Pro Travel Hacks for Every Aspect of Your Next Trip with Leigh Rowan
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Hey, everybody. I'm Chris Hutchins, and welcome to All The Hacks. I am so excited you're here. This show is about upgrading your life, money, and travel, all while spending less and saving more. And I started it because I'm a diehard optimizer on my own quest to find every hack there is. I love doing all the research to get the best experience in life without the expensive price tag, and then breaking it down to share with everyone.

Each episode, I'll talk with a new expert and dive into all their secret deals. So today, I'm talking to Lee Rowan about travel. Not only has Lee been a travel hacker for years, but he also used to be the COO of The Points Guy and now runs his own travel company called Savanti, where he and his team help their clients take the most incredible vacations, whether that's optimizing points for free first-class flights around the world or finding the best deal for a villa on the Amalfi Coast.

In our chat, we'll walk through all the hacks you need to know to save money and have an incredible, authentic experience on your next trip.

Before we jump in, I just want to mention the All the Hacks newsletter. It's the other place I'll be sharing all the cool stuff I'm learning about and the new hacks I find. So if you're not already subscribed, you can head on over to allthehacks.com slash email and get signed up. So let's jump in. Lee, thanks for being here. My pleasure to be here. Thank you for being here. I think this is the first podcast you've actually done in person this year. Is that right?

Yeah. So it's always tricky to find the intersection of vaccinated person who lives nearby that also has all the hacks. So thank you for being here and fitting all those criteria. Why don't you tell a little bit of background of yourself and let people know how you got to do all this crazy travel stuff? Sure. I'm here in the Bay Area and I've been in the Bay Area for almost 20 years as an entrepreneur, startup guy, somebody who's bounced around between advertising and marketing and now finally travel.

And I came to this role accidentally. So I call myself the accidental travel agent. And that's because I was a traveler who really figured out how to hack my own travel for me, how to do it the right way, using the right credit cards and points and miles and loyalty games to sit in the best seats in the best aircraft, to fly to the best airports with the best service,

And of course, the best part for me is to stay in the best hotels at the best available rates with the most perks and amenities, upgrades, all that stuff. And so the way I really figured it out was by trial and error, by figuring out which online content sources, websites had the best news or the best credit card mileage information, et cetera. And I put together this sort of methodology around how to travel.

So, long story short, I was at an ad agency and left that ad agency to go join the Points Guy. After running that business for a year, I came back to the startup world and really did so because a lot of my friends who were running startups of their own requested me to manage travel for them like I was doing it for me. And what that meant was understanding which credit cards they had, understanding why they were traveling. Was it for work or pleasure? Who was paying?

what type of experience they wanted to have. So I set up Savanti Travel about five years ago, and we do that now full-time. We're providing full-service travel management to busy executives around the Bay Area and around the world, helping them manage all of their travel.

I thought it would be a great idea to do an episode on breaking down an entire trip, which is something that you guys have probably done for thousands of people, thousands of times. And just start at the beginning. Right now, I feel like everyone is in need of a vacation. I don't know if you've gotten a chance to explore and leave the Bay Area yet, but I'm going to this week. And I just, I'm very excited. The anticipation is real, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. That moment you step back on the plane, your first time back,

There's the sense of release and of relief, right? Because there's so much to be scared about, to be fearful of in the unknown of traveling right now. And the reality is that travel is very safe right now, right? There's all those studies about planes and the HEPA filters and all that jazz. We didn't need to get into that. But the reality is travel is safe. And if you do it safely and do it correctly, you can have an amazing time. So when I think about travel planning right now, whether it's for corporate stuff on the Savanti side or it's for leisure, personal vacations, family trips, whatever, I'm

I really think about what's your mindset, right? Like the biggest hack for me is understanding after the trip. What do you want to look back on from that trip and say, this is what I'm trying to achieve with this trip while you're planning it. So a great example for me when I'm planning a trip for someone is to actually ask them that question. To say, hey, listen, you're back from the trip. What did you post on Instagram? What's your social media posts look like? What's your memento from that trip that you're like so happy you have because you're so happy

because you're so grateful you did it. And let's start there and let's work backwards. And do people always have an answer or do you have to coach them to get an answer? Some people are like laser focused. I'm going back to Italy to sit in my favorite cafe to sip a cappuccino while I watch the pigeons in the square. That's their thing and they're going to achieve it. And that's great. Some people really like they're taking it back by that question. They're like, what am I trying to solve for here? And so each level of travel planning, I like to break down to what am I trying to solve for here? And if I know what we're trying to solve for with each element of the trip,

then we can knock this thing out of the park. Yeah, for me, I feel like maybe I'm just a bit too optimized, but I always start with a really high level goal. So it's, I want to go to a beach. So in this upcoming trip, I just want to go somewhere warm where I can go to a hotel and sit outside and order good food and relax. And,

And the challenge is I didn't actually care where. And so it was really tough for me because there's probably, I don't know, 15 places you could go where it's warm, where there's a nice resort. Could be Hawaii, could be Mexico, could be Central America, could be the Caribbean. And so my biggest challenge is there's an unlimited number of options. And I really wanted to focus on price. So if I could go to any of those places and one of them was half the cost,

I wouldn't even really care. So my strategy was, if I don't know exactly what I want, it's, is there a place that is much cheaper than everywhere else? I do that with Google Flights destinations. You go and you say, I'm in San Francisco. I want to go somewhere nonstop. We have a nine-month-old. There's no changing planes. No.

And I'm just like browsing around. I was like, okay, so Cabo's this much, Cancun's this much, Costa Rica's this much, Hawaii's a little bit more expensive. And so that's how I ended up saying, I'm willing to go anywhere that's warm, but I just want to figure out when it's cheapest. And you could even say...

any time in the next six months and get an idea of the best dates. And it's pretty flexible in searching for that. Is that advice you give people? Yeah, sure. Of course. Because that's what we know you're trying to sell for, right? You know that price is the motivating factor next to warmth, right? So assuming warmth, assuming seasonality, assuming now price, now we have to look at how you're going to pay for those tickets. If you've got cash, Google Flights is fantastic.

It'll tell you exactly the cheapest airfare you want to find for the markets you want to find it for based on the dates you have, et cetera. It's great. And if you use the explore functionality there, it's really incredible. There's also a bunch of mileage opportunities, right? And so it depends on what your digital assets are, your mileage, your points that you could use. There are some search engines that are really good for that. One of them is called JuicyMiles.com.

