Souvenir Sunday

Vending machine full-o-art at Kansas City Int’l Airport

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Here’s a fun new airport amenity that should soon spread to more airports around the country: Kansas City International Airport has a vending machine that dispenses locally made art and souvenirs.

KCI_SouveNEARVendingMachine.

Curated by SouveNEAR, a company that produces and sells authentic local goods, the machine is located in the Southwest Airlines area of KCI’s Terminal B and is stocked with jewelry, original art, small-batch hand-printed T-shirts and a wide array of travel-sized mementos by Kansas City-based artists and makers.

Prices range from $2.50 to about $40.

SouveNEAR co-founders Suzanne Southard and Tiffany King spent months surveying art going on around Kansas City at galleries, art fairs, and indie craft shows and travelled to other cities to see what people are making to help them figure out what they wanted the collection to look like. “In some cases,” when we really liked artists but their existing offerings couldn’t fit our machine, we worked with them to develop items specifically for SouveNEAR,” Southard and King said via email.

KCI_SouveNEAR vending machine two

The art-filled vending machine has been in place at KCI for just about month, but sales have been so strong – and response from travelers and artists so positive – that SouveNEAR is already planning to add additional machines at KCI and to install new machines at other airports around the country.

“Finding meaningful souvenirs is always a challenge, especially when you’re rushing to find something at the last minute,” said Southard. “We want to provide a convenient way for people to get mementos that are artistic and that have a real connection to the city.”

Souvenir Sunday at Portland Int’l Airport

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Elves for sale at Portland International Airport

Elves for sale at Portland International Airport

I had the great pleasure of visiting Portland International Airport this week to help Travel Portland welcome the tallest freestanding cuckoo clock in the country to the spot where it will entertainingly tell time till the end of March 2015.

PDX CLOCK

I also had a chance to see, smell and taste some of the Oregon-sourced delicacies offered up at the farmer’s market that pops up twice a week at the airport.

PDX MARKET TABLE

The market is the brainchild of Christian and Annette Joly, who own Caper’s Cafe at the airport, and they were on hand during my visit offering tastes of cheese and freshly sauteed mushrooms as well as intoxicating whiffs of Oregon truffles, from a table also laden with fresh Oregon produce and other tasty treats.

PDX Oregon market

Souvenir Sunday: last minute gifts for travelers

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Santa

Still puzzling over a gift for the road warrior or frequent traveler on your list? How about a plane ticket?

That’s what a recent poll from Switchfly discovered people really want.

More than half of those interviewed (65 percent) said they would be delighted to receive an air travel gift for the holiday. Thirty-five percent of respondents said they’d prefer a gift of a first-class upgrade, while 31 percent would rather have a plane ticket to a foreign country.

Buying plane tickets for your friends and family can be complicated – and costly – so consider instead one of the travel-related gifts on this list.

Some help travelers be more efficient on the road. Others may improve a travel experience, help someone out of a jam or just serve as a pleasant perk on a stressful travel day.

Best of all, the items here can be purchased on-line and delivered to an email inbox at the very last minute.

Because we know you’re a busy traveler too.

Words and pictures for travel

The classic DK Eyewitness Travel Guides were recently revamped and now have updated itineraries, new content, even better images and improved usability. The books are still a bit heavy for those who need to travel light, so it’s a good thing that most all the guides, along with the DK Top 10, Eyewitness Family Travel and the Eyewitness Back Roads series are now available as e-books.

Rosetta’s Stone’s courses in 30 languages can also be delivered as e-gifts and can help travelers with down-time on long plane rides learn how to order a great meal or close a deal in another country.

TSA-compliant conveniences

Day of Relaxation Gift Set from Minimus.biz

Relying on hotel toiletries can be a hit or miss proposition, so most frequent travelers stuff their TSA-compliant 3-1-1 bags with tiny tubes and bottles of lotions and potions from brands they love or an assortment of items snitched from hotel bathrooms along the way.

The gift of replenishing those minis is made easy with an e-gift certificate from Minimus.biz, a website that carries more than 2,500 travel and individual-sized items (including food) and a nice variety of gift and personal care travel kits.

Another option is a subscription to Birchbox, which will send your favorite traveler a box filled with five beauty and personal care samples for the next 3, 6 or 12 months. (Prices start at $30 for women and $60 for men.)

Birchbox chooses the grooming products in the amenity kits offered to travelers flying in JetBlue’s Mint premium cabin between JFK and LAX or SFO and has a couple of JetBlue discount codes out there that anyone can use for subscriptions and product discounts.

