Your TSA PreCheck is Worthless (Maybe), Epic Vacation Giveaway, and More

Want a chance to win an incredible land-based vacation? We're giving one away, so join our newsletter for early access and bonus raffle entries! Today we discuss why booking travel early is a must in today's world and address frustrating travel trends like airport chaos. Can authentic travel experiences push boundaries too far? We debate the ethics and expectations of these adventures. Let's make your next trip unforgettable!

Welcome and New Adventure Giveaway

Voiceover: Hey adventurers, get ready for the trip of a lifetime. We're cooking up an epic land-based vacation, an adventure for two, and you could be the lucky winners.

Details are still under wraps, but trust us, this is one giveaway you won't want to miss. Want a head start on winning? Here's the deal. For early access to the raffle and five raffle points, head to the link in the description or visit notouristsallowed.com and sign up for our newsletter.

You'll be the first to know when the official giveaway launches. Don't miss out on this amazing opportunity. Last season we gave away a Virgin Voyages luxury cruise for two, so now we're giving away this great land-based vacation.

Stay tuned and get those early raffle entries in and prepare for an unforgettable journey. Welcome to No Tourists Allowed, a podcast where two recognized travel industry executives with a combined 71 years on the inside of travel and technology give up their secrets to the thing everyone wants to do: Travel better, spend less, and see more of the world. Here are your hosts, Mike Putman and James Ferrara.

Mike Putman: Good day, everyone. I'm Mike Putman.

James Ferrara: And I'm James Ferrara. Welcome to No Tourists Allowed.

Mike Putman: Yes, welcome. We're in our third episode of season number three. It seems like yesterday we just started, but time is marching on.

We do have an exciting sweepstakes that we've been teasing, and you'll find a segment on our podcast today that will tell you how to get in early and get five entries into this dream vacation that we've got for you. So make sure you follow up, go to notouristsallowed.com, and register for our newsletter if you haven't already to receive five entries into the sweepstakes.

James Ferrara: That's this week's instruction, Mike. That's the way to get entries this week, and it's five. This is a big one. You get five entries in the drawing.

Last season, we gave away a Virgin Voyages luxury cruise for two. We're taking it on land this season and giving away quite an adventure. Keep coming back. We'll be teasing out the details and giving you more ways to earn points.

Current Travel Trends and Booking Advice

Besides the giveaway, Mike, we have a lot of interesting stuff to talk about this week. It's been a really busy booking season. There's quite a lot of activity.

The public travel companies are reporting record results all around. Carnival has had some really big news about their best-ever results. A lot of the airlines are following along. We're seeing record bookings for 2024 already.

Mike Putman: That's right. Our advice to you, especially this year, is to book early. Last year, we know that a lot of the European destinations and flights got filled up, and hotels got booked very early.

It’s not totally atypical, but last year was heavier than ever. I was seeing an average rate of around $500 a night in London for hotel rooms during the summer, which even for London, is high.

I've been doing a little searching around because I've been planning a trip or two this summer. I would advise all of our listeners, if you're going to book to Europe or to the Caribbean this summer, get your bookings in now so you can claim your space. Get a seat on the plane, get a hotel room, and avoid overpaying.

The Efficiency of Airport Security Programs

James Ferrara: That great interest in travel is just great for our businesses. But it also leads to some things that are maybe a little controversial. We try to stay positive, but there are things like airport congestion and technology issues that we've had over the last couple of years.

It’s a bit like Whac-A-Mole in the travel industry. We fix one thing and something else pops up. We tried to fix a congestion problem in the airports with trusted traveler programs like TSA PreCheck and CLEAR.

The problem is that PreCheck became very popular, and I've been to airports where the PreCheck line is longer than the regular line. It doesn't happen a lot, but every once in a while.

It’s the same with airline boarding. Now group two on the airline is the entire plane. They have commoditized these statuses to the point where they're selling them as part of loyalty programs and credit cards. If everyone has status, then no one really has status.

The new challenge in the industry is CLEAR. CLEAR made so much sense. It's been one of our ongoing recommendations to our audience because you don't have to have your ID out and they walk you to the front of the line.

It always causes some interesting reactions, but it really speeds you through the airport. I've come to rely on it. The problem is if too many people recognize what a great service it is. Now there's a line at CLEAR.

The first time it happened to me, I was flabbergasted. Now it's happened quite a few times. I've actually been in a situation in a small airport where the CLEAR line was longer than the regular TSA line.

Mike Putman: It happened to me in Orlando just a couple of months ago. I was an early adopter when they were really just in Orlando and a couple of other airports. I gave it up, and then CLEAR came to Greenville-Spartanburg, which is the airport that I fly out of a lot, and I re-engaged with them.

I still feel guilty about it. You’ve got these passengers waiting in line, and it is a license to cut in line. That's really all it is, to be honest. I always feel a bit squeamish about doing it. My moral compass goes off, and I don't feel really good about it.

