New year travel resolutions
On the best travel year of my life and the playlists, perks, and points that got me through it
2023 was an excellent year in travel for me. Dare I say, the best yet? I celebrated my dear friend’s wedding in LA, flew to Nashville for work (never again), traveled to Montreal for the first time (big fan), spent a week in Paris for my own wedding (!!), spent a weekend with my husband’s family in San Diego, flew back & forth to see my family in Ohio nearly every six weeks, and to top it all off: galavanted in Japan for my honeymoon. That’s 22 flights and more than 37,000 miles flown—1.5x around the world!
With so much traveling, comfort and peace become an even bigger priority. Naturally, it’s tough to be the best version of yourself when you’re trapped in a pressurized metal tube with a bunch of strangers and probably a baby kicking the back of your seat. The right vibes are absolutely essential. So let’s focus on controlling what can be controlled and set our own vibe from the moment we leave for the airport ‘til we reach cruise. Consider the following air travel resolutions for the new year:
New year travel resolutions
Stay on top of your flight info. Enter: Flighty, an app that aggregates every flight across multiple airlines into one super sleek, user-friendly app. My favorite feature? Open the app on the day of your travel for a persistent lock screen notification that shows your flight info and tracks your flight progress in real time. People who love to watch the flight path map on the seat-back screen for the entire flight (me): I’m looking at you. There’s a free and a paid version, but the latter is included on your first flight, totally free without a trial.
Get dressed in comfy clothes that read chic, not sloppy. For this time of year, go for flare leggings (I have three separate pairs of these), a cozy sweater with a sleek tank underneath (layers are key!), a wireless bra that still has shape (my #1 pick), sneakers that are cool AND comfy (personally, I’m a Vomero girl), the best socks, a scarf that doubles as a blanket, and a long, tailored coat to top it all off. Pro tip: ask the flight attendant to hang your coat for you instead of bunching it up in the overhead bin.
Stop fighting for your life at the gate. Outlets that don’t work. People randomly doing workouts or taking calls on speakerphone. The unrelenting smell of a tuna fish sandwich…Yep, It’s time for an airport lounge membership. My American Express Platinum Card gets me into 1,400+ lounges worldwide including the Delta Sky Club, Centurion Lounges, and Priority Pass lounges. Use my referral link to sign up, get your own lounge access, *and* receive 80,000 Rewards points!
Touch the outside of the plane for good luck. This is a pretty common ritual for the superstitious among us, but I consider it a formal relinquishing of control. It’s a small gesture that’s weirdly helped my flight anxiety.
Settle in with an actually good playlist. Let me put you on to my ultimate travel companion: my Cruising Altitude playlist that I’ve been meticulously curating since 2018 as a soundtrack for looking out a window at 30,000 feet (also works well for a scenic walk or getting into a flow state). The vibes are ambient, downtempo, and jazzy (and impeccable, if I might add).
New year destinations & aspirations
A planner to my very core, I’m resisting the urge to have all of my trips this year already booked. Instead, after 2023’s year of whirlwind, wedding-related travel, I’m slowing down and choosing to be a little more…Fly by the seat of my pants. Pun fully intended. That’s the kind of comfort having a bank of credit card points & airline miles can afford you (well, that, and having a job with unlimited PTO).
Destination: This year, I have my sights set on going somewhere beachy for some much-needed respite from the more adventurous, city-hopping kind of travel I’ve been doing as of late. My only goal for this trip is to find a great pool or beach to lounge at all day. But these kinds of vacations can be deceptively tough to plan because the idea is that you’re not leaving your hotel much, so it needs to check a lot of boxes. For me, some are: not too big (I like the intimacy), an assortment of food options (eating the same thing for a week gets old fast), an adults-only pool, a nice spa (self-explanatory)… I’ll never shut up about Palm Heights because nobody does it better. In an ideal world, I’d stay for a week every year, but I’m priced out right now. My search so far has yielded these promising results: Park Hyatt St. Kitts and the Andaz in Costa Rica (a week at either is essentially free thanks to my World of Hyatt credit card). Help me out—which would you choose?
Aspiration: Alternatively, I’m manifesting the chicest of winter holidays in St. Moritz (where I may or may not finally learn how to ski? Big question mark there. I mostly just want to be able to tell people I learned to ski in the Swiss Alps). At any rate, I’m very much on board with relaxing in hot tubs in the snow, enjoying fondue & afternoon tea, having an excuse to wear my Mom’s hand-me-down fur coats, and eating my body weight in McRaclettes. If you have any intel on must-dos in St. Moritz, please let me know!
From the flight deck 🛫
Bringing you a 30,000-foot view of need-to-know travel industry news
Delta has secret airplane trading cards??? If you know me, you know why just finding out this news is devastating.
Southwest is leading the charge when it comes to accommodating “customers of size.” The airline allows passengers who can’t comfortably fit in one seat to purchase additional seats that can be refunded once the flight is complete. Most economy seats are only about 17-18 inches wide, so this is a big deal. Despite this policy existing for over 30 years, it’s been making the rounds on TikTok as of late. I personally Love To See It and hope this becomes more of an industry standard.
Good news: the airport security process is getting even easier. If you have CLEAR or PreCheck, you might have noticed that these lines are often just as congested as general security nowadays. As yet another alternative, TSA has been steadily rolling out a new program called Digital ID. Right now, it’s an opt-in experience available for passengers traveling out of select airports. As a Delta SkyMiles member flying out of LGA last week, I was invited to join a few days before my flight, and my experience was incredibly seamless: I got a push notification from the Delta app asking if I wanted to opt in, which I completed with just one tap. I was able to use the new “Digital ID” line, which was the only line I have EVER seen at LGA that was completely empty (I have CLEAR and PreCheck and had Sky Priority for this flight, all of which have dedicated security lines). At both check-in and security, instead of presenting my ID or boarding pass as usual, I simply looked into a camera and was ready to go. At each touchpoint, the process couldn’t have been easier or quicker. Highly recommend trying it out if you have the option!
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Tori Simokov is a Travel Writer and Graphic Designer/Strategist based in New York. To get in touch, email tori@v1projects.com. Want more? Check out Instagram, TikTok, or shop her curated favorites.
Reading as I walk I can’t wait