It's a $30 a month subscription. If you're really into points and miles, it's great because you can plug in your routing. You can take a look at the different credit cards or the different other mileage programs that are there. And you can look at how you can pay for those tickets. And when you compare those tickets on the mileage side versus what Google Flights is charging, you can see side by side sort of what makes sense. What's the good comparison? Which asset to use when? So we have another episode on...

about miles and credit cards and points. And I also made a guide to my top cards and the best signup bonuses right now at allthehacks.com slash cards. So we won't go deep, but is there a just quick rule of thumb you use if you're looking at a flight on United and it's X dollars and Y miles? Is there a quick way that you make a decision of whether the miles are maybe a good idea? Yeah, I want to get two cents per mile. So what that means is if I'm looking at a thousand dollar airline ticket,

If it's basically 50,000 miles or fewer, great deal. If it's 64,000 miles, it's a terrible deal.

And very often right now with a lot of the airlines, they're doing variable pricing. So it used to be a set price for a set destination or set of destinations. It's no longer that way. So you really do have to check, log into your account, take a look at what mileage you have, take a look at what the airline is trying to charge on their publicly available website and figure out what the good deal is. By the way, at the end of the day, you're not getting two cents of value per mile. Who cares? If you feel like you're getting value out of it, great. That's what matters in the end.

Sometimes it's cash flow, right? Like, I want to take a vacation. I don't have the cash right now. Use the miles. Anything that gets you the vacation. Yeah, right. Yeah. Okay. So let's say we're not using miles. Does it matter where you buy flights? Can you just buy them on Google Flights? Do you buy them on the airline website? Great question. So in today's day and age, this would have been a whole different conversation a year ago, pre-COVID. But in today's day and age, cancellation and flexibility are the things that matter the most when you're booking travel.

And so what really matters there is booking directly with the airline and understanding their cancellation policy when you're booking, because that's the policy that you're going to be bound by with those funds that you're using to buy that ticket. Now, if you're booking through a third party, let's say Expedia or Travelocity or any of these other online travel agencies, you're fraught with peril if you do that. You're running into an intermediary that's between you and the airline that could really stop up the release of or the change of your ticket.

So I really caution highly against that. Now, I'm a little biased because I'm technically a travel advisor in the travel agency community. Booking with a travel advisor often makes a lot of sense because travel advisors will have access to special rates, things that are unpublished, net rates, for instance. These are on flights? These are on flights. That's correct. Specific kinds of flights? Usually it's international business, but sometimes even domestically there are with

some economy fairs even, there are unpublished corporate rates available that travel agencies can tap into. So it does actually...

pay to ask if you have a travel advisor what rate you could get on a particular flight, especially if it's an expensive one, right? I can't exactly quote things off the top of my head, but let's just say a transcontinental flight from San Francisco to New York would cost $240 one way in economy. There's a good chance that there's a corporate rate available and that might be $179. That's a meaningful savings if you're doing that a few times a year.

Or for a few people on the same plate. And are there specific travel advisors that offer these kind of discounted fares? Or do you just have to kind of... Best to ask around. Yeah, they tend to be the ones that work with the higher end agencies. So you could look at the virtuoso.com website, which is a collection of about, I think, 20,000 travel advisors globally, and see if any of those have the particular fares you're looking for.

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Any tips on picking the flight? You know, when you're going to New York, there's seven airlines. If you have a loyalty program and you live in San Francisco and you've decided I'm all in on United, it's an easy choice. But if you're sometimes taking an international trip or if you're going somewhere you don't fly often and you could fly any airline, is there any quick advice

easy way? I mean, you probably know this off the top of your head. Which airline you want to fly? Who's got the best seats? Is there any hacks to figure out the best one? So unfortunately, the answer is not that easy because it's a lot of massed knowledge over time. And if you even do look at United, going back to New York for a second, they fly into their hub of Newark from San Francisco, but now they also fly into JFK. And

And they're flying different aircraft to those different destinations. So if you're sitting up in business, there's actually quite a difference between a 1-2-1 seating in business on a 777 or on a 787 Dreamliner versus the old school 2-4-2 seating in business on a 777 for United going into Newark. So it really does pay to actually go onto their website, study the seat map of where you're going to be sitting, and then take a look at reviews. Look at online on SeatGuru or any of the review websites to actually find out, okay, what's this experience like?

By the way, what is this experience like during COVID? Am I going on a five and a half hour flight and they're not serving food? Like, that's going to suck. So make sure you plan ahead and you buy food at the airport and you bring water and all of these things you might need for the plane. I definitely think that if COVID has taught us anything, it's that everything you knew about travel has completely changed. And it's now time to re-research even the stuff that you were super familiar with. So

So feel free to ask people online, reach out to the airline itself. They'll expect long hold times. Maybe Twitter's better for that one. But do expect that you've got to do a little bit of research before you get back on the road and make sure you're getting the right experience you want to have. Awesome. So when it comes to flight deals, I haven't actually ever tried this, but I was walking through Costco the other day and there's this big banner for like, Costco, we plan your vacation. We have flights and hotels. Is that ever a good deal? No. So here's the thing. Costco...

Costco has its great upsides. Rental cars, for instance, incredible rates and deals. They have 20-ish percent discount off of publicly available rates. You're going to rent a car and you want to use your Costco account, totally do it. It's a great idea. Also, all of their car rentals are fully refundable. So you could even rent three or four from different car rental agencies and you could easily refund them if you need to. Not a problem. Great, great to use them there.

However, if you do use Costco, I highly recommend if you're going to work with them on the rental car basis that you actually reconfirm your rental before you rent it, before you pick it up. So we usually will call on behalf of our clients. We'll call a day or two in advance of their arrival and say, hey, FYI, Chris is coming to town. He rented through Costco. Just want to reconfirm everything is...

up to snuff with his rental so that you, Chris, when you get there, don't have any problems or surprises. - Yeah, and during COVID, I've seen so many stories lately of rental car companies running out of cars, people renting U-Hauls to drive around Hawaii. So this is a great hack. - Yeah, I was just in the New York Times talking with them about this exact thing.