Oftentimes, unless there's a big advantage that’s going to save me a lot of time, I'll just go to TSA PreCheck and wait two or three minutes rather than going through the CLEAR thing and being somewhat embarrassed about jumping in front of all these people.

James Ferrara: Mike, you are a better man than I am. When it comes to saving time, getting to my flight on time, and having a little time to grab a bagel, I have no moral compass at all. I want to get to the front of the line.

Mike Putman: If you wouldn't get there two hours early, you wouldn't have to worry about that. Also, I've traveled with James a lot, and he complains about every bagel on the planet unless it comes from New York.

James Ferrara: With good reason. But anyhow, it really is. I read an article recently that said if you really boil it down, it's just a license to cut in line. Nothing more, nothing less.

They had some trouble with the TSA last year because a few bad actors got through CLEAR without the proper ID. I think it was something about biometrics. They got in trouble, and TSA pulled back their license a little bit.

Then you had to actually show ID even though that was part of the promise. Now they've done CLEAR Plus, where you upgrade the information you have on file with them, and it seems to be working again.

I'm not going to take back my recommendation for it. If you're a frequent traveler, it makes a lot of sense. It costs you very little, maybe nothing if you've got the right loyalty status. It's just interesting to me that when you create a shortcut and then everyone starts using it, it's not a shortcut anymore. What are they going to do next?

Mike Putman: I don't think it's a sustainable business model. I have my membership because my credit card pays for it. If it didn't, I would probably object, even though it's a bit of hypocrisy. I would not invest money in CLEAR because I think at some point the government's going to pull back because they don't really need them anymore.

Planning Trips Around Special Events

We talk a lot about searching for authentic travel. James and I both read an article recently and some research that says be careful what you wish for. But before we get to that, you also brought up an interesting point about how when you're traveling, it's great to add on events like sporting events.

If you go to the UK and you see a real football game or rugby game in Wales, that can make the experience. But there are some tricks of the trade around being able to do that and creating a fuller experience while watching out for pitfalls.

James Ferrara: Absolutely. I've got a great example of this. My two daughters—one is twenty-nine, hello Sophie, and one is nine, hello Layla—both happen to be Taylor Swift fans. She evidently spans the spectrum of popularity.

They decided that I was going to take them to a concert. We looked around for tickets and the tickets are $2,000-ish. That’s not for the best seats in the house, just kind of getting in the door.

I happened to find tickets in Germany. She's going to be in some small town near Düsseldorf during the summer. Tickets were $600 apiece, which in the Taylor Swift world is a bargain.

I grabbed three of those, thinking I could fly over there, we could spend a few days, and it would ultimately be the same price as going to Chicago and buying a $2,000 ticket. So we're going to do that over the summer.

But one of the things that came to mind is: what if she gets laryngitis or breaks up with her boyfriend and decides she doesn't want to do the show? What happens then?

What are the things that you can put in place to ensure that if something like that happens, you can choose to reschedule your trip or continue your trip and just forget about the concert?

The point I wanted to make is I'm not a big fan of travel insurance for someone who is relatively healthy and decisive. If I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it unless something major comes up. But this is one trip where I probably will take some travel insurance in case that covers the cancellation of an event.

We would have fun anyway even if she didn't perform, although the girls would be disappointed. I think this would be a good investment to take some travel insurance for this particular trip.

James Ferrara: First of all, will you be my daddy, Mike? Travel insurance will usually cover anything that you add into a trip. But I’d be very careful here to read the fine print and ask if something like a star canceling a concert would be covered. I think it would be, but you should always know your coverage.

I have a different approach about travel insurance. I'm a big believer in it and I recommend it all the time. Certainly in a case like this, there are also the vagaries of buying tickets internationally. There are scams in this area and tickets that turn out to be not legit, so you'd be covered for that too.

You mentioned this trip coming up. I'm going over to the UK in a week or so and I will be in London, Dublin, and Limerick in Ireland. I’m really looking forward to that. Unfortunately, I'm working, but I’m still looking forward to it. You’ve got Scotland on the tail end of your trip?

Mike Putman: On the tail end of that trip, I'm going to send the girls back after we see Miss Swift and then I'm going to head into London for a few days. Then I'll do my normal summer Scotland golf trip for a couple of weeks.

The Meaning of Authentic Travel

James Ferrara: That is great. We'll get some tips for Scotland from you, a place that we both love. Let's talk about this article we read.

In a traveler's search for authentic travel, "authentic" may include things that might actually be hard to take—things that could offend your sensibilities or things that culturally are different from your values.

I think of places in Spain that still have bull rings. Bullfighting is an important part of the culture. We were recently in Málaga, which has one of the beautiful original bull rings there. To really understand the culture of those people, that's a big part of it. But you might be offended as an animal lover. This might seem like an inhumane thing to do.

Mike Putman: It’s pretty gross if you've never been to one. I hunt small animals at times, but seeing one of those is pretty tough. I don't think I would go back again.

