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U.S.T. Together, we

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build for boundless impact. Hey,

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what's news listeners? It's Sunday, June 30th. I'm

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Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. And

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this is What's News Sunday, the show where

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we tackle the big questions about the biggest

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stories in the news by reaching out to

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our colleagues across the newsroom to help explain

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what's happening in our world. And

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this week, it's vacation time. But

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cue the anxiety, because between the

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race to lock in a good

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fare, navigating so many little upcharges,

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trying to avoid swarms of other

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tourists and hoping you'll actually be

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able to unplug when you reach paradise,

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making a dream holiday a reality can

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be quite the chore. But

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thankfully, journal travel columnist Don Gilbertson is here to

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answer your questions and help you make the most

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of your next trip. So pull up your favorite

0:52

booking website and let's get into it. Don,

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your biography on The Wall Street Journal

1:00

website, I don't think could boil this

1:02

topic down any better than when it

1:04

says that you help people to navigate

1:06

the joys and the frustrations of vacations.

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That's kind of what we're here to

1:10

do today in some form, because when

1:12

I look through journal coverage,

1:14

and I'm sure you've found this as well

1:16

in a lot of your columns feature this,

1:18

there is this pervasive sense that frustration

1:21

is mounting on the ledger when people are

1:23

booking their trips. This is kind of crystallized

1:25

for me in a story when you brought

1:27

in a master of calm,

1:29

a job I didn't know existed, a

1:32

yogi, a meditation expert who flew coach

1:34

to Orlando, a task that you were

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sort of using as a stand in

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for do something stressful that ought to

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be a getaway. I mean,

1:43

unbalanced, when you look at this industry that

1:45

you've been covering for years, do you get

1:47

the sense planning and taking a vacation has

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indeed become more fraught? Yes, a

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couple of factors are driving this. Number

1:53

one, we all have this pandemic pause

1:55

of going nowhere. So our expectations now

1:57

are super high and prices are higher.

2:00

higher fares, higher hotel rooms that,

2:02

you know, sometimes it becomes overwhelming

2:04

for travelers. And, you

2:06

know, it's not just the end price, which

2:08

is higher in some places, but how you

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arrive at that price through so many other

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sub prices, little fees and nickel and diming.

2:15

That's kind of the way of the world in

2:17

travel right now, right? I mean, you can't book

2:19

a hotel pretty much anymore without finding a resort

2:21

fee or a destination fee at hotels. You

2:24

also have early check-in fees, late checkout fees.

2:26

Airlines want to charge you for carry-on bags

2:28

in some instances. So you might be sitting

2:30

down to plot your family vacation and think,

2:32

wow, we found this great package and you

2:34

add up all the extras and you're like,

2:36

wow, this is not going to fit my

2:38

budget. You clearly get the

2:40

stress and the frustration that can come along

2:43

with travel, even though you do highlight some

2:45

of the joys that still pop up along

2:47

the way in many places. How do you

2:49

encourage people to pick a destination? Is it

2:51

an art door? Is there some science to

2:53

it that you found? You don't always

2:55

have to go with the flow, right? Just

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because your neighbors and everybody in your kids'

3:00

high school class is going to Europe for

3:02

graduation, that doesn't necessarily mean you

3:04

should be going there, right? If that's not

3:06

your style of travel, if you don't want

3:08

to be sweating through crowds in Venice or

3:10

Rome this summer, pick something else, sit down

3:12

with your family, sit down with your partner,

3:14

sit down with your spouse and

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fast forward to the end of the vacation and

3:19

say, what's going to make this a

3:21

wonderful trip? And where could there

3:23

be some obstacles that are going to make us all miserable?

3:26

Don, I have to imagine you interviewing all

3:28

sorts of travel planners, other experts in the

3:30

industry. You've given a lot of thought about

3:32

the places. You decide to

3:34

spend your own money traveling with friends,

3:37

family. What is your philosophy?

