I am about to leave on a walk-and-talk, which is a week-long moving salon. A group of 10 people walk 100km in a week, while in conversation, including a 3-hour conversation each evening dedicated to one topic, suggested by the participants. Craig Mod and I have been running these in many countries to great success and we wrote up all we know in 21 pages so you could host one yourself, with your own group of friends. Free PDF, at How to Walk and Talk. — KK

You could not pay me enough money to get onto one of those mega cruise boats, with multi thousands of passengers. However it turns out that small boat cruises are one of the best ways to do a vacation. I define small as less than 40 passengers, and ideally less than 25. You are on a floating hotel with meals so the everyday hassles of moving each night are removed. A small boat can debark and embark very quickly and visit many smaller places (villages and wilderness) that a huge boat cannot. You make your own entertainment: They encourage very active days, dropping you off to hike, canoe, bike, walk, snorkel, or kayak in the morning; you return for lunch and then repeat in the afternoon. They avoid shopping ports. Of course, the per person rate is higher for a small vessel, but we’ve found the difference very much worthwhile, as these have become our favorite vacations. A few of the tours that are 5-7 days long that we are familiar with are below. 

Galapagos — The boats sail at night. Every morning you wake up to a brand new island with a brand new biome. Lots of snorkeling and hiking with naturalists. We used Happy Gringos. 

Inland Passageway, Alaska — Head north through the calm inland sea, visiting glacier strewn fjords, wildlife close up, and native American islands. Kayaking, too. We used Alaskan Dreams. 

Mekong River — Sail from Siem Reap (and its Angor Wat) in Cambodia, all the way downstream to Ho Chi Min City on the coast of south Vietnam, with bicycle excursions along the way. Mark used Aqua Expeditions.

Turquoise Coast, Turkey — Join a gulet sailboat long the southern Mediterranean coast of Turkey, stopping at ancient Greek ruins, Turkish villages and swimming coves. These cruises have become very popular with party versions for young adults. I don’t remember who we used but try, Sail and Stay.

Superficially, large cruise boats claim to follow similar routes, but trust me, small boat cruises are a different species well worth your time. — KK

Tip: When charging your phone on the go in a cafe, lounge, hotel, or friend’s house, place something large like your backpack or purse or coat RIGHT NEXT to the charger. You are far less likely to leave two things behind, and therefore less likely to forget the charger. — KK

PamPam lets you create custom maps in minutes and it’s fun to use! I was able to quickly search for and add points of interest by simply describing them to an AI. Then, I customized them with stickers and text. It feels very playful. For an even faster map-making experience, you can copy and paste text or a link to a list of places. PamPam is free for personal use and that includes 5 maps, 100 spots, and up to 500 views per month. I decided to test it out by making a nostalgic map of my hometown in under 5 minutes, and here's what I created. If you're unable to view it, it's probably because I have a free account and I've reached the limit of 500 views. However, you can check out the templates here. — CD

Our sister newsletter, Nomadico, serves people who work while they travel, or who work in temporary homes in far away places – such as digital nomads. Its editor, Tim Leffel, keeps tabs on the cheapest places to live around the world, and once a year he writes up his rankings and recommendations of where the best bargains are, for short visits or months’ long stays. His “The Cheapest Places to Live in the World in 2024” is deeply researched and well presented. — KK 

Japan is open to tourists again. Despite its reputation, Japan can be one of the cheaper developed places to travel in. Currently their exchange rate per dollar is the highest it has been in many decades. This 11-minute video by Abroad in Japan will give you all the concrete details on how to travel in Japan with minimal money. It was posted 6 years ago, but the info is still valid. — KK

Mini Tokyo 3D is a website that displays a cartoon-like view of the worlds’ most populous city. It shows where trains are, represented by moving blocks. It also has links to live webcams throughout the city, so you can take a closer look at what’s happening in different areas. — MF

If you need to wash and dry clothes while traveling, here’s a drying tip from Jono Hey’s excellent Sketchplanations newsletter. First, wash your garment in the hotel sink. Then, lay it flat on a towel, roll the towel up tightly, and wring it out. After that, remove the garment and drape it over the towel rack to dry.  “With any luck,”  writes Jono, “your underwear will be wearable again in the morning. And if it's not quite there, there's often a hair dryer to help finish off.” — MF

Visit AirPano to watch 360 videos of beautiful places on Earth, from Tokyo’s Shibuya Scramble pedestrian crossing (the busiest in the world), to a village of the Warao Indigenous people on the Orinoco River in Venezuela. My travel bucket list grew after watching some of these videos. — MF