For the hassles

Just about every airline offers gift cards for travel that can delivered electronically. But for those days when a buddy is stuck at an airport due to bad weather, an ailing airplane or a canceled or just-missed flight, a gift certificate for a service at an airport day spa, such as XpresSpa, or a day pass or full year’s entry into a club lounge may be the answer.

“One option for e-gifting lounge access is — if a friend or family member is a frequent traveler, purchasing a lounge membership online for them could make a lot of sense. For example, United offers their United Club membership for $500 per year, while Delta offers their Delta Sky Club membership starting at $450,” said Lounge Buddy co-founder Brent Griffith.

The Plaza Premium Lounge, an independent all-travelers-welcome lounge with branches in London, Vancouver, Hong Kong and 15 other airports, offers e-certificates for gift cards that are good for a package of 5 to 10 visits that can be used by one person or shared around.

Need more ideas? In his Seat 2B column, Joe Brancatelli has a great list of tried and true gift ideas for road warriors.

(My story about last minute gifts for travelers first appeared on CNBC Road Warrior in a slightly different version.)

Souvenir Sunday at Hoedspruit Airport, South Africa

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It’s Souvenir Sunday – the day Stuck at the Airport stops to take a look at some of the inexpensive, offbeat and/or locally-themed items you can find at airport gift shops.

This week’s Souvenir Sunday items come to us courtesy of world traveler Jon Douglas, who sent images and greetings from Eastgate Lughawe Airport in Hoedspruit, South Africa.

Eastgate Airport South Africa

Jon was just finishing up a safari adventure in the nearby Sabi Sand Reserve and said the magnets available for sale in the airport gift shop accurately depicted the animals he saw on game drives, including “lions, leopards, zebras, elephants, kudu and even a giraffe or two.”

Eastgate Animals

In the gift shop Jon also spotted amarula chocolates and liqueur, both made from the fruits of the marula tree. “The liqueur tastes like Bailey’s,” he said, “and is a popular post-safari drink.”

Eastgate drinks

Here are Jon’s notes about the airport:

“The airport serves Cape Town and Johannesburg with three daily flights on South African Express and feels like flying in a different era, with manual arrival and departure boards and a walk across the tarmac to climb the steps to the plane. In addition to all the usual pre-flight rituals, the pilots need to check to make sure there aren’t any warthogs on the runway!”

Thanks, Jon, for sharing your pics for Souvenir Sunday. A travel-themed souvenir is on its way to you!

If you spot a fun, inexpensive, off-beat and/or locally-themed items in an airport gift shop on your next trip, please snap a few photos, take some notes and send it along to StuckatTheAirport.com. If your souvenirs are featured on Souvenir Sunday you’ll get a special travel-themed thank-you gift too!

Souvenir Sunday: new airport trading card

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Minneapolis-St. Paul International has joined the list of airports offering travelers a free trading card featuring a wide range of interesting facts and stats about the airport.

MSP trading card

The card is free at any airport information booth and, along with cards from other airports, would be a nice small gift this holiday season.

Here are some of the other airports that have cards in the North American Airports Collector series:

Austin-Bergstrom International; Baton Rouge Metropolitan; Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International; Dane County Regional; Edmonton International; Elmira-Corning Regional; Fort McMurray International; General Mitchell International; Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International; Jacksonville International; Kelowna International; Lambert-St. Louis International; Mineta San Jose International; Nashville International; Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International; Piedmont Triad International; Pittsburgh International; Salt Lake City International; San Antonio International; San Diego International; Savanna-Hilton Head International; Stinson Municipal; and Winnipeg Richardson International.

PIT Trading card one

Formula 1 fans race out of Austin – with souvenirs

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Austin Formula 1

Austin is hosting the Formula One United States Grand Prix this weekend and thousands of race fans are passing through Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

Passenger traffic at the airport is expected to be the highest on Sunday night (Nov 2) and on Monday, (Nov 3), as race fans head home. So to help the process go smoothly AUS airport is offering expanded customer services, special post-race live music send-offs and a special website section.

Sunday is Souvenir Sunday at StuckatTheAirport.com, so we should also mention that the airport shops will be offering official licensed F1 and Circuit of the Americas merchandise, including t-shirts, caps, mugs, lanyards and books.

Live music performances start Sunday afternoon with a performance by the Flying Balalaika Brothers at 4:30 p.m. More live music is scheduled on Monday Nov. 3 from 9 a.m. until 6:30 p.m, with a total of 12 music performances to be held Sunday and Monday.

Souvenir Sunday at Sydney Airport

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It’s Souvenir Sunday – the day we take a look at some of the fun, inexpensive and locally-themed souvenirs you can pick up when you’re stuck at the airport.

Because who really needs a(nother) Gucci bag, a 5 pound bag of chocolate or a heavy glass bottle of duty-free scotch that will likely fall and break before you get it through customs and home to your house?

