Better Eye Mask/Cheap Hotel Chains Rated/European Work Hours
Nomadico Issue #116
A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.
Wraparound Eye Mask for Sleeping
I sleep like a rock but my wife doesn’t. She ordered this soft wraparound eye mask a few weeks ago and has been thrilled with it. It stays on at night no matter how much she tosses and turns and it completely blocks out any light from the windows or items in the room. It attaches in the back with Velcro so it can pack down flat when you travel.
The Best Cheap Hotel Brands in the USA
While many of the cheaper hotel rooms around the world are independent ones, in the USA the corporate chains dominate. So each year I do a post on which brands fare the best in the J.D. Power and Associates annual survey. (It’s also a good barometer for the public mood about price vs. value.) The short answers for the bottom three categories are Woodspring Suites, Microtel by Wyndham, and Tru by Hilton. But here’s the full rundown, just updated: best cheap hotel chains in the USA.
European Work Hours
It’s not your imagination: those Dutch office workers you keep getting an out-of-office reply from do get far more vacation time and they work fewer hours when they’re not on vacation. The poorer countries of Europe work more hours, while the richer ones work less, making the U.S. workaholic culture look even more puzzling. The only countries averaging more than 40 hours are Bosnia, Serbia, and Turkey. This map shows the average hours worked in a week, with the Netherlands winning the gold medal at 32 hours per week. But hey, they brought us Heineken and Booking.com.
Finding a Good Travel Companion
If your spouse is not your ideal travel companion, too bad. But if you have a choice in the matter of who you’re going to take that big trip with, you might want to check out this evergreen article on finding the ideal travel companion, which may not be the same as your ideal best friend. The four attributes include one that may rule out a portion of the people you know: “They’re flexible and willing to compromise.”
Free Audiobooks, Take 2
A quick bonus item this week because the free audiobook link for public domain books I sent last week had some sneaky charges for many books. Turns out they’re just a skin using data from Gutenberg.org, which is where you should go instead. Click here and scroll down to find audiobooks. (They will, of course, welcome donations.)
08/8/24