It used to be that when you booked a hotel, you'd call the hotel and sort of work with them, but you would never call a rental car. Now you're actually doing that more. You're calling the branch office at the airport that you're going to, not the 800 number for Hertz, but the actual branch office and saying to them, hey, I'm Chris. I'm going to be arriving this date on this time, this flight. Please make sure that my vehicle will be there. And they will note it. I'll even go so far as to ask the name of the person who will be there at the front desk, because when I check in at that counter, if I'm

If I'm going to the counter, I want to make sure that they know who I am and that they've flagged my vehicle as a VIP vehicle. And it works. We did it in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago and it was great. And it's not VIP that you're someone special. It's just you took the time to call. Correct. But I actually have a vehicle there. They didn't give away to somebody else. Yeah. Now you asked about Costco and booking flights. The answer I think really is no, right? Costco is not a good channel to book flights and nor is Expedia or Travelocity, like I said earlier, because you're adding an extra intermediary between you and the airline.

Now, when you're bundling things together, there is a different option. What a bundle is, you buy, let's say, a flight and a hotel together. And actually, for this, I would go directly to the airline. Pretty much every major domestic airline has what they call a vacation website. Doesn't mean you need to use it for only vacations. I may have used it a couple times to hack a business trip together for somebody. But basically, you can book a hotel and an airline flight bundled together at often a lot cheaper than what you would see online for those two separate components.

And the way you do this is you either book a hotel you're going to use, or maybe you book a hotel you won't use, a throwaway hotel, and bundle it with the flights you want. A good example of this, LA to London can often be $7,000, $8,000, $10,000 round trip in business. But if you book it on the American Airlines website and you throw in a hotel, you can actually get that $7,000 or $8,000 or $10,000 flight

down to even $5,000 or $6,000 simply by adding in the hotel. And why that matters is that you're getting an unpublished sort of special fare that the airline would never market on its own, but they will market it in conjunction with a hotel. Could I just pick a one-star hotel and bundle it? Not going to say I've done it a lot of times, but maybe I have. Absolutely. Amazing. So no Costco, yes, airline vacation websites. Exactly. Any other flight hacks? I think the

The best thing about flights is to understand in this post-COVID world how flexible they can be. And so points and miles really offer a ton of flexibility because even pre-COVID, the worst case scenario with them, you had a $250 change and redeposit fee, which was a lot cheaper than the standard published fare of $400 to change your ticket. But nowadays, if you understand what you can do with change and cancellation, you can actually hedge. You can buy a bunch of cheap flights online.

and hold onto them and maybe never use them, but at least revolve them into your next cheap flight. It's free to change now. It's free to cancel. Unless you have a basic economy fare, which I saw this morning. Yeah. All the domestic airlines except one, it was probably maybe JetBlue, basic economy fares...

have lost their flexibility. If you're taking a flight and you don't care about any of the perks, basic economy may work for you. Maybe. Maybe. Last minute. But I would say always make sure when you're looking on Google Flights that you add in a carry-on as something you're bringing. And you'll notice the fares go up because some of those super cheap flights are basic economy. And they're now at the point where if you can't take the flight, there's no refund. There's no changing anything. So be extra careful with basic economy flights from now forward.

Cool. Okay. So flights, we've got flights figured out. I actually think that the hotel can make the vacation more than the flight. I've had my fair share of flights that were incredible, but the hotel seems to always be what lands everything. How do you even begin to start thinking about finding a hotel? My biggest challenge, and I wish I had an answer, is when I'm going to a place, I'm just totally overwhelmed. There's

So many places you can stay. Everything seems to be four to four and a half stars on TripAdvisor. Right. How do you start to narrow down the scope of all the hotels you can stay at? Yeah. So this is a great question and one that is not easily answerable. But my simple answer is this.

ask people. Ask someone who's been to the destination. Ask a travel advisor. Ask people on social media. Search for hotels in social media, actually. Take a look at what Instagram photos people are posting or what reviews they're posting on Twitter even or Facebook. A lot of this content is public and it's not available in the TripAdvisor channel, which again, like you, I think is pretty biased. You're

you're either writing a five-star review or a one-star review. It doesn't really give you a ton of insight. So take a look around at other places online to get good destination advice, but especially ask your friends with good taste or ask people you might know who've recently been to the destination for their advice. But I think that the key thing is once you've settled in on one or two hotels, really understand from their website, what are they offering? What are the amenities? What's closed during COVID?

What can you expect when you check in? What are the rooms looking like? Is my partial ocean view really of a parking lot and there's a sliver of an ocean back there? Partial ocean view seems like the biggest. I feel like I stayed at the Fairmont in Hawaii and I was like, I'm supposed to have a partial ocean view in there. Can you see the ocean if you lean over the balcony? And I was like, yeah. The lanai overlooking the garden that's been covered in greenery. It's not ocean. But really, if you look around online, you'll find the right resources.

But then there's the question of how do you book it? And I think this is another great example of book direct and book with knowledge. You do not want to go through an intermediary here that's not adding any value, right? You and I chatted recently about TripAdvisor Pro.

or TripAdvisor Plus or whatever this new thing is that they're putting out. And it's an interesting take. What it is, it's 99 bucks a year. And it will theoretically get you cheaper access to the same hotel rooms that you'd see online. You don't get benefits and amenities. You just get a cheaper price. I know anyone thinking about, do I want to spend $99 to get a better rate? Is it actually going to be cheaper? No. The net answer is, yeah, sure it is. To your credit card, it'll be cheaper, but the experience will also be cheaper. And so therefore you really don't want to do it.

Okay. Here's why. What TripAdvisor is doing with their pro or plus whatever it is thing is they're basically rebating back to you some of their corporate negotiated contract rates. So let's say the room is 500 bucks online, right? It's an expensive room. They're going to give you that room for 465. And why are they doing that? Because on the back end, they're probably getting whatever, 10% off when they market that room as commission or a rebate from the hotel. And so they're giving you a portion of that rebate.

to basically offset the cost. Now, that's great. But if you actually went to the hotel and you paid $500 for that room, you'd probably be getting free breakfast. What's the value of that? Is it more than 35 bucks? Probably. Or if you go through a travel advisor or through your credit card, you may be getting free breakfast and $100 credit. Well, 100 bucks is clearly more than 35. So I think what's a really good takeaway here is understand the channel through which you book, because the channel matters the most when it comes to hotels.

