good morning to you it is five o'clock somewhere it is currently nine eight a.m at fort lauderdale
airport and i wanted to share some really quick tips around traveling right now if the time is
right for you you can tell that i am as tired as i feel i woke up very early this morning and i
have a delayed flight so i have some tips for you on how to how to think about some of the
things as you're planning your own travel right now i'm at the delta lounge and i'm in the fort
lauderdale airport and what i'm realizing is wow it's busy it's really busy and things are
starting to open up again and what i mean by that is one of my favorite things to do is look at the
tsa.gov and anyone can look at these stats how many people are going through the tsa security
check every single day and if you look at it for today and today is july today is the fourth of
july happy fourth of july today is the fourth of july there are 2.1 million people passing through
tsa security checks right now this past weekend each day and last year during 2020 when things
were shut down we were 700 000 people and when you look at the year before we are actually at the
same level of travel and the reason why i share this is because a lot of people are saying like
you know are people even traveling right now a lot of people think that the social distancing is
still happening and those things are not happening in other words middle seats are no longer blocked
some of the cancellations are still in place in which it's very easy to change and cancel
your trip but not like it was before and so as you're planning your travel think about these
things as you're preparing to get out there again and travel and so knowing that there's no social
distancing knowing that there's still some easy cancellations but that kind of stuff is going away
and things are opening up and we are fighting for overhead bin space yet again unfortunately but it
does mean that things like lounges are open again there was a period of time in which a
lot of lounges were closed this delta lounge just opened june 23rd it has been open for quite some
time but they didn't actually open their doors to the public given the way travel has been lately so
super excited to be one of the first customers here here's another thing you need to know whether
you may have seen my moderna vaccine video it was not a fun experience but also a necessary one
but one of the things so whether you decide to get the vaccine or not a lot of people ask me do i
have to wear a mask and i'm ready to put this back on as soon as i'm done eating and drinking because
masks on for everybody at the airport and if you have not been flying i have probably flown over
two two dozen times in the last year many times internationally you're actually signing waivers
prior to checking in ensuring that you do not have covid and that you will be wearing a mask during
the flight because it is mandated so vaccine or no everyone wears a mask that's just something i
don't want you to be surprised by when you get to the airport because you'll be surprised a lot of
people are they are surprised by that and they are caught off guard by that another thing to
know a lot of people ask me is it christine is it expensive right now it's they're still cheap
right no one no one's traveling the days of deals i don't want to say they're over but it's not as
easy as it used to be so during 2020 you could find a lot of amazing travel deals now that travel
is back and people are traveling like crazy it's not as cheap as it was so i'll give you a couple
ways you can think about this if you can in case it helps you to find something more affordable
i just booked this flight maybe four days ago i am flying on the fourth of july everyone wants to
get out to enjoy the holiday a few days before people were flying a lot on july 1st july 2nd
yesterday on july 3rd but nobody ain't nobody's flying on july 4th
i will get into new york city in time to enjoy the fireworks
on this day so if you're trying to enjoy a holiday one way to save money especially
on a last minute flight like i did i was able to book it on the holiday and i'm giving ranges here
my original flight because i was supposed to leave next week originally
a round-trip flight from fort lauderdale to jfk was somewhere around 450 round trip
now that i'm flying i've changed it and i'm flying on the holiday my round-trip flight
is somewhere around 300 and this was booked just a few days prior so that's a pretty amazing deal
one other way i like to look at flights is using google flights because then you can flip it into
the calendar view and then you can look at a range of time and one of the top ways a lot of people
ask me how do you travel so much how do you afford it flexibility if you are able to be flexible
with the days that you travel can save you an insane amount of money insane amount of money
i'm talking thousands and thousands of dollars and here's another way when you're thinking about
accommodations accommodations for me often tend to be some of the most expensive parts of my travel
and i get it a lot of people encourage me to do hostels it's why i do collabs about hostels on
my channel because i i don't stay at hostels i like to spend time at my hotel it's where after
a day of adventuring and working and exhausting myself and having a great time out there i like
to come back and have a relaxing place and so hotels can be very expensive and another
really thank you for that another really great way to save money is to look at flex rates on
hotels and what i mean by that in the same way i'm looking at google maps or sorry google flights
on calendar view i'm looking at hotels on a calendar view on hotel websites like
like hilton for example you're able to look at a calendar view for a property that you're
interested in to find a better rate an example would be the midtown hilton hotel i'm staying at
when i go stay there in a couple months in september it's as much as 300 per night but
when i look at calendar view now and part of the reason why i flew on the holiday i'm able to stay
there for a hundred dollars a night tonight which is amazing so that's another way to save money
