A week before COVID-19 made staying home the right thing for us to do, we had the chance to test drive the Roam luggage carry-on we were invited to design for ourselves.
We’ve been reading about these bags. And besides offering a line of 4 carry-ons and check-ins that are super light and durable, Roam lets each customer customize the color of their suitcase, from the front and back shells to the zipper, the wheels and the handle.
Here’s how our Jaunt XL turned out.
Pretty, right?
If we were to do it again, we’d go a bit wilder with the colors, but this design still stands out in a crowd.
We’re grounded, for now, so the bag has only been road-tested once.
But our Roam bag made it home nick-free after traveling as checked luggage to and from London, through a half dozen London Underground stations and a neighborhood with bumpy sidewalks.
Books we may have time to read
We love the fact that books show up in the Stuck at the Airport mailroom. But we don’t always have time to sit down and read them.
The upside of sheltering in place is that now we do.
Here are two recent arrivals we’ll spend time with this week.
The book is filled with scientific tidbits, insider tips, recommended hikes and notes on all sorts of wonders to explore in 60 national parks around the country.
There’s that ‘in-between’ time – when you arrive in a town before hotel check-in time, or when you checked out of your hotel or Airbnb and want to do some sightseeing – when you need a place to leave your luggage.
Hotels will sometimes store your gear, but in a story for CNBC this week, I found a group of apps that match travelers seeking short-term bag storage with coffee shops, restaurants, gift shops and other businesses with strage room to spare.
When dropped off, security ties are usually attached to bags to prevent tampering. Insurance is included in the fee and, after pick-up, users are invited to rate the experience online.
Storage fees vary and are charged by either the hour or the day:
Both Knock Knock City and LuggageHero charge $1/hour or $10/day with a one-time handling fee of $2/bag. Bounce charges $5.99/day. Nannybag charges $6 per bag for the first day and $4 per bag for each additional day. Stasher’s fees are $6/day/per item and Vertoe’s fees start at $5.95 per day/per item (overnight storage counts as two days) and vary by location.
The storage-app ‘industry’ is still young and most company founders I spoke with said they decided to get into the business after finding themselves lugging their luggage around a city after checking out of an Airbnb.
“We started in New York City and Brooklyn with people offering bag storage in their apartments on Craigslist, like Airbnb for luggage,” Selin Sonmez, co-founder of Knock Knock City, told me, “But we found the business hours posted for some people’s homes weren’t reliable or always accurate and others required users to walk up flights of stairs with their suitcases.”
Knock Knock City now also operates in San Francisco, Boston,
Washington, D.C., Seattle, Philadelphia, Chicago and Miami and only partners with
ground floor venues that have strict business hours. Sonmez said any location with
an average star rating below 3.5 (out of 5) is removed.
Like the other luggage storage app services, the list of Knock
Knock City partner sites is eclectic. Customers can store their bags at bike
shops, clothing stores, restaurants, a massage therapist’s office, an eyebrow
bar, at hotels and in hostels.
In addition to helping businesses put unused or underutilized
space to income-producing use, “We’re helping local economies by getting
travelers to explore neighborhoods and getting foot traffic in the doors,” said
Sonmez.
That’s the pitch that convinced ATLAS Workbase, a coworking space by Seattle’s Space Needle,
to sign up as a Knock Knock City site.
“There are a lot of Airbnb rentals in this area and a lot of
tourists, so it solves a real need,” said Kim Burmester, ATLAS Workbase vice
president of sales and marketing, “But our real goal is to get traffic in here as
our key target audience is the traveling professional.”
As convenient as storing a suitcase at a coffee shop for a few hours may be, travelers who don’t want to deal with any baggage hassles have other options.
Travelers can send luggage (and golf bags, ski and snowboard gear or bicycles) ahead with door-to-door shipping services such as Send My Bag, Luggage Free or LugLess (part of the Luggage Forward family) that offers both drop-off and door-to-door luggage shipping services. (Pricing depends on destination, weight and how soon you want your bag to arrive).
Or, for $9.95/month and $99 per
standard U.S. shipment, you can skip worrying about making travel arrangements
for your suitcase altogether.
Dufl sends customers a suitcase to be filled with clothes or accessories
and then picks up the suitcase and stores the items in a “virtual closet.”
Customers can request that the suitcase, filled with any of the stored items, be
waiting for them at a hotel and then, after their trip, return the suitcase and
the clothes back to Dufl for dry cleaning and storage until the next trip comes
around.
My story for CNBC this week highlights some of the cool gear and gadgets that will be on display later this week in Las Vegas at the annual industry-only Travel Goods Show.
Carry-on bags and checkable suitcases seem to make up the bulk of the products vendors bring to the show. But there are also oodles of travel accessories on display, and many of those are quite useful and clever.
Here are just a few of the items that caught my eye:
Luggage that weighs itself
If you shop for shoes, clothes or books or liquor when you travel, your suitcase will weigh a lot more on the way home. A new suitcase from GetSet Luggage has a built-in battery-powered scale that weighs the bag as you pack.
See-through luggage
This product is sort of puzzling: tranparent luggage.
At least three companies are planning to display their versions of transparent or translucent luggage at this year’s Travel Goods Show. Traveler’s Choice calls their version The Millennial, so maybe see-through luggage has a generation-specific appeal.
Socks with pockets
My household has a variety of clothing with hidden pockets. These snazzyPocket Socks are getting added to the collection.
Gear for your Grab ‘n Go
We thought attachments for carry-on bags that let you tote coffee cups were pretty cool, but Hontus Milano Group is bringing out a carry-on bag with a built-in insulated pocket for keeping foods (or medication, cosmetics and other temperature-sensitive items) hot or cold.
There are more items in my full story on CNBC – but these are definitely my favorites. Which of these new travel products would you buy?
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a cute little robot to tote your carry-on around the airport and to the gate?
KLM is testing that idea out with its prototype self-driving cart – called KLM Care-E – that is designed to escort a passenger through the airport and carry their luggage for them.
The airline will be testing this out at JFK and SFO this summer, drawing stares and collecting data on autonomous technology at airports along the way.
KLM says the units will use non-verbal sounds to greet passengers after security and somehow prompt them to scan their ticket barcodes.
Then the unit will use GPS data to navigate through the terminal to their gate and – somehow – understand if a passenger wants to stop at a shop, restaurant or restroom along the way.
(Will the cute little blue cart wait outside the restroom with your stuff or try to go with you into the stall? That’s my first question..)
KLM says Care-E will move at 3 mph (the average human walking pace) and is designed to know if there’s a boarding gate change.
“We wanted to surprise our customers with an airport concept that was an extension of our friendly, smiling staff,” said Boet Kreiken, Executive Vice President Customer Experience at KLM. “We have the ambition to revolutionize the delivery of care through the power of existing innovations and move diagnostics from the laboratory to where our customer really is. ”
KLM worked with product development firm 10xBeta to create these e-carts, which are scheduled for 2-day long trials at JFK and SFO in July and August.
Sadly, KLM says it is only testing the interaction between machines and humans and has no plans to roll out permanent or additional Care-E carts anytime soon.