If you can't book it directly for some reason, find a way to book it that's going to get you the best value. It might be through a travel advisor. It might be through your credit card. It might be through like a perk at your company or your office where they have a weird travel portal you've never been to. Like, look at that. But find the best value for your booking and book there.

And so booking from the hotel, number one choice. What's the experience going to be like if I book from the hotel's website versus Expedia? Yeah, that's a great question. So in the hotel biz, it's all about relationships. What they're looking to do is build a relationship with every guest that comes through that door to make sure that guest will keep coming back over and over again.

And so when you book directly with the hotel, they have the most amount of information on you as a guest as they can possibly have. If you book through third party, you book through Expedia or even American Express travel, which is ironic, you come through as Expedia guests in their system. That doesn't exactly give them the information they want to know. They want to know who you are, why you're traveling. Is this business or leisure? You're celebrating something. When are you arriving? When are you departing?

All of these things matter to them because they can customize your stay in a way that when you book through a third party and none of that information is given, that they can't, right? So the more info you can give to the hotel, the better. And the best way of doing that, honestly, is booking direct and then following up with the hotel with an email to say, hey, I'm Chris. I just booked directly on your website. This is the room I booked. These are the dates I'm staying. This is the confirmation number. I'd love you to know this about me. And share whatever you want to share.

Oftentimes, we on behalf of our clients will share social media profiles. We'll share where they're coming from on their trip. Maybe this is stop one of a five-stop trip. Maybe they're just coming away for a quick getaway for the weekend. Maybe it's just two people staying for the first two nights and then they're joined by the third on the third night.

Whatever it is, we're sharing that level of detail. This person likes fish. They don't like chicken, whatever. And the importance there is that they're going to make sure the hotel is going to make sure that they take this data into account and they've really customized the stay to that guest's needs. So I don't ever hesitate to send a note to a hotelier and say, hey,

this is a really important person to me and here's who they are and here's why. And then right before the stay, follow up with them again. Hey, Chris has come into town. Please dial him in. These are the things that matter. But I can do this myself if I don't have a travel agent. I could just call and say, or how do I even get the email? Email. So I think email is best because it's in writing, number one. And number two, it allows you to go back to that same email and add to it because you will inevitably forget something. But the best thing to do is to find the email for either the concierge or the reservations team at that hotel.

When you book online through the website, you'll usually be given an email with a confirmation that actually has that information in it. And I might even have the GM or the director of sales or somebody's name. We can't wait to welcome you, Chris. Signed, John Hopkins. You're going to email John Hopkins and let him know you're coming. And then John and his team will take care of you.

And if you don't get an email, is there any secret to the website? Or can I just call them and ask them for the email? Call them. In fact, call them, get to the front desk and ask somebody at the front desk and say, hey, listen, who can I email and say who I am? Or who can I email in advance of my stay? Just so you guys have a little more information on me and what we're looking to do. And is that the concierge? Who is that? They'll direct you to the right person. But I highly recommend writing that email because it's going to give a level of depth that the hotel wouldn't have otherwise.

And it's the best way of hacking your way to an upgrade or hacking your way to a better experience. I'm going to Mexico next week. Yeah. I email the front desk and say, hey, I'm coming. I'm really excited to stay with you. Do you really think that's going to improve the chances I get upgraded? Totally. Because what you're going to do is you're going to say, I'm coming with my wife. This is our first trip. I'm also coming with a nine-month-old. Can you please confirm that there's a crib in the room? We're arriving at this time. Will the room be ready when we arrive? All of these questions you're asking...

are questions they want to know, that they want to actually have asked to them. If you just show up and be like, where's my crib? Didn't you say I have a nine-month-old? Like, they're totally caught off guard. So they're going to be able to prepare for you in advance, and they're going to flag you with a little star on their morning check-in list, and they're going to say, okay, this guy's already reached out. We know who he is. And that's going to give them so much more fodder to work with while you're there. Look, it may be that they can't give you an upgrade because they're sold out. Maybe they give you a welcome drink or an amenity or something else that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. That's very possible.

you're probably also going to have a letter in your room from the GM being like, Chris, thanks for reaching out. Thanks for trusting us with your stay. Looking forward to making this special. You know what? When you get into your room, email the GM. Be like, I'm in the room. It's great. I'd like some more towels or whatever you need. And then the GM will take care of it. Nice.

Nice. And I assume I'm not getting any of this if I book through Travelocity. They're not going to know who you are. They're not even going to know your name is Chris sometimes. Like, seriously. So that's the thing I think is most important to understand is that travel and hotels in particular are all about relationships. And so the more you can connect with...

hotelier and your destination, the better your experience will be. And that also means, by the way, that they'll unlock doors for you outside of the hotel in that city, right? If you need restaurant recommendations or experiences, they're really a good gatekeeper to help you out

I've always wondered, I've asked the concierge for restaurant recommendations. And sometimes I feel like I always go and double check. I look these restaurants up. Some hotels, they're great. Sometimes I'm like, is this place that good? Can you trust the concierge? Yeah, it's a great question. The first place they're always going to recommend is the hotel restaurant, right? Because that's what they got to do. Then they're going to recommend their cousin's place for whoever's giving them a kickback. But

But then down the line, there might be some other ones. And I'm grossly overgeneralizing here. I think concierges do incredible work and we'd be lost without them in a lot of ways. But I do think you do have to take their recommendations with a grain of salt, right? Not every concierge is amazing. The Cleft Door people who are really, truly spectacular, they know their markets inside and out. And I would listen to them and I'd email them in advance for a guide to the city, right? What can I do? And...

oftentimes they will be able to provide incredible levels of detail of what's open, what's not, what's happening, what's hot, all of that. And that level of access. So definitely leverage them. Definitely take what they say with a grain of salt, but know that you can get fantastic access from concierges that you may not be able to get yourself.

Yeah. I've one time asked, can you give me a restaurant recommendation? I got an okay recommendation. And then I was like, I'm going to be here five days. Can you give me a few? And then I looked at number three, number four, and they can't give you five cousins because they probably don't have five cousins. But the third and fourth recommendations were good. So that's hotels. Sometimes you're just traveling with a big family. Maybe you want to rent a house. Maybe you want to rent a villa. Maybe you want a different experience, Airbnb, VRBO.