3:39

One of my favorite things to do in

3:42

the last couple of years, and I'm certainly

3:44

not alone in this, is to build a

3:46

trip around an event. Last

3:49

summer, I love Chicago. I

3:51

went to Chicago and saw Pink and Bruce

3:53

Springsteen on back-to-back nights. So I built the

3:55

whole trip around that. A couple weeks ago,

3:58

I had the privilege of... taking

4:00

my daughter to see Taylor Swift in

4:02

Scotland and built this whole trip around

4:05

London and Scotland and it was her

4:07

Christmas gift. You can still hit all

4:09

the tourist attractions, you know, for instance

4:11

in Scotland we did the hike to

4:14

Arthur's Seat but having

4:16

this concert it just gave us

4:18

a centerpiece of our trip. So

4:20

we planned everything around that, you

4:22

know, we went out to the

4:25

stadium early, we found places to

4:27

eat around there, we bonded with

4:29

other people in the hotel. I mean,

4:31

it was just a magical trip that

4:33

my daughter will never forget. In terms of

4:36

resources out there to make planning a trip

4:38

easier, we had one listener Gillian Balo from

4:40

Richmond, Virginia who was wondering if technology might

4:42

be a helpful guide. Let's hear what she

4:45

had to say. How

4:47

should one engage with AI

4:49

and how reliable is AI

4:51

when planning a vacation? Don,

4:54

I went to Greece last summer. My

4:56

wife and I love bird watching and

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I will say I asked an unnamed

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AI about some things to do on

5:02

one of these islands and it flat

5:04

out fabricated the existence of a birding

5:06

area where no such birding area existed.

5:08

Maybe the technology is getting better but

5:10

I mean what do you think? Are

5:13

there possibly some some tools out there

5:15

that could be helpful? I mean

5:17

I think the best advice is proceed with

5:19

caution, right? In its early stages AI is

5:21

basically a fancy Google search. The

5:23

early versions are going to tend to

5:26

give you all the tourist recommendations, you know,

5:28

the spots that you can find on TripAdvisor

5:30

you can find almost everywhere. So if you

5:32

really want to drill deeper you

5:34

need to ask some specific questions and we

5:36

ran a story recently about planning a trip

5:39

to Boston and said I wanted a cool

5:41

affordable hotel in Boston and found

5:43

a hotel that that might have not come up

5:46

otherwise in their search. So the best

5:48

advice is the more specific in your

5:50

queries the better. Kind of a

5:52

good rule of thumb for for using AI period.

5:55

All right we've picked our destination and when we come

5:57

back we're going to look at how to keep vacation.

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costs under control and still enjoy the

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journey along the way. Stay with us.

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Fund Services, LLC. Alright,

7:00

let's dig into it further. It's time to make

7:02

a booking. Are there some rules of thumb

7:05

here that listeners should follow to keep costs

7:07

under control? Is it still

7:09

the old wisdom of, you know, as pull

7:11

the trigger as early as possible or should

7:13

we be tracking prices holding off for deals

7:15

at the end? Are there some axioms

7:17

here? Well, I mean, at

7:20

this point in the summer, hopefully you've got

7:22

a lot of your trip already booked. But

7:24

if you're still searching for some last minute

7:26

airfare deals or you just haven't pulled the

7:28

trigger yet, you can set price alerts on

7:31

Google. You can set price alerts on Kayak

7:33

and other websites. One thing a lot of

7:35

travelers don't think about, we have a lot

7:37

more choices than just the big four airlines.

7:40

You know, there's some new entrants out

7:43

there. There's Breeze. There's an airline called

7:45

Avello. Allegiant is not

7:47

new, but Allegiant offers nonstop service.

7:49

So maybe broaden your search. Alright,

7:52

so try broadening your search. Don, I have

7:54

to say though, price did keep coming up

7:57

in questions from listeners, including from Andrew

7:59

Larson. from Chicago who called in to tell

8:01

us there are a few additional factors that

8:03

make just navigating costs that much more stressful

8:06

for him. Let's play that. I

8:08

have a wife and

8:10

two very young children under two.

8:12

And I think that as

8:14

a new millennial parent, it

8:16

can be difficult to think about

8:18

vacation options that can really work for the

8:21

whole family without breaking the budget. Dawn,

8:24

what's your advice? I mean, obviously road

8:26

trips are a heck of a lot cheaper

8:28

than flying a family of four. But there

8:30

are, there are several ways for a family

8:32

to save money. You know, on the hotel

8:34

front, you know, we're all familiar with the

8:36

free breakfast. I mean, you talk about a

8:39

family of four at a Hampton Inn in

8:41

a city like New York, you are saving

8:44

well over $100 if your hotel

8:46

comes with a free breakfast. Free

8:48

waffles, right? Yes, free waffles. Families

8:50

flock to those chains. Hilton

8:53

told me that what their research shows

8:55

is that a lot of people say

8:57

they couldn't vacation, say in a city

8:59

like New York without the free breakfast.