U.S. passport holders are allowed to visit countries in the Schengen area (which comprises most of Europe) for up to 90 days in a 180 day period. That can become tricky to calculate for digital nomads and other frequent travelers, but a free iPhone app called the Schengen Calculator makes it easy to see how many days you have remaining. Schengen Calculator Free is a similar app for Android. — MF

Our sister newsletter, Nomadico (free), delivers four tips weekly to folks who work while they travel or travel while they work. Nomadico is written by Tim Leffel, who runs the Cheapest Destination Blog, and is author of the constantly updated book, The World’s Cheapest Destinations, now in its fifth edition. The premise behind the blog and book is that you can travel at a higher level, or for twice as long, or for half the price by heading to cheaper destinations. Because of complex factors including monetary exchange rates, these cheaper destinations can often offer extremely high quality experiences, so they are a real bargain. Tim keeps up with the latest news, addresses lingering concerns, and knows the latest bargain places. — KK

The idea of a cruise has been ruined by mega-ships carrying 5,000 passengers. You could not pay me enough to get on one of those. But the fundamental idea of going on a journey that returns to the same bedroom each night while pulling right up to that day’s destination is pretty awesome – and entirely doable. The secret is to sign up for a very small-boat cruise, the smaller the better. Ideally 12-20 passengers, or a maximum of 40. Instead of round the clock entertainment and food, a small boat can land at tiny villages, or wilderness places that a mega boat can’t get to, deboard instantly (instead of hours), and let you kayak and snorkel or fish right off the back. The best small boat cruises are design to maximize outdoor activities like hiking and kayaking during the day, instead of shopping in port cities. We’ve had great small-boat cruise experiences in the Galapagos, the Turkish coast, and recently Alaska. Yes, small boats are more expensive per day, but since they include transportation, lodging and meals, they are very much worthwhile every now and then. We had a fantastic journey on this 9-day Alaskan Dream Inside Passage Sojourn visiting small Alaskan towns, a native American village, and glaciers that big boats can’t get to. — KK

I used ChatGPT to create a daily itinerary for a family trip to Tokyo and it was a success. First, I asked it to give me a list of 10 interesting places and neighborhoods less than 90 minutes by Tokyo. Then I asked it to give me the top ten things to do at each place. I fined tuned the lists by asking ChatGPT to include the best shopping streets in each areas. The lists it generated, which include dining suggestions. I’m going to do this for every trip I take. — MF

Insteading of poring over dozens or hundreds of Tripadvisor reviews of a hotel, copy the Tripadvisor URL of the hotel into this website and it will generate a summary of the general sentiment of the hotel. You can select from different summary styles, like Personal Travel Advisor, Detail Orientated, Sarcastic, or Super Critical. — MF

Vacay’s free AI-travel assistant is a chat bot that answers travel related questions and even generates full itineraries based on your budget and interests. All you do is ask it a question. To test its capabilities, I asked it, "I am interested in modern Japanese design. Describe the top 10 less-well-known stores I should visit in Tokyo and explain why they are worth visiting." The results were impressive, although it seems one store may have been a hallucination. I plan to visit these places on my next trip to Japan. — MF

Use the Soundprint app to measure the noise level in public places and share your findings with other people who appreciate quiet environments. A map shows the decibel measurements of coffee shops, clubs, parks, and restaurants around the world. — MF

The free Google Translate app for phones is still the best bargain in the world. It keeps getting better and better. It will translate between 60 languages, in either text, voice, or most importantly, from images from your camera, so it can translate menus, signs, and instructions just by pointing your phone at them. Really good for foreign scripts. — KK

Wherever I am headed to, I always buy the latest edition of a good guidebook. It’s a cheap bargain compared to the cost of the trip. I use all the brands, RoughGuides, Moon, Brandt, Fodors, and many independents, but by far the consistently best guides are Lonely Planet. Crammed with info, maps, prices, all dutifully updated frequently. I think they do the best job or orientation, organizing, and serving angles of interests, If you go to the Lonely Planet website and look up your destination, they’ll tell you when the next edition is due so you can judge whether you want to wait. — KK

Here’s a cool visualizer of all the places that Anthony Bourdain has visited in his travels on Parts Unknown and No Reservations. I’m traveling to Cairo next month and someone suggested I go where ever Bourdain ate, so I googled and bookmarked places to check out from here. — CD

My husband and I are planning to move out of California in 5 years and have been traveling to other states to check them out. We still haven’t agreed on a place, but I recently discovered this MoveMap which makes things easier. I filtered by my criteria: avoid drought, mountains within an hour, airport within two hours and a lot of sun. What I get back is select counties in Arizona and Colorado and most of Utah — as well as Santa Clara County, which is where I live now. — CD