Sydney Boxing pens

I found this week’s treats at Sydney Airport, where I spent several hours before boarding a Qantas Airways A380 for its inaugural flight from Sydney to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The flight marked the first time the world’s largest airplane flew on the world’s longest route.

Sydney airport assorted

Sydney Airport platypus

Souvenir Sunday: Scanning new SkyMall Products

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Over at the 10Best section of USA TODAY, one of the Readers’ Choice contests going on right now is for Best SkyMall Product for Business Travel.

I’m included on that page as one of the contest’s travel ‘experts,’ so wanted to take a moment to encourage you to go over there and vote, especially because while you’re there you can also register to win a $500 SkyMall gift card in the process.

The SkyMall catalog is that familiar ‘amenity’ found in the seatback pocket on just about any domestic airline flight and it is full of useful, wacky, “Why didn’t I think of that?” and “Who would buy that?” products. I often find myself leafing through it during those very long last 10 minutes of a flight when I’ve put away all my gadgets and am just waiting for the plane to land.

Everyone has their favorite items from the in-flight catalog.

I think the Sippy Wine Glass is a great idea, for example, but not sure I’d actually use it in public. Gift-wise, though, it’s a keeper.

Unfortunately, that wine glass isn’t on the list of 20 product nominees in the current 10Best contest, but here’s an example of some useful ones that are:

I’ve written about and considered buying this portable security door device that seems useful for those hotel stays where the locks just don’t seem that modern or adequate.

Security door

This compact, folding portable footrest is promoted as being being good for circulation, reducing back strain and helping to prevent deep vein thrombosis, but I’d be tempted to tote one because I’m quite short and when seated in some airplane seats, my feet don’t reach the floor.

Footrest

And I can definitely see the usefulness of the PocketPlug Case that has a built in two-prong charger.

I’ll circle back around before the contest ends to make note of some of the sillier items on the list, but go see the full list, add your vote and don’t forget to register for the $500 gift card.

Souvenir Sunday at Dusseldorf Airport

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DUS REMEMBER

I stopped by Dusseldorf Airport last week to meet Ray, the airport’s new car parking robot, and learned that Remember had opened its first airport location just a few days earlier.

You may have seen the colorful products from this German company in design and decoration shops in museums, boutiques and bookstores, but airport officials were tickled that the company had chosen the DUS pre-security shopping arcade as its first airport outpost.

dus remember game

Among the bright and boldly patterned items that filled the newly installed shelves, I found games, dishware, notbooks, scarves and trays. But the souvenir that caught my eye were these Tripbooks.

DUS remember trip book

Like me, you may come home from a trip with a crude version of this created by a memo pad and an envelope stuffed with the ticket stubs and paper you’ve picked up along the way. But this handy notebook has both empty pages for travel notes and plenty of pocketed plastic sheets for saving and organizing small objects that help us remember where we’ve been.

DUS REMEMBER TRIP BOOK OPEN

I spotted the shop on my arrival in Dusseldorf and meant to go back before my departure to purchase a few for my next trips. But workmen were fiddling with the sliders on the glass door and the store was closed during the shopping hour I’d set aside before my flight.

So I have only these photos to help me remember Remember’s first airport shop.

Souvenir Sunday at the unopened BER Airport

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For an ever-lengthening list of reasons, including what seems to be varying levels of corruption, wild ineptitude and just run of the mill construction issues, the Berlin Brandenburg Airport, which was originally set to open in 2012, is still unfinished.

BER STAIRS

When will it open? No one seems to know. And, now that multiple opening dates have been missed, no one seems willing to even give it a guess.

And while no one can fly to or from BER Airport, bus tour of the grounds are offered, in German only, several times a week.

I went along for one of these rides and will be working up a longer report shortly. But, because this is Souvenir Sunday here at StuckatTheAirport.com, I wanted to share some of the souvenirs I bought at the information station at the base of the viewing tower on airport grounds.

While there was a display case that showed a variety of BER-themed items, including caps,t-shirts, an inflatable ball, a lanyard, a tote bag and a tiny lunch box, the gals at the front desk seems surprised – almost shocked – when I said I wanted to buy a half dozen items.

Purchases seemed to be so rare that they couldn’t figure out how to run my credit card through the machine and, had it not been for the 27 Euros in cash my translator loaned me, I wouldn’t have been able to take home what I’m sure are already quite collectible souvenirs.

BER SOUVENIRS

The little bear is cute. The tiny lunch box? Adorable. But I think my favorite BER souvenir is the tote bag with the image of the airplane made up of food, drink and activities BER passengers will have to wait a long time to enjoy.