9:01

I mean, other options for families that

9:03

maybe they haven't, they haven't thought of.

9:05

Cruises are a, an incredible deal,

9:07

incredible deal right now. I mean, except like

9:10

the big shiny new ones, like I kind

9:12

of the seas, but you know, if you've

9:14

got kids, there are so many features on

9:16

board these cruise ships, the foods

9:18

included, all inclusive vacations, you

9:20

pay one price and, and

9:23

you know how much you're in for. I think

9:25

that's a great one. It is in terms

9:28

of the fees and the upsells in this

9:30

industry, which really have proliferated lately. What is

9:32

your mentality? Do

9:35

you just embrace them as a necessary evil

9:37

and, and try not to get

9:39

bothered by each individual one as it rears its

9:41

ugly head? Well, I,

9:44

I'm a big believer in fighting resort

9:46

fees if anything goes wrong on

9:48

your hotel or resort stay. And I've

9:50

had some success with this. And again,

9:52

I don't identify myself as a wall

9:55

street journal travel columnist. I'm just a regular

9:57

traveler, but if something my

10:00

stay, let me tell you the first call I make

10:02

is to the front desk and

10:04

you kind of just negotiate and

10:07

I've had some pretty good success wiping off

10:10

that ridiculous resort fee. For

10:12

instance, we've all seen like the resort fee lineup. It'll say,

10:15

oh, it comes with the pool. I mean, things that we

10:17

always thought came with

10:19

a hotel stay. Now it's like, here's the

10:22

pool, here's this. Well, I was at a

10:24

hotel in Florida and by the time I

10:26

arrived, the pool was shutting down. They also

10:28

announced beach access while the beach chairs weren't

10:30

available anymore, even though check-in was at four.

10:33

Let's just say I did not pay that resort fee. All

10:36

right, Don, so we've booked our vacation. It's time to

10:38

go on it now and start with getting there

10:41

beyond the obvious advice. I suppose, arrive early

10:43

at the airport, things of that nature. What

10:46

other advice do you have for staying stress

10:48

free all along the way? And we

10:51

mentioned earlier that you took this flight

10:53

to Orlando with a meditation expert. Any

10:56

takeaways from that? Here's

10:58

something I learned from flying a few

11:00

weeks ago with a yoga

11:02

and meditation expert. Reframe

11:05

the situation. We

11:07

were on a flight from Orlando to

11:09

New York. It hadn't taken off yet.

11:12

And there was a kid in the seat in front

11:14

of me, this lovely family, but the kid had this

11:17

annoying Buzz Lightyear

11:19

spinning toy. And

11:22

I felt like he was going to play this thing

11:24

for three hours. So I turned to the

11:28

meditation expert and he said, what are

11:30

you glad about? And I'm

11:32

like, glad about? He

11:34

said, you're glad it's not a

11:36

five hour flight. You're

11:39

happy. You're not in

11:41

business class showing out $5,000 and

11:43

not getting to enjoy the experience.

11:46

So reframe the situation

11:48

and it might take some of the edge off. So

11:51

let's end on the big one, Don. How

11:54

do I make sure to truly enjoy

11:56

my vacation once I'm there? I

11:58

mean, it's all pretty basic advice. But don't

12:00

try to do too much. Don't

12:03

worry about your social media feed. Don't

12:05

worry that someone's going to say, oh my gosh, you

12:07

didn't go to XYZ Beach in Maui

12:10

or hike a certain peak in

12:13

Phoenix. Do what you want

12:15

to do. We ran a story recently

12:17

with some research from Carnegie Mellon that

12:19

I just thought was fascinating. It

12:21

sounds very trite to say do less,

12:24

but they make a really good case

12:26

for just pick your spots. And

12:28

that's it for What's New Sunday for June 30th. Today's

12:41

show was produced by Charlotte

12:43

Gardenberg, Deputy Editors Scott Saloway

12:45

and Chris Sinflie. I'm

12:47

Luke Vargas and we'll be back Monday morning

12:50

with a brand new show. Until then, thanks

12:52

for listening. Thanks

12:58

for watching.