I’m A Travelin Man

I’m A Travelin Man was Originally Posted on March 12, 2013 by lavarock

Well, irrespective of the title, I *USED* to travel and not as much as others. When I was working on the mainland, I made a minimum of 2 trips a year and sometimes many more. I used to travel to get miles so I could qualify for a greater percentage of miles. All so I could travel for free later on.

There were trips I planned that involved cheap round trips, getting multiple points and thus free trips. I would plan a trip, show up at the airport and hope that the plane would be so full that I could offer to go later and get paid to wait.

Once while in Hawaii, I booked a trip from Atlanta to Orlando, because it was $68 round trip. I would get thousands of miles if I did it right. It turns out that I was able to find a flight that qualified and was mostly full already, months ahead of the flight. I did my homework and when I arrived to fly that day, the flight was oversold. I was “bumped” and because there was no other open flight to Orlando that day, encouraged to fly to another city and take a shuttle bus (on the airlines money) to Orlando. In compensation, $400 and I would be a few hours late. I was able to wrangle a flight to Daytona Beach instead (my actual planned destination) and still get the $400 and the miles. That $400 paid for my next round trip to Hawaii where with all the miles adding up, got me a free trip to Hawaii in the future. So for $68 and a few hours of my time, two free trips to Hawaii.

I mention all of this not to get you excited about getting bumped off a flight, but rather to describe a few things that have happened along the way. I have dozed off in an airport and awoken to wonderment. I have actually pulled out a ticket to see where I am and where I am going. Sometimes I have forgotten.

Once, I flew from Atlanta to Denver, taken and flight to Colorado Springs (a few hours drive south of Denver), then rented a car and driven much of the way back towards Denver. This, because the flight was cheap and I was getting lots of miles.

On many of these trips I would either take a book or buy a book in an airport. Airport books are sometimes a let down and I have a few that were the best choice of what was there and still let me down and remain unfinished.

I also turned to in-flight movies and between airlines and my satellite TV dish, have seen so many movies that I went to a movie rental store a decade ago and looked for 2 hours and could not find any movies that I wanted to rent. This was on a free rental coupon and people know how much I love “free”.

So now that I have planted myself in Hawaii and take few trips anymore, I find that I am armed with all I need to do to stay entertained on a flight.

I have a Kindle, a HP tablet (yes, the one that lasted about a week in stores), a cellphone with music and video capability and even a separate MP3 player.

The Kindle and other “Amazon-ready” devices allow me to sync content between them. Thus I can start reading a novel on the Kindle, switch to my PC or my cellphone and pick up where I left off. If, along the way I decide to get a new book, I can do so in seconds. The cellphone can access amazon and buy or get a free book. The Kindle has its own free “whispernet” connection which is a simple free data plan using cellphone technology. Thus when in range of a cell tower, it will grab a book I asked for and generally, within a minute, I have it. The Kindle also has an experimental web browser, but this early Kindle does leave much to be desired with that capability. Still, at the low cost I paid fro teh Kindle, I cannot complain.

So todays’ traveler has many options for entertainment that they did not have before. If traveling overseas, my Kindle might not be able to grab Amazon content, but my cellphone might be able to use a data connection to access CBS.COM for a repeat of a recent show. If not, perhaps Crackle.

With my technology, almost anywhere in the world I can grab a data connection and make calls as thought I am home and pay next to nothing (or nothing) to do it.

I am amused that in a forum recently, someone asked for an alternative to a satellite-provided radio station. I think the only 2 services merged now so unless he changes to non-satellite, he is stuck. I suggested if he has a cellphone data plan, try Tunein, or an MP3 player, but he thought having to push more than 1 button or hook something up was not what he wanted. Someone suggested the free push button device supplied with every car now called a RADIO, but that was not what he wanted either.

Sometimes technology requires more than just one button or wire.

Sometimes getting from point A to point B requires a diversion and that diversion may pay off handsomely!

Note: Isn’t it great when two ideas in the same piece, come together at the end?