I noticed there's not a lot of comparison shopping, right? It's not like I can go to five sites and see if it's cheaper somewhere else. Is there any hacks for trying to book a house or a villa somewhere? Yeah, there are a ton. And boy, wouldn't it be great if you could come up with the comparison shopping engine for homes, home rentals, it would be incredible.

But yeah, the short answer is yes, there are. What I like to do is search with a couple different tabs open, both for VRBO and Airbnb or HomeAway or other hyper-localized sites. And the way I've hacked it is oftentimes a lot of these vacation rental properties that are specifically for vacation rentals, right? They're not like somebody's home. They're just renting out on the side like we do here, but they're actually vacation rentals. They'll often have their own website.

website that you can book directly on for that home. And the way I find them is I go to Airbnb or VRBO. I take a couple of the photos from their listings and I run a reverse Google image search. So like a screenshot, the front of the house or the pool or something that's pretty like unique to that home. And then I'll run it into images.google.com. There's a little button you can click to actually upload a photo.

I'll reverse image search to see, okay, where else is this image listed? And inevitably, if they're listing it on VRBO or if they're listing it on HomeAway, it's going to show up on Google for their actual vacation rental website home address. So I go to that address and I take a look at the rates and I say, okay, is it available here? Is it cheaper than I'm seeing on HomeAway or VRBO or Airbnb? Then if so, I just reach out directly through their own website, contact the owner and do the contracting there.

Oftentimes, that can save 10%, 15%, 20% on a home rental. So we definitely recommend doing that. Also, you get to then know the homeowner before you transact with them. So you know if this person's weird or if they're cool. And that's really helpful too. So that's hotels. That's villas. Now let's talk about just getting to a country. So...

I'll start with one thing I love to do when I get in a country, and I'd love to hear if you have any hacks for what to do, what to see, how to figure it out. But the first thing I always do, unless I'm going to just relax at a beach, is my wife and I book a food tour.

And there's a ton of sites online that have food tours. Airbnb now has these local experiences. And we'll just go on a three-hour tour in the morning, usually go to a market in the middle of the city with someone local. You get to see how the market works, how people operate, how selling works. But you also probably end up eating two or three things, and you get to ask a thousand questions. Yeah.

about the culture, about the city, learn new stuff. That's like my way to get immersed just right away and really get a sense of what the country's like. But that's my hack. I don't have anything else. How do you figure out what to do? Is there anything you do? So there are two steps to this. First is you want to plan way ahead of time what you're going to do. But we'll get to that in a second. Second is when you get there, what's the first thing you do? And I love the idea of a food tour.

right? Because there's no better way of really understanding a market or understanding a new place you've never been. I think if you're not into doing a food tour, it's a little too dicey for you right off the bat. I think taking a walking tour with a guide is a great idea. You can often find cheap or sometimes even free walking tours, a lot of them leaving from your hotel, for instance, to get to know your neighborhood or an area. And that is a great way of not only getting out and working out that jet lag, but also really getting to know how a city operates.

But let's step back and figure out, okay, we're going to a new place. I've got no idea about the destination. What do I do? How do I plan this? First things first, always helps to ask around. Who do you know who's been there? Who on social media do you follow who's recently been there? Just get a taste of that so you can make sure you write down those things on your agenda.

Secondly, and this is a hack you showed me actually, go to your local library. Take a look at what guidebooks are available for that area. I mean, guidebooks, Lonely Planet, geez, sounds like it's like an old school 1977 thing. It's so valuable. Every trip we take, I go look, and you don't even have to buy the book for this, by the way. I go to Amazon and I search for the Lonely Planet and the first five pages are like top 25 experiences in this country. And I'm like, oh my God, this is so valuable.

And I try not to go too micro. So I might look at the country guide instead of the city guide. Yeah. Because the country guide might only have two or three things in a major city. And I don't want to know the 20 things. I want to know the two or three things. Right. But the hack that's awesome is there's this Chrome extension. I think it works on other browsers too called library extension. And I'll put links to everything we talk about in the show notes.

But you install it. And when you're browsing Amazon, if that book is available from a local library in digital format for free, which I'd say 50, 60, 70% of the time it is. And this isn't just travel books, any book. They immediately link you out to the site and you can go download that book for free and usually get 30, 45 days and you can go through the whole thing. It's amazing. Exactly.

Exactly. So I think that reading guidebooks, not only does it bring back the nostalgia of travel of yesteryear, but it also is like a really great way of understanding somebody else's perspective on a city and getting to know through somebody else's eyes what they think should be the top sites. And look, in every guidebook, it's always going to be the same top 25, more or less, for every city. But when you want to get into specialized experiences, okay, I want to go see Jewish Prague, or I want to go on a food crawl in

in Rome or I want to go on a bar crawl in Ireland.

we turn to destination management companies and DMCs. And so the best thing to do is just Google Ireland DMC, right? Or Rome DMC. And you'll come back with a bunch of different people, providers who can actually sometimes offer free itineraries on their website of what they would take around for clients. So are these like tour guides? Yeah, they're a mix of like tour operators and tour guides. So tour operators means somebody who puts together an itinerary, whether it's for one person or a thousand,

In a city, they don't necessarily have a big, you know, red open-top bus. They sometimes are operating out of sprinter vans or even taxis and Ubers, but they're taking you around and showing you the city from the inside with a local guide. And sometimes they're great and they're inexpensive. Sometimes they're very expensive. So you can find a DMC that suits your needs in every market. But I think the key thing to do with DMCs is look at what their itineraries are that they're showing online and get a sense of what you'd want to do in that city. Maybe it makes sense to reach out to them. Maybe it doesn't.

Look, if you work with a travel advisor, they'll recommend certain DMCs in certain cities based on your travel profile and what you're looking for. But again, that may be overkill for your needs as well. And you don't have to book with them, right? You can just look at their itinerary and say, wow, they do these seven things in Jordan, but only this one sounds interesting. Let me just search around and find someone that does that well. Bingo.

And so for that, we have a bunch of different other micro DMC options. A good example of this is there's a local tour guide company called ShowAround.

