New “gotchas” that travelers never see coming
When Yesim Saydan flew from New York to Amsterdam recently, she was shocked when a ticket agent weighed her carry-on backpack.
On Travel
On Travel is a weekly consumer travel column that offers information and advice for people planning a business or leisure trip. The feature started in USA Today in 2013 and is now nationally syndicated.
Have travelers become their own worst enemy?
The coconut smoothie test is hardly a scientific way of determining if you’re a savvy traveler. But it’s highly effective.
Travel’s dirty little secret: How your comfort is engineered for profit
If you’ve ever felt frozen on a plane, or caught a whiff of vanilla in a hotel lobby, or couldn’t quite make a Wi-Fi connection in your room, congratulations: You may be a victim of the travel industry’s latest manipulation tactics.
Want to skip the bot and talk to a human? It could cost you
The problem with artificial intelligence is simple: When travelers need it the most, it is the least helpful.
Love is in the air: The most annoying things couples do when they travel (and what to do about them)
Of all the annoying things couples do when they travel, the coerced seat swap may be the worst.
Kirstyn Allen saw it on a recent flight from Atlanta to the Caribbean island of St. Maarten. Two newlyweds boarded the plane after her and pressured another passenger to surrender her assigned seat so they could be together.
Careless travelers: Why are passengers becoming so absent-minded?
To get an idea of how forgetful travelers have become lately, consider what happened to Ally Murphy and her husband on a recent flight from London to Atlanta.
The only travel trend you need to know for 2026
Ignore the usual year-end predictions—the hot destinations, the airfare trends, the hidden travel fees. The only thing you need to know about travel in 2026 is this: Agentic AI will touch every trip you take.
Here are the new travel mistakes people are making — and how to avoid them
One of the newest mistakes travelers make is also one of the oldest: forgetting their paperwork.
“Extreme” travel inconveniences — and how to avoid them
I’m still wondering how I ended up in seat 18E — a middle seat — on a Hong Kong Express flight from Phuket, Thailand, to Hong Kong. But it was an extreme inconvenience.