{"id":44090,"date":"2025-05-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=44090"},"modified":"2025-05-01T11:34:47","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T18:34:47","slug":"packable-usb-mic-flight-price-drops-global-travel-trends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/packable-usb-mic-flight-price-drops-global-travel-trends\/","title":{"rendered":"Packable USB Mic\/Flight Price Drops\/Global Travel Trends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>* Quick note from me: I\u2019ll be having a live Q&amp;A call on travel deals, living abroad, and the nomadic life for paid subscribers on May 20. If you\u2019d like to upgrade and join us, please do so before then (starting at $8 a month). More about&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/timleffel.com\/\">me and my work here<\/a>. &#8211; Tim Leffel<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>Travel-sized Laptop USB Mic<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I have a regular quality USB microphone for sounding good on podcast interviews and video calls, but it\u2019s another sizeable thing to carry around when traveling, especially with a carry-on. So I recently bought this\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/Apt2KN\">tiny gooseneck USB mic<\/a>\u00a0that fits in a little pocket-sized pouch and weighs next to nothing. At $17 it\u2019s not pro quality of course, but better than the built-in mic on most computers and it\u2019s easy to keep off-screen too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>Welcome Airline News<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Frequent travelers got two pieces of good news this week. First, Thailand flights&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.travelpulse.com\/news\/airlines-airports\/faa-upgrades-thailand-airline-safety-rating-opens-door-for-us-flights\">can now go direct<\/a>&nbsp;to and from the USA after meeting safety conditions, something that hasn\u2019t been possible for a decade. Second, one silver lining from the huge drop in visitors to the USA is that flight prices dropped 5% year-over-year in March and look to be down even more for April onward. This is a great time to look at every column when searching international fares. I just snagged one-way biz class seats from Tampa to Leon\/Guanajuato in Mexico for $425 in July, only $90 more than the worst economy ticket available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>Global Travel Trends<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This questioning part of this&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanexpress.com\/en-us\/travel\/discover\/get-inspired\/global-travel-trends\">travel trends survey from American Express<\/a>&nbsp;took place before all the negative disruptions in Washington DC started, but it\u2019s still an interesting look at what regular travelers around the world are thinking about (more meaningful souvenirs) and acting on (like stacking points and miles) for upcoming vacations. Looking at different age groups and how they travel, it dives into attitudes about social media, AI answers, traveling for events, and letting the kids choose a destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>100 Years of Solitude<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The best-known novel from Latin America is probably the Gabriel Garcia Marquez classic&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/gMg1P\">One Hundred Years of Solitude<\/a><\/em>, set in a mythical Colombian town in the 19th and early 20th centuries. If you found the 422 pages of \u201cmagic realism\u201d and a century\u2019s worth of characters hard to keep straight, I\u2019d highly recommend the recent 8-part miniseries on Netflix covering the first half of the book. (The rest is going into production now). Seeing the people on screen makes them much easier to track and the pacing feels just right. The cinematography is impressive too, mostly done within a purpose-built town that evolves through the ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/geni.us\/cbjyU?utm_campaign=Nomadico&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=Revue%20newsletter\" target=\"_blank\"><em>A Better Life for Half the Price<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>The World\u2019s Cheapest Destinations<\/em>. See\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/nomadico.substack.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">past editions here,<\/a>\u00a0where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nomadico issue #154<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[2385],"tags":[2386],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44090"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44090"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44091,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44090\/revisions\/44091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}