Travel News for the Week

Travel News for the Week:

• What is it really like to be an airline pilot?

• Don Parrish is supposedly the “best traveled person in the world” according to BBC.

More than 30 years ago, veteran traveller Donald Maltby Parrish Jr completed a long held desire to visit all 50 US states. Once that goal was achieved, he set his sights on visiting the 193 UN member states, including Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Somalia and South Sudan. He ticked off Mongolia – the last country on his to-do list – four years ago, at age 66, but that was nowhere near the end of his travel ambitions.

• Frontier is eliminating their toll-free customer service phone calls. The move supposedly will save the company over 9 million dollars per year. To be honest, this probably won’t affect their travelers too much since a vast majority call-in using cell phones that don’t charge for long distance. At least they still let you call in unlike some airlines.

• Why do hotels think guests want access to ice in their rooms?

• The real reason airport shops want to see your boarding pass

• This guy saves on London rent by commuting from Barcelona: “The 32-year-old social media manager now lives alone in a two-bed apartment in Barcelona — with roof terrace — and pays just €800 a month (around $875). With additional bills coming to around $125 a month, that’s a lot of extra cash to go on his regular flights — which usually cost him less than $150 for each return journey.”

• From October 16-18, there will be a Frequent Traveler University in Oslo, Norway!

• This guy figured out how to have the longest birthday possible (over 46 hours!) using flights crossing time zones. Genius.