all right my next one delayed insurance and domestic versus international if your flight
is delayed my flight was supposed to leave at 6 4 a.m this morning and now it is leaving at 9 00 am
it's really important to i'll say two things one be aware of even though travel is coming back
not a lot of the schedules have changed and a lot of the airlines are not prepared for oh just jump
on the next flight in other words there's not as many fights going out so just making sure you're
aware of all of your potential second options in case something happens and i would say the
other thing and this is a pro tip that i used because sometimes your flight is delayed and if
your flight is delayed for things like mechanical issues you should probably go to the airport at
the original time your flight's going to go out at because even though it shows delayed they might be
able to switch to a different plane really fast which means that if you're not the airport that
fights leaving potentially five minutes after it has said it's delayed but for my flight one of the
things i do is i look at the incoming flight to help me understand why it's delayed my flight is
delayed because the flight that uh the actual aircraft i am on is delayed coming in so what
that tells me is when i look at my flight number and i look and i go just search it on google why
is my flight delayed and what is the inbound flight that the aircraft is seeing that that
is delayed realizing that that aircraft does not land here until 7 43 a.m helps me to understand
i can sleep in and come later so that helps me to be strategic around when i come to the airport
insurance this is another really big question that people ask me and just like travel i'm not
saying it's time to travel go travel it's only up to you and i feel the same way about insurance
a lot of people like to buy insurance for their trips and only you can decide
if that's right for you i'll be totally honest not once ever in my life including my ethiopia
days biking through the craziest parts of ethiopia where no tourists have been i did not buy
insurance and my tip for you here is if you are buying insurance because of the pandemic because
you're nervous about traveling so close to the covid situation make sure you're reading the fine
print that your travel insurance is covering you for anything related to that and the reason why
i say this and on my channel i do a collab with maddie at a one-way ticket about tahiti and she
gives a lot of info about travel insurance that she uses because she does it with recommendations
on who's good and who's not read your policy because so many travel insurance companies opt out
of securing you around anything pandemic or kovid related and i just want to make sure that you get
the insurance that you are looking for and the insurance that you think that you need
okay my last one a lot of people ask me about domestic travel versus international travel and
oh i love watching airplanes take off let's see can you see that you barely got the end of that
uh so for domestic versus international travel um i have a lot of friends who are asking me
a lot of people on youtube here who are asking me should it be domestic should it be international
and again this past year since jan since december i've been in mexico i've been in tanzania
i've been in ethiopia and i've been back to mexico these are my thoughts around international travel
you need to do extra homework and i have a video on my channel about the homework that i do for
international travel during the pandemic but domestic travel right now is significantly
easier even places that are difficult to get to domestically such as oahu in hawaii i was
there earlier this year those restrictions are lifting very soon because once they get to a 70
vaccine rate it's significantly easier there's less restrictions in getting in
when it comes international travel when i was in ethiopia i was supposed to leave two days
later to go to south africa and in cape town the borders closed that's still a thing if you
look out to the international news places in asia it's very difficult they are just now starting to
go into lockdown it's different everywhere in the world and just because things domestically within
the us are starting to open up doesn't mean it's that easy internationally there are still coveted
requirements there's a application process to get into jamaica there are restrictions in different
parts of the world i just got back from mexico the day that i left they implemented a curfew
they were in orange status while i was there if you're unaware i have a
cancun how to travel in mexico right now they have the green yellow orange red status right
now they're in orange but very quickly they implemented the curfew which means that you
weren't able to go out and enjoy the nightlife like you were before and so being very aware of
what the restrictions are in the country you're going to understanding what additional tests
and covert requirements there are and doing things like keeping up with their government websites
and simple things because if you want to ask questions about a specific place i love going
on reddit and asking the community real time what's happening on the ground if i don't already
have a traveler friend on the ground those are my tips around domestic versus international travel
my flight's boarding it's time to go here's one last view uh new delta lounge fort lauderdale
looking pretty good we still have barriers at the bar still really nice though it says quiet
experience in here when i was out inside of fort lauderdale just a second ago um it's definitely
quiet not a lot of people fly on the fourth of july people are always flying right before
and right afterwards so again a great way to save money fly on the holiday yeah i might be a little
tired once i get on the other side but that's all right thanks for joining me this morning i hope i
helped you drop some comments below if you have questions or other tips for travelers right now
and when the time is right for you get out there i'll see you in the next adventure ciao you