a car. Be it for business or personnel trips, not a single rental. Thank you Uber and hotel shuttles.
To sum up my 2022 travel experience I would conservatively say that things are back to normal or as normal as it’s going to get. Short of no daily housekeeping I see very few COVID remnants. Honestly, the hospitality industry will ride out no daily housekeeping as long as they can or until travelers revolt.
Because I am a data nerd here are some Travel Stories podcast updates according to Spotify.
This year Travel Stories produced 390 minutes of new content. This was 80% more than any of the other creators in the Society and Culture Spotify category.
The most listened-to episode was My Travel Regrets from May.
During 2022 Travel Stories was heard in 32 different countries. America is number and India is number two.
Listeners grew by 66%
Followers grew by 129%
Ending with Travel Stories being a top 10 podcast for 139 of my followers.
To some those numbers look great, and I appreciate all listeners, new as well as old but Travel Stories is nothing more than my outlet and not a revenue stream. That being said Thank You for listening.
In addition to being a data nerd, I’m also a beer nerd. I use Untappd to not only track my beers, but to help me discover new beers and new places where I can drink beer.
In 2022 I checked in 165 beers, in 2021 I checked in 114 beers.
In 2022 I tried 30 different styles of beer, down from 41 different beer styles in 2021.
My 2022 number-one style of beer? No surprise IPA.
My top beer from 2022 was Foster Lager, a total surprise
I drank beer from 64 unique breweries. The top three were New Belgium, Sweetwater, and Sierra Nevada
I checked in beers in 28 different locations.
Time to venture into the 2022 gift guide. Gift guides are some of my favorite episodes. Looking back the gift guides have evolved with the years.
In 2005 it was a battery-operated corded Sony device that got AM/FM plus TV and weather.
In 2012 it was Skull Candy earphones. 10 years later these are still my go-to earphones.
In 2019 it was the Patagonia Nano Puff Jacket
For returning listeners, my standard holiday gift list is still intact, feel free to indulge an old road warrior.
Rolex Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master II – steel bracelet and should run less than $11k.
1995 Land Rover Defender – I had a chance to buy one for $30k in 1995 and I’m still bent that I passed on it. You should be able to pick up a gently used one for less than $70k.
I am a total gear nerd. If something makes my life easier or condenses several items into one I am all ears.
Case and point I have bought no less than four Anker 3-in-1 cables in the past 18 months for residents of Chateau’ Relaxo. This single cable charges, Lightning, Type C, and Micro USB devices. Three cables condensed into one single cable, perfect for travel.
So what is on deck for the 2022 holiday gift guide? I went through my Amazon orders for 2022 and saw only one standout travel-related purchase. It was a soft-sided cooler bag. It wasn’t a $200.00 Yeti or a 4130.00 Rtic. It was a $30.00 Feti, which is code for fake Yeti. Honestly, it was a no-name brand that got a 4.6 rating on Amazon. I’ve taken more road trips this year than I have flights and it’s nice to throw a meal or two in the bag along with some beer as I head out the door.
With no major additions to my travel gear, it might be time to upgrade your road warrior's existing travel gear this year.
Upgrade that mobile charging station. Notice I said charging station and not charging block or knuckle. The days of carrying multiple adaptors to charge multiple devices are gone. For less than $150,00 you can buy a 5-in-1 charging station that will support 3 USB “C” connections for your laptops plus two additional ports for charging your phone.
Noise-canceling headphones. They aren’t cheap, but they're so nice to have. These aren’t your dad’s noise-canceling headphones because technology has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last few years. Here’s my advice, purchase wireless because on an airplane headphone wire managed to get hung up on everything. If you’re purchasing this for a road warrior that takes a lot of flights I advise you to stay away from noise-canceling earbuds. Yes, the noise-canceling in this small and lightweight earbud is amazing. However, it seems like every few flights that I’m on someone loses one of their earbuds, and I like treasure hunts as much as the next person but looking for a black earbud on the floor of a dark plane is a no-win proposition.
There are a few things I hold firm on when choosing gifts for a road warrior.