I’ll give you another authentic experience that I opted out of. I did a tour of Ecuador and Brazil in the jungle, going down a tributary of the Amazon. It was a deep immersion experience where we were in these off-the-ground huts with no running water toilets for four or five nights.

We visited locals and saw how they lived, and it was a great trip. But on the last night, there was this culmination where people were sitting by a fire and there was this hallucinogen that they were passing around.

There was a ritual thing that, first of all, I don't do drugs. Second of all, this was bordering on things that I didn't want to participate in. As a Christian, it seemed kind of voodoo-like. I pulled away from it. It was very authentic, but I didn't participate in that part.

James Ferrara: The article was about who bears the responsibility when you put a traveler in that situation. It could be the tour operator, who needs to do a good job upfront communicating what the experience includes and putting it in cultural context.

If you explain the cultural context and prepare the traveler upfront, then the tour operator is taking some responsibility. But on the other hand, what responsibility do travelers have?

How much research are we doing? Are we looking into what we're going to see and experience? Are we putting effort into understanding the culture we're going to visit? Maybe the responsibility lies on us.

My personal philosophy is I want to be taken out of my comfort zone. I'm not going through the expense of travel in order to wind up back in my own living room. I want to experience cultural values that are different than mine, even if some of them ultimately might offend me. I think it's a growing moment for all of us to have those experiences.

Mike Putman: I would agree. This particular instance referred to a company that led a trip in Vietnam. As part of the trip, they went to a restaurant, and in the restaurant, they cooked a dog. They fried the whole dog.

That's a tough one. But there are cultures where they eat dogs. The article said if you're an avocado-toast-eating American from Brooklyn and you go someplace where dog is on the menu, you might not have a great reaction.

If you go someplace and you don't have exposure to something different than you have at home, then you're not getting the most out of your travel. That would be my feeling.

James Ferrara: Exactly. I think this was a good warning to do your homework. The traveler has some responsibility. If you're going to tromp through the markets in Hanoi, you're going to see some stuff that makes you uncomfortable.

Mike Putman: Even if you go through the markets in Mexico, you see things that are not particularly appetizing, but that's part of the experience. You're going to see things like child labor when you travel to some places. There are sex workers and norms around that that could make you uncomfortable, especially coming from America.

James Ferrara: I went to South Korea. I was walking around Busan and came across a big sign. Nothing was in English, so I didn't understand anything I was looking at. Then I saw a big sign that said "Cafe" in English.

Below it, there was a picture menu of different dogs and cats. I stopped in my tracks and thought, "Oh my God, that's horrible. That's disgusting." But I had it all wrong. It wasn't a place to eat. It was a place where you paid by the hour to spend time playing with these different animals.

In the living conditions in that part of the city, it's hard to have pets. So people go to these places and can spend an hour with a dog or cat of their choice. That's what it was, but it looked like something different to me when I first saw it.

Mike Putman: Actually, just in the last month, they have outlawed eating cats in South Korea. I've had other things in Mexico where the name of the restaurant was basically a word for grasshopper. I didn't realize that until later. A lot of the dishes had grasshoppers, ants, and other delicacies.

I had grasshopper and scorpions in Thailand. It was a non-event once you got over it; it’s just like a fried onion ring. To me, that was actually a good out-of-the-norm experience. It didn't offend me, it was just different.

James Ferrara: We'd love to see you guys on the website, notouristsallowed.com. Let us know what you're thinking. Let us know questions or topics you'd like us to cover. Tell us some of your stories, too. If we like your story, we might send you a little gift. Make some recommendations for places to visit and eat.

Mike, you're going to Scotland, so give us one good place to eat or something to see in Scotland we might not know about.

Local Recommendations for Your Next Trip

Mike Putman: I really like the food in Scotland. Edinburgh is actually a really big food city. People don't realize that about sixty percent of Europe's seafood actually comes out of the east of Scotland.

They harvest a lot of lobster, crab, and traditional fish like cod. There is one Michelin-starred restaurant outside of St. Andrews and the name is slipping me, but I will bring it up next time. I tend to eat there every summer when I go over.

James Ferrara: I've got one for you in London since I'm on my way there. That is at the Dilly Hotel, which is on Piccadilly Circus. It's a remake of a hotel that has been on that property for a long time.

The Dilly is the latest incarnation and really quite nice and stylish. In the lobby, all the way in the back, is a Michelin-starred Indian restaurant whose name I can't pronounce, but you can't miss it.

The food is enormous and the atmosphere is very almost nightclub-like. It’s a very active, beautiful crowd with beautiful food. My tip, besides trying it out, is when they ask you if you like it spicy or not, do not say spicy. They mean spicy as if you were a Southeast Asian person. You cannot handle the spice; it will be inedible for you.

Mike Putman: That's one thing I do when I go to India. Every time they ask for my spice level, I say, "How low does your skill go?"

All right, listen guys. Come back, sign up for that newsletter for five entries. Come back next week to hear more about this free trip giveaway and more ways you can enter the drawing. Thank you so much for listening in this week.

James Ferrara: Thanks so much. We'll see you next week.