And this is less about actually professional tour guides and more about like enthusiastic locals, people who will happily show you their neighborhood or their barrio or whatever it is. So I highly recommend that. I also love Eat With. They are just like it sounds like a website where you can get to marketplace to find people you could eat with. They're either chefs who are going to cook a meal for you

Or they're actually people who will show you around on a food tour of a certain area, a destination. I want the best pork sugo meatballs in Bologna. Whatever it is. So good. So I definitely recommend finding those kinds of people. Another thing we do a lot for clients on their first time in a market is we book a photography session with them. And that's because they can really get an experience for a place, but also get some cool photos to take home for their Christmas cards. If

through the eyes of a local. And so there are a number of companies that do this. Flytographers one, Blink is another, but they'll basically set up photo shoots for you and your family or loved ones or whomever in front of the Eiffel Tower or at the Coliseum. And it's a pretty cool way of bringing a memento home, but also getting to see a particular spot in a particular light. And I think something that's interesting is the value isn't just someone shows you around town. It's someone who's tapped into what's happening.

So I think we went on a free tour in Buenos Aires and the tour was great. We walked around. And by the way, if anyone's considering these free tours at the end of every free tour, there's tips. So I wouldn't consider it completely free. If you're on a bootstrap budget and you have no money and you say, thank you. I'm so broke, but I just, I had to want to take a tour. I really appreciate it. You're not going to get looked at inappropriately. People are going to understand, but I think it's such a great way to get to see the city. And someone said, Oh man,

yeah, there's a soccer game, football game going on tonight. You should check it out. And we went to this very untouristic event where the away fans are caged off sides, front and top, have to enter the stadium separately because people get into their soccer. But that was an experience that doesn't show up on the DMC itinerary. Or Lonely Planet. Anywhere because it's so time dependent. Outside of a local just happening to

tell you or maybe the concierge any other tricks for finding these kind of like cool events or festivals when you're in a city? Number one, leave time in your itinerary for spontaneity because it's going to happen. You're going to be at an Irish bar and all of a sudden a crack session happens where the local musicians pull out their gear and you're like...

I'm not leaving. My day is here. So definitely leave time for spontaneity, but also take a look at some of the international media around what events are happening in that city or in that market. I actually love Time Out, the international media brand. They often have a lot of really good events happening. You can check in advance, check it a couple of times. You should also reach out to your credit card companies. Their concierge departments often have

static sort of like city guides as well as like a what's happening city guide. And if you reach out to them and say, hey, I'm a platinum card holder. I have a Chase Sapphire Reserve. They'll actually provide you with a bunch of information on a city that

and that you can then use to plan your trip. And they can also book things for you. So one of the things that I think is always difficult when you're trying to make restaurant reservations in a country when you don't speak the language is that you don't speak the language. You know, do I call them? What do I say? And these people, for free, right? These concierges linked to your credit cards are completely free. They'll not only give you the list, but I'm pretty sure they'll call and make the reservations too. Oh yeah. And so American Express is a great example of this. When I have clients going to Tokyo,

So the best thing to do is honestly work with the Amex concierge to get restaurant reservations because it's a little hard in Japanese when you don't speak Japanese and or the reservations folks at the restaurant aren't so keen to deal with the gringos. So what ends up happening is we work with

Amex Platinum Concierge to book a restaurant reservation for someone. And even if they don't take American Express, which is the best part, American Express can make that reservation for you. And that's really valuable for us. So definitely leverage your credit card companies as much as possible. Again, be wary of whose incentives you're working with. If you're talking to the local hotel concierge or Amex for that matter, just make sure you're getting the biggest picture before you say yes to one answer. What does that mean exactly?

Well, who's on the take? Who's getting their favorite kickback from someone? That's all. And that can happen even with Amex or Chase's. Oh, sure. Here's a great example, right? Deep down a rabbit hole of points. American Express, when you call them and say, I want to book a flight, they really want you to use their points.

to pay for whatever flight that you find that you think is good. The reality is you can often get that same flight by using American Express points, but transferring them to a partner. And I'm sure you'll go into this on your points and miles chat, but you can transfer those points away from American Express to a partner and book at that partner's website for a lot less than if you actually booked through American Express using their points on their website. But Amex will tell you that this is the best deal and they won't be looking really out for you. They'll be looking out for them.

So again, just be careful and be wary. Talk to people, talk to a travel advisor, look online for reviews before you pull the trigger on any of these credit card company recommended options. Cool.

Last local recommendation, food. Yeah. How there's nothing better than an amazing meal in another country, I think. And if you're coming to San Francisco, I could rattle off a handful of recommendations. And one of the things I like to do sometimes is if I'm looking at a guidebook, I'm like, what do they say to do in San Francisco? And the sad thing is a lot of times the restaurants that aren't the ones you would recommend are

Are there any ways to find that equivalent list of those great local spots in other countries when things like Yelp and TripAdvisor are just filled with the tourist traps in those countries? Yeah, that's a great question. My God.

Then it all depends on how daring and adventurous you're willing to be, right? Because if you're going to Iceland and you want to eat whale, like you can do that and there's a way to do that. But do you really want to do it? Like you have to check in with yourself before you go to some of these countries. And it can be feel very uncomfortable for North Americans who don't speak a certain language to be in a food hotspot and not know what you're eating or what's put. I'm like, I don't even know what this is, but I'll eat it.

So I thrive on that too. And I think the best ways of doing that are number one, just like you said, go on a food tour, right? Get acquainted with the market. And when I say the market, I literally mean the market, where the food comes from. And understand how food is bought and sold in a country, what foods are delicious in that country, who eats them. Number two is try to find a local with whom you can go out. Now that's not easy, right? A company like Eat With, that'll help you. The concierge actually can be very helpful in that. And there are certain cities that have

hotel concierges that will walk you to the restaurant, help you understand the menu and order for you, and then they'll leave and go back to the hotel. That's an incredible value add when you're clueless in Seoul or you have no idea what you're eating in Shanghai or Chengdu.

So definitely do that. But I think that the best thing to do is to research ahead of time on dishes, experiences, and types of restaurants. Not necessarily like the name of the place you need to go, but types of restaurants. So that when you show up in a city, you can say, hey, listen, I really want to try these things. And you're sitting down with a concierge or you're sitting down with a friendly local you just met. How do I do this? And asking vulnerably for some guidance, you'd be amazed by what happens and what you can find.

