It's been a tough month for travel. Not quite to Book of Job-level torment, but two of this month's three trips spiraled into head-shaking metaphysical “What the hell is going on here” questioning of my decision to get out of bed that morning. I walk through the travel gods' fun and games, as well as some new data on regional jet delays and buying a new travel bag.

I dusted off the mobile rig to record this episode in Happy Valley, the home of Penn State. And I am kinda happy with some travel to Phoenix and Florida to thaw me out after Chicago’s run in with the polar vortex. In this episode, I talk about budget airlines, stepping down in Hertz status, why I bought physical guidebooks for a trip to France, the challenges of being a solo diner, and then dig into the archives for a classic travel story.

Flying home into the teeth of the polar vortex that gave Chicago its coldest day since January 1985 took a bit of flight changing strategy and some incredibly dedicated United ramp workers. I get on-trend by Kondo-ing my old suitcases, worry about visiting Sweden as it rapidly goes cashless, and gather up some odds-n-ends from travel notebook into a Jeopardy-like topic Travel Potpourri.

Trying to wrap up travel for the year so I can hunker down in the TravelCommons bunker outside of Chicago and not worry about any forecasted snow. But for those of you who are traveling, here’s an episode to keep you occupied in the airport, train, or car traffic. We talk about some travel tips that didn’t make my Top 10 Tips blog post, the great experience of flying on Thanksgiving day, losing my tablet on that flight but soon recovering it, storming Las Vegas with 50,000 other Amazon Web Services users, and some thoughts from our trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico

Getting this posted just in time to give you something to listen to while jammed up in Thanksgiving traffic, be it on the road or in the airports. We talk about working the angles to maximize credit card benefits, which leads me to one more story from my fall trip to Europe, a rental car scrape that my Chase Visa card just paid off. We also talk about the Wall Street Journal's new ranking of US airports and compare it to Skytrax's international rankings. And we wrap up with my Christmas gift suggestions for the frequent traveler on your list.

Just regular domestic business travel since the last podcast, trying to dodge Hurricane Florence to get back to Charlottesville.  Thinking back to last month's European travels, we talk about a tight connection through Amsterdam and some odd concierge lounge rules, which gets me thinking about hotel breakfasts. And a listener request for restaurant recommendations gets me thinking about the balance of visiting good and not-so-good restaurant towns

Back in front of the mic after 12 days of skipping across northern Europe — Copenhagen, Brussels, and Scotland. In this episode, we get nostalgic about outside airports in California, talk about how a hospitality mentality is pervasive in hotels but not in restaurants, missing customer service responses from United Airlines and Marriott, and European perspectives about Chicago.

No long-distance travel this month. Instead, I"m getting back into regional jets, and waiting out a long delay in Cincinnati has me wondering about American Eagle's flight scheduling algorithm. Impact on CVG and MEM of losing hub status. Frequent business travel leads to poor health choices, emphasizes the need for "mindfulness" on the road. How much time is needed for a fun layover tour. And my Chicago restaurant and taproom recommendations.

Yet another last-minute long-distance trip, this time to Frankfurt, Germany, lets me check out United Airlines' new business class service, and think again about the value for those expensive lie-flat seats. Seeing a new Chinese menu at a favorite wurst stand in the old part of Frankfurt reminds me of the changes driven by the new wave of Chinese tourists. I also read recent PR pitches for a new smart bag and a business traveler's biohack

A last-minute trip to Pune, India provided more than enough material for this episode -- a visa dash, very hands-on airport security, worthless rupee notes, flight disruptions.... We also read the obits for a couple of smart bag companies and hear why MSP's T2 isn't so ghetto after all.