Consider not only the weight of the gift but also the size of the gift. Most road warriors pack deliberately, and giving them something that’s too large or too heavy for their suitcase will throw them off their game.
Unless you know the recipient really well or they have told you exactly what they want, avoid purchasing luggage, laptop bags, or DOP kits. Why? For me, my suitcase can’t have any dividers, my laptop bag has to have the right amount of pockets located in the correct location and while a hang-up DOP looks neat I can promise you that I’d never ever hang it up.
Is it TSA approved? Nothing worse than having that thoughtful gift confiscated in the TSA screening area.
Lastly, road warriors don’t need another aluminum tumbler. No matter how tempting it is to have their initials or favorite sports team logo engraved on the side…. Don’t do it, more than likely they already have 5 of them some of which already have their initials or favorite sports team logo on them already.
Several years ago we enacted a gift policy here at Chateau’ Relaxo. No blankets, no candles, and no tumblers can be given as a gift.
So what are a few gifts for the road warrior that are unique…. Glad you asked.
If you have someone that fishes how about a travel fishing rod?
Do they have a favorite podcast that offers a Patreon subscription for extra content?
For the cigar smoker in your life how about a nice cigar holder?
For the beer drinker, there are plenty of TSA-safe bottle openers. All road warriors know how to open a beer bottle on the handle of the dresser of the bathroom counter of a hotel room. However, nothing classes up an evening of hotel beers more than a nice opener.
Very few of us carry DSLR camera’s anymore because our phones do a great job of taking pictures. However a clip-on fish eye, macro, or wide-angle lens can take their picture to the next level. Think modern-day Ansel Adams or social media influencer wannabe.
This past year I bought the CEO a Portable White Noise Machine which she now packs on all her trips. And she traveled almost as much as I did this past year.
If the road warrior in your life is looking to begin the year on an exercise kick you can pick up a bodyweight suspension trainer starting at $60.00 all the way up to a TRX system for $200.00. These are both small enough and lightweight enough to fit in any piece of luggage.
If all else fails every road warrior appreciates a unique luggage tag.
For many road warriors, their work environment has changed drastically over the past few years. I think the new term is a hybrid worker. Personally, I think this is a stupid term but someone who is on a higher pay scale than me came up with it.
One of the things that I did when I began working from home more was to purchase dual monitors. If you’ve never used dual monitors they will instantly make you more efficient when you work. So efficient that once I began traveling again it was difficult to work off a single monitor, especially on video calls. Enter the Sidetrak monitor. The Sidetrak is an additional monitor that magnetically attaches to your laptop lid and allows you to have dual monitors. If you have a spare iPad you can accomplish the same thing with an app and a charging cable. Same with a Surface Pro, but my SideTrak was a gift from a non-technical person.
The other home office purchase was a $9.00 remote-controlled puck light that I turn on when I’m in a meeting or on a call. No more yelling across the house asking, “Are you in a meeting?” or someone walking into my office mid-sentence
While it’s not automated and tied to my Outlook calendar I also didn’t drop $100.00 on it. Now if I could only get the dogs to stop barking during meetings.
At a total loss for gifts, there is a movement towards social gifting and no this isn’t posting your gifts on social media sites. It’s where you purchase gifts from differently-abled crafters or makers that are struggling with autism, cancer, mental illness, and social isolation.
We recently made purchases from Two Blind Brothers, and their tagline is, “Would you buy something that you can't see? We did and we received a knit cap and one of the softest blankets on the planet, yes I know it violates one of the Chateau’ Relaxo gift rules, but we were buying blind.
And if all else fails put a Google on “Unique travel gifts”
There you have it episode 181, A combo episode of the travel stories year in review, and the 2022 gift guide.
If you want detailed show notes, links and pictures head over to podpage.com/travel-stories/
Or visit Substack at travelstories.substack.com/
You can also leave me a message on Anchor, or shoot me an email at TravelFrick@gmail.com.
As I always say, travel safe, stay safe, and thanks for listening.
The Travel Year In Review & The 2022 Gift Guide - Travel Stories, Episode 181