Rapid Travel Chai

Dateline: Jersey City, NJ. Returned from CES in Las Vegas. Heading to NYT Travel Show to hear the Frommers and others at the seminars.

News:

• Atlanta Begins Charging for a Streetcar Named Undesirable by Some (NYT). America’s limping attempts at public transport, continued. Elsewhere, Metro network adds 27 stations (Shanghai Daily).
• Star Wars, Disney and myth-making (The Economist).

Comment:

• When Did America Give Up on the Idea of America? (Foreign Policy).
• My Top Ten Films of 2015 and Ten Worst Films of 2015 (BBC – Kermode Uncut).

Travel:

• Off piste in the Islamic Republic (The Economist). The next ski destination?
• How To Effectively Clean Out Shampoo from Travel Bottles (Map Happy). My favorite source for travel bottles are the soft ones at Sasa in Hong Kong. Learned over years of waiting for my wife to finish her shopping.
• A Delayed Review of Our Egypt Trip (Freakin Flyers). Situation is unstable. I went last January and would still go again.
• Registering For UAE Smart Gate Immigration Access (One Mile at a Time). Great to know, those lines at Dubai can be glacial. Note in the comments that it is not free at all UAE airports/terminals.
• These Airport Accessories Will Make Winter Travel a Little Less Painful (Businessweek). None will make my kit, I am trying to slim down even more (my luggage, too).
• Former Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza’s Most Quotable Moments (Skift). Please don’t go away quietly.

Tech:

• We Could Make an Awesome Commercial for T-Mobile (Freakin Flyers). Me, too.
• Review: How Does Google Maps’ Offline Navigation Hold Up? (Map Happy). The files are huge so download in advance. I will do some comparisons with map.me.