Podcast #27 - Best of 2005

December 27th, 2005

Spent the holiday week digging through the TravelCommon archives and assembled a “Best of TravelCommons 2005″ episode. Starting with a medley of hotel bathrooms, we revisit some rants on the TSA, the 3-episode Sean Penn arc, and excerpts from some of the best stories of 2005. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file.

---

Here are the show notes from TravelCommons podcast #27:

• Intro music — Warmth by Makkina
• Home for Christmas week, recover from a tough 4 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas
• Thanks to everyone who has left, or tried to leave, a review on the TravelCommons page of iTunes
• Bridge music — iTunes link to Pictures of You by Evangeline
• Medley of TravelCommons Hotel Bathroom studios
• from T/C #5 - Why I record in bathrooms
• Medley of TSA rants
• from T/C #5-7 - Sean Penn comments
• from T/C #7 - Steve Frick of Frick’s World is a little uncomfortable recording in the bathroom
• from T/C #14 - Willie Evans from the Scots Band Evangeline talks about writing a travel song
• from T/C #17 - My kids’ view of travel
• from T/C #20 - Allan Marko tells a story about rapid airplane repair
• from T/C #3 - Flyers from Cleveland to Chicago looking for an early exit
• from T/C #11 - Packing light leaves no margin for error
• from T/C #23 - Patrons at the hotel bar drinking shots
• from T/C #19 - Different colors in Bologna, Italy
• from T/C #13 - Imaginative way to sleep on red-eyes
• from T/C #21 - Decisions on vacation photos
• from T/C #4 - Disappointed web search
• from T/C #24 - Fun with Rental Cars
• from T/C #7 - Air sickness without the bag
• Closing music — iTunes link to Ramblin’ Man by the Allman Brothers Band
• Feedback at comments[at]travelcommons.com, the comment board on podcastalley.com, or right here in the comments section below
• Direct link to the show

 Print This Post

Read More in Podcasts |

4 Responses

1. Anonymous Says:
   May 21st, 2006 at 11:41 am

   Enjoyable podcast as always.
   I’ve done a bit of traveling in the past few weeks (3 trips in 4 weeks) - much more than I’ve been doing (although I used to travel every two weeks or so for 5 years) and I’ve been finding a disturbing new trend - - outrageous charges for internet access.
   I remember when internet access was a standard part of buying a night in the room (like a bed, bathroom, etc…). Now hotels are charging $15-20 a DAY to acess the internet in the room. Of course, I can surf in the lobby for free, but this stinks! What is going on? Is this like the “enivormental” savings of not washing the sheets nightly - another way to pull money out of patrons? I am not enjoying this trend. What is next - being charged per minute of showering?
   Anyone else annoyed?
   Amy

2. mark Says:
   May 21st, 2006 at 11:41 am

   What’s really annoying/amazing about this trend is that you typically get Internet access for free at lower-end hotels (e.g., Courtyard, Best Western, Holiday Inn Express), but end up paying $10-15/day at more expensive, higher-end hotels. And given that hotel room utilization is going up — more people traveling, less rate pressure on hotels — I don’t see it changing anytime in the near future.
   However, there is a bit of a guerilla movement emerging using the little travel wi-fi routers (e.g., Linksys’s WTR54GS or WRT54GC). Somewhat akin to the open wi-fi access movement (people hanging wi-fi antennas out their windows for anyone to access), some travelers are using these routers to light up a 1-2 room radius with free wi-fi. I use NetStumbler (www.netstumbler.com) — a free wi-fi sniffer — to search out these access “bubbles” (as Linksys calls them) before I plunk down my own $10.
   Regards,
   Mark

3. Anonymous Says:
   May 21st, 2006 at 11:41 am

   If you’re going to have to put adverts in your podcast… at least make them obvious. Don’t just segway in halfway through a sentence. Put them at the end or between 2 song bytes.
   - Dan

4. mark Says:
   May 21st, 2006 at 11:42 am

   Good point. Still working through the insertion process. The set point only has a resolution to 1 second, which leaves a lot of wiggle room. I’ve been trying to leave a bit of a 1.5 second gap between my “This Week” and “Follow Up” segments to facilitate an easier insertion and put a “Sponsored By” at the front of the ad to make it a bit clearer. However, I’d appreciate any additional thoughts/suggestions. This 5-week ad campaign has been a bit of an experiment.
   Also, let me know which episodes are botched and I’ll go back and refine the insertion point a bit.
   Thanks for the heads-up,
   Mark