Summer Reorganization, Try Caviar, and Recap
Welcome to the latest version of the Jetsetter’s Homestead update. This is our central space to talk a bit about our travels (especially those that don’t fit easily into other content), share a centralized feed of posts and social media, and otherwise catch readers up.
I got back to the full travel grind a week ago and will continue until we break for the July 4 long weekend. My business travel tends to come in bursts and always seems to intensify right before/after vacations. I traveled 19 days in May and will have traveled 25 days in June. That stacks up to almost 75% travel. Needless to say I’m looking forward to a coming two-week stretch of NO trips.
Jim is meanwhile still working locally and has been holding down the homestead. One major project has been a total reorganization of our kitchen. While I was in Alaska, he performed an excavation of the pantry and found some pretty shocking food contents hiding in the back corners. (Some of this stuff is old enough that I’m wondering if I should try to sell it as period prop pieces!) This is what happens when you travel a lot and trust other people to pack and move you over the years. Yikes!
Summer Housekeeping
This month as we’ve been in a the process of completing our spring summer cleaning, we’ve also been working on this “Homestead”. That part is an effort to serve our readers better by dishing up content that is relevant.
We are making a couple of changes as we do this:
- Moving to a semi-monthly version of this recap (formerly “The Weekly Recap”). This is part of our attempt to streamline content and information. We’ll still provide an aggregate review of recent posts and social media highlights. We will dish it up slightly less frequently though to avoid reader fatigue.
- Changes to “The Round Up” content/format. We do a LOT of reading around here and enjoy sharing some of our favorite articles with you. Some days we really want to dive in to a topic deeply. Other days we are merely skimming for interesting blurbs. We will be continuing to share all of our favorites BUT will be moving a great deal of those to our Twitter and Facebook feeds. If you love the news, we’d encourage you to follow us there. You can find our Twitter account here and our Facebook account here. For some of our favorite stories, we’ll continue the more in-depth discussion here.
- Cleaning up our category headings and menus. We want to make it easier to find the content you are looking for quickly.
These are the first wave of updates we are working through. We welcome reader feedback and suggestions of other ways we can improve your experience.
Recapping Our Last Two Weeks
It has been a busy couple of weeks around here but we’ve shared quite a bit of travel news:
- A Crazy Week of Attacking Animals, Sexually Charged Ubers, Penthouse Suites, and Other Miscellaneous Travel
- Pretty Politicians, Coin-flip Flights, and Pilot Pioneer
- ATC Privatization Shouldn’t Be A Political Decision
- Spanish Manspreading, Foreign Legion, and I Forgot….
- Board Forces Uber CEO Out
- Karaoke Road Trip, Slides, and Ethics
- Uber Board Member Takes Foot Off Gas, Inserts In Mouth
- Melania Trump’s Shoes, Qatar Now, Crazy Houseboats
- White Flight, Fingerprint Passes, Scene It
- Airport Outlet Shocker, King of the Grill, To Russia With Love
- Foreign Dentistry, Independent Books, and Vintage Leftovers
- Addiction Grows, African Racing, Target Poop
- Just the Tip – Uber’s Kalanick Out, Tipping In
- Qatar-American Alliance, Travel Influencers, Myanmar Glut
- UK Fact Check, Korean Dog, and Serious Porta-Potties
- Join Sam’s Club, Earn Up to 5,000 AAdvantage Miles
- Experience Europe in The Amazing Race Style – Are You Game?
Summer is always busy for travel news. In addition to reading here, be sure you are following all of our social media accounts for other content.
Instagram Favorites
Speaking of social media, I’m particularly in love with Instagram. Instagram is a window into our day-to-day life, whether it is the view from the window or travel photos. Follow us on Instagram at jetsettershomestead for that little slice of life. Lately we’ve been playing with “stories” in addition to sharing photos as a way to share some of our real-time views.
Here are a couple of my favorite photos from the past couple of weeks….
Affiliate Spotlight
We pay for 100% of our travel and other reviewed/discussed items on Jetsetter’s Homestead unless otherwise explicitly disclosed. Affiliate or marketing partnerships help compensate us for the time and resources we put into Jetsetter’s Homestead. Our major affiliate partnership is with Amazon but we also have a growing list of other companies we have hand-selected. These companies pay us a small percentage of referred sales (or sometimes just product credit) if you use the links we provide. Occasionally we like to highlight one of the retailers we work with and why we like them!
Caviar is a great service for food delivery. While we’ve tried many of the major providers in different cities, Caviar has been one of my favorites. They currently operate restaurant delivery services in several metropolitan areas. Those include Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Seattle.
We love ordering from them at home. But I also love using Caviar when I’m on the road. I’ve enjoyed being able to order from great local restaurants and enjoy dinner in the comfort of my hotel suite from the list of Caviar partners.
I’ve done everything from ringing up several dozen donuts for my Seattle colleagues to ordering dinner on my way home from the airport. Last week I had a lobster roll and hushpuppies brought to my hotel room to nosh while I worked on a project deck. It was a much better meal than anything on the room service menu and arrived just as quickly!
Right now, Caviar has a great early summer special running through 6/30. Use code TOOHOT to order and receive a $0 delivery fee for orders of $25 or more. You will also be entered into sweepstakes for a chance to win $5,000 in Caviar credit. When it’s too hot this summer to go outside to get food, let Caviar do the hard part!
Use this link for that promo:
What’s Next?
I’m headed home today from a weekend volunteer leadership retreat in Tucson and then right back to Akron in the morning. I’ll be home in time for the four-day weekend. While normally we’d be headed somewhere fun, we made the decision to stay home instead. It will give us a chance to dive into a few projects around the house that need our mutual attention.
We are hoping to catch up more on recaps from our Q2 travels (Cuba, Alaska, etc.). I will share a mid year update on how frequent flyer status is tracking. And both of us will also have some thoughts on current topics in the travel world that may be slightly controversial. We look forward to you, our readers, weighing in.
Funny about that bit regarding ordering food for hotel delivery. I’ve always wondered how that works for hotels that are not like a motel 6 type set up. Like do they have to deliver at the front desk first and then they call you? Or do they deliver to your door? I’ve always been curious how that while scenario worked. Haha.
I find it varies by hotel – and delivery company. Most, like Caviar and Uber Eats, prefer to come to the lobby (usually because they are parking in the front drive temporarily). In those cases I often don’t even give a room number and instead use my cell. I put “hotel guest, call cell” in the notes and they tell me when they are arriving.
I occasionally will run across an outfit in a smaller town that wants a room number when delivering to a hotel. But I’m always a bit unnerved by a burly delivery guy showing up to the door of my room – it just feels a bit unsafe to have delivery guys roaming the halls!
great night-picture of the city! picture of the whale and tide, amazing! you must have been lucky to see both in one night.