I’ve slept on some truly miserable surfaces. Airport floors in Singapore. A bench outside a pharmacy in Lisbon. The back seat of a Fiat Panda parked somewhere in the Apennines. But nothing — and I mean nothing — compares to the particular agony of falling asleep upright at 35,000 feet and waking up to discover … Read more
I never thought I’d be the person who travels with a blender. For years, my road trip nutrition strategy was whatever gas station protein bars I could grab between stops, supplemented by the occasional sad airport salad. But after three weeks crisscrossing the Southwest last summer — hiking in Zion, climbing around Sedona, sleeping in … Read more
Three backpacks. Sixty bucks total. One cross-country trip that included a delayed flight, a torrential downpour in Denver, and a zipper failure at the worst possible moment. That is the unglamorous reality behind the TikTok hype surrounding Amazon’s most viral budget travel backpacks — and I wanted to know if any of them actually deserve … Read more
The Compression Packing Cube Experiment: Three Trips, Six Brands, One Verdict I’ll be honest: I was skeptical when compression packing cubes started flooding my Instagram feed. Another travel gadget promising to revolutionize how I pack? I’ve heard that one before. But after watching my team struggle to cram two weeks of gear into carry-ons for … Read more