Yeah, I've never really thought about it from that perspective. But if you go to someone and say, what's the best restaurant? Their first answer might be, oh, my buddy's place. But if you go and say, where do I get the most authentic? Yeah, give me these dumplings or give me this roasted animal part or whatever it is. I'm like, look, let's face it. That's why we're traveling. We want to come back with these memories of, oh my God, this meal I had. And so yes, use social media ahead of time, find those things, but also give a chance for some spontaneity. Don't think that you have to go to the restaurant

top place. Look, I went to a three Michelin star restaurant in Lyon in France by a titan of French cuisine. And I thought it was one of the worst meals I've ever had in my entire life. But it has to live up to the hype of the hundreds or maybe thousands of dollars you spend for it. Most of the best meals I've had are at food stalls, at markets. At the random bistro in the corner, right? It's yes.

Yeah. In Bangkok, there's a market. It's the Or Tor Kor Market. And it's across the highway from like the main market. But it's just like a giant open community food place. Yeah. The stalls in there are better than every single expensive restaurant we had. And those are the kind of experiences I love. And I have no idea if I picked the five-star stall. I sometimes am like, where are all the people that look like they're from here lining up? Yeah. And let's just line up

behind him. Yeah, exactly. And let's point if we don't speak Thai and we like want that thing, maybe it's spicy frog legs. Who cares? You're trying it. It's going to be great. And again, in the end, you're going to remember that much more than you're going to remember the fancy three-star meal. 100%.

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So that's a great thing. You're going to this food stall in the middle of a time market, and I'm pretty sure they're not going to take a credit card.

In fact, I'm certain they're not going to take a credit card. How do you get cash when you're going to one of these countries? So the traveler's check is dead. Exchanging money ahead of time is a terrible idea because you're just going to end up paying for the nose for the exchange rate that you don't want. It's not favorable in your direction. So what I really recommend to people when they're traveling abroad is bring a couple hundred US dollars in smaller bills in your carry-on or somewhere safe with you.

And then bring an ATM card and make sure you've checked ahead of time with the ATM card that you're going to be able to use it internationally, that they won't hose you on fees and that they know you're traveling right now. When you get to the airport in your first destination, go to the first big sort of box brand ATM you can find, the HSBC or the Scotiabank or the City Bank or whatever, in that airport arrivals hall and get cash out there.

I usually like to get the max out, right? So if I'm spending three days in a market and I know that I'm going to be spending a lot of cash, Bangkok is a great example. I'll get whatever my ATM max is, 500 bucks, 750, whatever, just to have that cash on hand.

And that's the cash that I'm going to use. I'm never going to want to exchange at a hotel. The rates are always terrible. Never going to want to go to one of those exchange rates with like neon signs on the corner because who knows what they're doing with my passport data. And also the rates are terrible. And then I don't really want to use some random ATM that the restaurant is walking me to because they say, oh, you have to use this ATM to pay us because we don't take credit. And I ran out of cash. So I'm always trying to plan ahead.

When I'm getting down like the last hundred bucks or so, go take out a couple more hundred, keep it in my pocket, spread it around. But I think the key thing is your ATM card is your lifeline for cash. Don't use any other type of cash unless it's an emergency and you need to. Yeah. And so I think...

If you want to make sure you never run out of local currency, you're probably going to end your trip with more. Obviously, we've all had our fair share of buying ridiculous stuff at the airport before you come home. And you're like, I guess I'll burn $50 on silly souvenirs. I need to do more shot glasses. Yeah, right. Yeah. But...

Let's say I've got $200 or $300. Any hacks for how to get rid of it without getting hosed on the exchange rate? Yeah. So I always keep about $40 or $50 for the airport just in case. In case there's like a departure tax I didn't know about, or there's some airport security fee you got to pay in cash or whatever. But let's say I've got $200 in my pocket. When I'm checking out of the last hotel, even if it's been on my credit card, and even if I want the credit card points...

I'll go to the hotel front desk and say, hey, listen, I'd like to buy down $150 worth of my hotel bill using this cash. They're always going to take the cash. They're always going to be able to buy you down or reduce your rate so that you're not putting everything on your credit card and you're not also walking out with a giant wad of cash. So I definitely do that or I'll pay for the airport transfer that should have been included in my hotel bill. I'll pay for that in cash or whatever it is to basically help burn that last little bit off.

Worst case scenario, you bring home a few bucks and you exchange it at the airport in that country before you leave. I never like to bring it home to the States because you're just going to get screwed. Once you land and step foot in the States, they know your money that you have in your pocket is worthless to you. So they're just going to turn the screws on you. And we never want that.

Yeah. And when you're checking out at the hotel and you're finally putting the rest of that hotel on your credit card, please do not choose to be billed in U.S. dollars. Oh, God, no. This whole dynamic currency conversion scam is the worst. Basically, what it is, is this. Banks have gotten really intelligent about how to extract every dollar possible from people. And so now you need a hack back.

That's the purpose of this show is like banks and credit card companies and airlines and hotels. Like I love them. I want great experiences, but I also want to find every chance to get the best experience at the best price. Yeah. And you don't want to feel like you've been taken for a ride. And so what hotels or what credit card companies, banks are doing is they're actually asking you to pay in a Thai hotel in US dollars. And that doesn't make any sense. When you're in Thailand, you should be using Thai baht.

So when you're actually presented with a credit card terminal, it's going to say press one for Thai baht or press two for US dollars. And you might think, geez, US dollars, how easy is that? There's two things wrong here. One, it's called dynamic currency conversion. It's a scheme the banks use to basically charge you an inflated interest rate

that you're getting screwed on. Okay. And number two, your bank may still charge you a foreign transaction fee if they do so on the US dollar transaction, because it's coming from Thailand. So you could be paying twice, once on an overly inflated rate that might be something like 10 or 12% more than you need to be paying. And two on a foreign exchange rate, which is a foreign exchange fee, which is the worst. So take a credit card, pay in Thai baht,

And make sure it's a card that has no foreign transaction fees. Exactly. There's so many cards these days that have no foreign transaction fees. So make sure that's the case. And while you're at it, make sure to tell the credit card company you're traveling. Yes. Because there is nothing worse than showing up in a country and trying to use your credit card or your ATM card, having it not work, having to figure out how you can make that $25 phone call back to the U.S. to get your card enabled. So make sure you give them a heads up so you don't have any problems.

