{"id":45292,"date":"2025-12-18T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=45292"},"modified":"2025-12-11T16:19:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T23:19:29","slug":"functional-traveler-gifts-tougher-italian-passport-cheaper-streaming-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/functional-traveler-gifts-tougher-italian-passport-cheaper-streaming-options\/","title":{"rendered":"Functional Traveler Gifts\/Tougher Italian Passport\/Cheaper Streaming Options"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2><strong>Useful Traveler Gifts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>At this time of year, publications are flooded with gift ideas, including ones supposedly for travelers that nobody boarding a plane will actually make room for. So each year I update this post on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cheapestdestinationsblog.com\/2024\/12\/15\/useful-traveler-gifts\/\">traveler gifts that will actually get used<\/a>. These are items I pack personally, ones I see other frequent fliers carrying, and new ones that deserve their space and weight. I tend to favor inexpensive, lightweight, and small items that solve a problem. These have a better chance of taking a trip with the recipient, not tossed into a storage area at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>Stricter Requirements for an Italian Passport<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>An Italian passport used to be one of the easiest ones to obtain for those who wanted a second one that came with EU movement freedom, but living<em>&nbsp;la dolce vita<\/em>&nbsp;is getting much tougher now. You must prove direct lineage no further back than a grandparent, speak Italian well enough to pass a proficiency exam, and live there already for three years to qualify.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.travelandleisure.com\/italy-citizenship-great-grandparents-requirement-changes-11708158\">See the details here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>Cheaper Streaming Abroad<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m going to add Apple TV at home after watching only part of&nbsp;<em>Severance<\/em>&nbsp;on a United flight, but I\u2019ll likely subscribe in Mexico where it\u2019s 28% cheaper than the USA. You can play this arbitrage game with most of the streaming services\u2014I once got HBO on sale for $5 a month. In Mexico you can get the highest tier of Netflix for the price of the middle tier stateside, a 39% monthly savings (with a better studio movie selection too). Shop around if moving around. In Turkey, for example, the highest tier of Netflix with 4K hi-def is less than US$10 per month. Try regional gift cards, signing up while in another country, or using a good VPN for the first transaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2><strong>A Long Walk Is Better Than Many Short Ones<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Good news for travelers: those mountain hikes and long walks across the city are better for your health than quick spins around the block. According to research in the&nbsp;<em>Annals of Internal Medicine&nbsp;<\/em>that measured step counts over eight years, \u201cPeople who walked in longer stretches had a lower risk of heart problems than those who walked in short bursts. Their risk of heart disease and death dropped significantly.\u201d I\u2019m linking to the explanatory&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cn0gw6p8dllo\">article from the BBC<\/a>&nbsp;since the source study\u2019s title will give you an idea of how dry their version is: \u201cStep Accumulation Patterns and Risk for Cardiovascular Events and Mortality Among Suboptimally Active Adults.\u201d<\/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 #184<\/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\/45292"}],"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=45292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45293,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45292\/revisions\/45293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}