More Bad Flight News

Since this newsletter comes out weekly, lately I feel like each issue has worse airline industry news. After rising flight prices, fuel charges, and baggage fees, now we’ve got the EU warning they’ll run out of jet fuel before the summer and airlines are canceling flights to conserve what they have. If you can postpone a long trip abroad until after this war is over, that might not be a bad idea. Otherwise, 1) book asap before prices go up again, 2) always pay with a credit card so you have recourse and 3) don’t even think of heading to an airport without having good travel insurance in place that covers delays and cancellations. Oh, and avoid Spirit Airlines.

Not Too Cool for Compression Socks

If you are taking a long flight soon, don’t forget your compression socks. While there are plenty of health claims out there that seem overblown or unsubstantiated, that’s not the case with the risk of deep vein thrombosis on long flights. Compression socks can make a big difference in ensuring that you don’t walk off with swollen ankles or far worse, like blood clots. Mine are from Under Armour, but I doubt the particular brand matters much if they work. Go to this Amazon page and you’ll find 100+ choices in different materials, styles, and colors.

Google Search Hacks for Pros

The average person probably only knows one or two of the tricks for better internet searches outlined in this excellent Secret Reference Desk article from Card Catalog (on Substack). Did you know you can just type “run speed test” in the search bar instead of opening an app to check the Wi-Fi speed? Or that you can just enter a flight number to see the status? Some of the others aren’t so easy to remember, but you can use a minus sign (as in “-AI” to get results not scraped from working writers’ works or an asterisk when you’re not sure what a missing word should be). To get exact results instead of what Google thinks you want, use the verbatim pull-down or put it in quotation marks. Found via Curious About Everything.

In Praise of City Bike Tours

I do a lot of walking tours in city centers, the “free” ones and the paid kind, but there’s a limit to how much you can cover on foot and some cities are too spread-out for this to be ideal. It’s often preferable to take a bike or e-bike tour in order to cover more ground and get more variety in the stops. I’ve done these in locations as diverse as Buenos Aires, Paris, Rome, Lima, and Quebec City. I recently added stateside Richmond, Virginia to my experiences. To see my article on getting around this important historic city (with two craft beer stops in the mix), see my biking article here on the Perceptive Travel blog.

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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.

04/30/26