✈︎ Allie quit / Our bags are lost in France / 15 hour flight with two kids

Allie started this newsletter. She was great at it. Then she landed a job as a sales rep for a global company. Nurse, newsletter writer, saleswoman, I've stopped predicting. I'm sure she'll conquer something else soon. I asked if she'd still write the newsletter and a low mumble noise came out. Not quite a growl, but definitely not a yes. 🤔 So while she is busy being Allie global I'm taking over. A little gear, a little from our personal travel, a little news. Let's go. ✈️

Adventures led by women designed to make a difference.

Trek the Andes with an all-female crew in Peru. Join a women-run tuk tuk tour in Cambodia. Enjoy a traditional hot stone bath experience at a women-owned farmhouse in Bhutan. Intrepid’s new small-group Women’s Expeditions in Peru, Cambodia and Bhutan provide immersive local experiences for travellers while supporting women-run businesses.

Explore the new trips

✈️ Surviving a 15 Hour flight in Economy

We just flew from Japan to France with two kids. Fifteen hours. Honestly the kids are older, it could be worse. 15 hours is still brutal even if you love your seat neighbor. Here are 3 items that made the economy flight just a little better.

👉 Acrylic Travel Organizer from Muji. Five different compartments. Fits in your hip pack. Carries all our meds.
👉 Neuro Ball from RAD This tiny spiky ball that breaks into two pieces for easy packing. You can sit on it or lean your back into it. You feel so much better with a little pressure on the muscles.
👉 TomToc 3.5L Sling this is where we store all our goodies for the flight. It is big enough to fit a small journal, the meds, a sleep mask and ear buds, but small enough to not draw attention.

If you're flying long-haul this year, those three are non-negotiable. 🙌

✈︎ Travel Story

🧳 Air France Really Franced Us

Here's the thing you can't make up: I'm currently filming a video 🎥 about how to protect your checked luggage. All the stats about how reliable airlines have become. Then our bag got lost on the way to Pairs. Seriously. We were testing a new piece of checked luggage (which made it). However, Air France told us our carry on bags were too heavy just before going through security. They demanded 140 Euros! I yelled, they yelled, just kidding. They asked, I paid (still bitter about losing those euros).

In Paris 🇫🇷, I marched up to the Air France help desk to ask for a refund. The agent smiled in that very French way and said:
“Mais non, monsieur… you did not pay for your bags to arrive on time…only to arrive.”

I’ll tell you how it all ends—and whether the gear I recommended actually saved us in the next issue… 🎒👀

✈︎ Uniqlo's Travel Bags (who knew?)

Uniqlo makes travel bags and almost nobody talks about them. I tested all four bags. One genuinely surprised me, one I'd skip entirely. I traveled to the Philippines to test these bags. That sounds dramatic. The truth is Allie wanted to see that part of the world and I said "fine, but I'm bringing a camera and creating something." Marriage is compromise. Would be pumped if you checked out the video- Testing Uniqlo Travel Bags

Travel News 🌍

The EU's new ETIAS travel authorization is launching later this year. CNN If you're an American or anyone else who currently visits Europe visa-free, you'll soon need to register online and pay about $23 before you go. It's not a visa think of it like the US ESTA system but for Europe. If you're planning a trip to Europe in late 2026 or 2027, put this on your radar now so you're not scrambling at the airport.

That's it for this week. We're settling into our new spot which I will talk about in the next issue.

Allie & Geo (I would say just Geo, but Allie is still a part of this whole thing)