Speaking of phone calls, one of the hacks I love is trying to get a local SIM card. In some countries, this is really hard. And you've basically got to go give an ID and you've got to put a lot of money down. And in some countries, a lot of African countries, it's give a dollar and you get a SIM card. And you can sell them in the arrivals hall. Yeah. And it's super easy. But the hack here is if you have a phone that supports it, and I think starting with maybe the iPhone 11, it's always supported. You can actually have unlimited number of virtual SIM cards online.

in addition to your one SIM card you put in the phone. And so call Verizon, go on Verizon's website. Google Fi does this. A lot of carriers do now. Convert your Verizon SIM card to an eSIM. Now you have your SIM card free. So when you're overseas, you can still have your phone on your home carrier, but you can get a local SIM card, put it in and say, use my data online.

on this new SIM card. And then you don't have to worry about pulling out your Verizon card, losing it, not being able to take an emergency phone call, but you can actually get local cheaper data in that country.

If you don't have that, a lot of countries now rent out those little like portable hotspots. Yeah, little MiFis. Yeah. That one's great because then you can use it with the whole family. You just have to charge it every day and carry a second device. Any other kind of data phone call hacks when you're traveling? So I always like to download the Google Maps offline version of the city that I'm going to make sure that I have all of the maps ahead of time because...

look, Google Maps, it can just eat your data up when you're traveling abroad and you need it when you're traveling abroad. So because of that, I always download ahead of time. I also will use Google Translate as often as possible. And I'll actually screenshot, especially when it's some of the Asian languages that are not written in traditional Roman letters, I'll screenshot some of this traditional phrases and I'll like flashcards, study them on the plane so that I don't have to be using Google Translate consistently when I'm overseas. But you

But you can download Google Translate offline also. Which is pretty good. For me, if I'm looking at a Chinese menu in China, I don't understand it. But you can go with Google Translate and you can take a photo and they will in real time translate a photo of a

sign in the subway of a menu. It's so cool. It is so cool. And so those two tools, I can't live without ahead of time. But I think that the biggest thing that you can do on the data side is check with your carrier here in the States and say, does it make sense for me to be spending 10 bucks a day in Europe? Or can I buy like a European plan for a month where it's 99 bucks or $125 or whatever it is? Check to see if your carrier will offer that. If you're on the road for a long time,

Those $10 a day charges, especially for a family of four, can really add up. Yeah. It's worth considering if you're starting to travel a lot, Google.

Google Fi, T-Mobile. Some carriers have international coverage all around the world with data. Included. Yeah, totally free. So I had a Google Fi SIM for a while. It's one of the rare cases where I'd say it's so much better experience with Android than it is with iOS, which is a bummer as an iPhone user. But it's great for international data. And if you travel a lot, it could be worth having that as just a separate backup. Yep. I know you could probably get

a couple gigs of data on T-Mobile or Google Fi for 20, 30 bucks a month, which if you're making a trip every two or three months and- Makes total sense. It could make total sense. Let me also switch gears for a quick sec and just talk about where you don't want to bring your phone. And that is to places where-

This might not be safe to have your own iPhone or smartphone. So maybe you do have a backup burner phone that you can use that you can wipe clean quickly if you need to when you're traveling to sensitive countries. Definitely have advised clients who travel overseas to do that, and they've definitely had instances where they've needed to do that. So just bring a backup phone or have a backup phone just in case.

And if you're traveling to a country where privacy laws and human rights are challenging, be careful. Maybe don't bring the computer that has your entire life stored on it. Maybe don't bring the computer that has a Word doc on your desktop with every password to every site. And definitely don't carry that around town. So we got to the country. We stayed. We figured out the way to hack everything local. This was amazing. Now I'm a little disappointed because I just want to go on more trips.

I feel like hopefully 2021 can shape up to be a year where we can go places. Do you have any trips planned? So I just got back recently from Turks and Caicos, which was just bananas. It was just so beautiful. And the beaches are incredible. And I can't recommend that destination enough. So beautiful. My next trip was supposed to be to Italy this summer. Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen work challenges, I think I'll probably have to reschedule that one for later in the year. But we do have New York on the docket. A lot of other domestic travel coming up.

traveling with little kids during the pandemic has been tricky. And as you know, vaccinated travelers can now travel overseas fairly easily. But if you're under 16 and not vaccinated, there's a big gray area. So it should be interesting in the next couple of months to see how that unfolds and how we take care of our little ones on the road. Yeah. Wow.

Wow. I didn't even think about that as someone traveling with a nine-month-old, but... She'll be fine. Yeah. But you mentioned your slam with work. Can you tell us a little bit more about Savanti? Yeah. So we're full-service travel management for busy executives. What that means is we handle people's travel just like an accountant would handle their money or a lawyer would handle their legal affairs. So we're really on somebody's team. So we're not right for everybody in the sense that we don't do any one-off trips or plan a single vacation or a honeymoon. Yeah.

Instead, we get to really know our clients and really operate as an extension of their team so that we help them with everything from Southwest tickets to private jets or a holiday in express stay or a private yacht or a villa, everything in between. But what we've done over the past few years is built up an extensive collection of

really good relationships in the travel business that allow us to hack our way for our clients into experiences that they themselves couldn't get on their own. So it's been really wonderful and incredibly gratifying to see this business blossom over the past five years, to learn so much. Oh my God, there's so much more to learn.

more to learn. But every day is a new adventure and it's really fun. And it's been great to see our clients come out of the sort of pandemic with a renewed sense of excitement around all the destinations that they can't wait to get to. We can't wait to help them get there. That's awesome. Yeah. If you're listening and you have other questions, hacks, ideas, send them in to our email on allthehacks.com. Maybe we'll bring Lee back again and handle a bunch of questions from the listeners. Where can people find you online?

So on Twitter at Lee Rowan or at SavantyTravel.com. Chris, thank you so much for having me. This is great to chat travel. It's great to see you. It's great to be doing this in person again and actually seeing another human for the first time in so long. But thank you for making this happen. I really appreciate it. This was amazing. I can't wait to get out there and travel. And I hope this helps a lot of people do the same. Likewise. All right. That's it for this episode of All The Hacks.

Thank you so much for listening. I'm just getting started with this show. So if you like what you heard, I'd really appreciate a rating in your podcast app. Or if you'll simply tell a friend about the show, that would be amazing. And finally, if you want to find links to anything we discussed today, or if you want to share a suggestion for what we can talk about in the future, you can do both at allthehacks.com.