Half-Ass the Rugged Lifestyle With the Luxurious Base Camp Trailer

How to Book a Private Jet for (Relatively) Cheap

Private jets are the stuff of luxe legend. When we hear about them we picture the filthy rich 0.1 percent relaxing on Italian leather with bikini-clad models, swirling Scotch in a jewel-encrusted tumbler, pondering how to acquire their next billion.

To us common folk the idea of eschewing the crowds at major airports and discomfort of commercial flights for driving up to a jet and getting airborne in minutes sounds like a dream. But believe it or not, the experience isn’t quite so out of reach as you might think.

We asked industry and travel experts for the best ways to get a taste of the high (up) life without losing everything you’ve got. Here are five tips worth trying.

“The best part about empty leg flights is that you have the entire jet to bring friends, family and pets—not just a seat,” adds JetSmarter Founder and CEO Sergey Petrossov. “Empty legs usually become available about one to three days prior to departure.”

1. Do Your Research
“The best thing about shopping around is not so much that you’ll save a mint (although it can be nice),” says Ryan Schneider, Founder/President of Jackson Aviation Group. “It helps the consumer get a better understanding of what a flight typically costs. Shopping will also help you find a private jet broker that you know and trust.”

2. Team Up
JustLuxe.com Lifestyle Editor Mila Pantovich recommends gathering a solid group of friends and family who love travelling as much as you do: “Many companies want you to fill the entire jet and while a six-seat flight may cost over $3,000 that’s still less than $600 per seat when split up.” Dan Kahn, Vice President of Charter Sales at ExcelAire, agrees: “The more people you put on a private jet, the more cost-efficient it becomes.”

3. Find the Right Jet
Jason Middleton, Co-Founder of Silver Air, recommends matching your numbers and distance to your aircraft: “Light jets like a CJ2 will best serve 4-6 people and can travel up to 800-1,200 miles.  A mid-range Lear 60 holds 6-8 passengers and can travel 1,600-1,800 miles. Heavy jets like a G450 or GV carry up to 14 passengers and a cabin attendant and can take you just about anywhere in the world with a range of 4,500-6,000 miles.” To make the most of your money, look for a “goldilocks fit,” says James Butler, CEO of Shaircraft Solutions. “Not too large, not too small—just right.”

4. Utilize Empty Legs
Henry Thompson, Founder/CEO of Charter BuNo, believes empty legs (a segment of a round trip that is scheduled to be flown with no passengers) to always be the best-priced option: “Some individual jet companies can literally have thousands of empty legs a year that go unsold.” Just keep in mind empty legs are generally one-way, meaning private air palace out, commercial ride back, or vice versa. “The best part about empty leg flights is that you have the entire jet to bring friends, family and pets—not just a seat,” adds JetSmarter Founder and CEO Sergey Petrossov. “Empty legs usually become available about one to three days prior to departure.”

5. Be Spontaneous
“I look at last minute deals,” says Kyle Stewart, The Trip Sherpa. “And usually those where I can get an easy flight back, as they are all one-way trips and there is no guarantee you can get an empty leg on the way home.” B2 Aviation Founder and President Bernie Burns provides some good examples: “Jet Suite’s ‘SuiteDeals’ [hit] their website the day before. You can access these flights for as low as $536.”

Burns also suggests checking out the intriguing membership site Surf Air. Because hey, if you’re not going to be an Internet mogul, you can at least use the Internet to fly like one…

This New Apartment Building in an Old Bank in Brooklyn Is INSANE

The (Paranoid) Gentlemans Guide to Travel

Taking a business trip or vacation? Bon voyage. But if you take your valuables with you, there’s a chance you may never see them again.

Thieves, scammers and other crafty lowlifes would love to separate you from your stuff.

Fortunately, there are numerous ways to foil them. Here are some practical ways to avoid being a victim, courtesy of undercover detective and travel-related crime specialist, lecturer and author Kevin Coffey.

One guy woke up to find his phone gone, used the FindMyPhone app on his laptop, and heard the phone ringing in a woman’s purse ten rows back. He was lucky, but better to stash it.

1. Never put your wallet in your back pocket. Pickpockets call it the sucker pocket for a reason. Be hyper-vigilant in train stations, airports, on stairs and escalators and in crowded places where pickpockets are likely to congregate and try to bump into you. Hold messenger bags in front of you and wear them cross-body, and get a zipper lock for your backpack.

2. There are two types of luggage in this world: lost and carry-on. If you have to check a bag, think of it like you’ll never see it again and pack accordingly. Always put your passport, ID, prescriptions, laptops and other devices in your carry-on. Remove all non-essential credit cards from your wallet—fewer to replace if it gets stolen.

3. Put a TSA-approved lock on any checked bags. The lock has to be reset by you, but you can instantly tell if it has been opened and check if there’s anything missing before you leave the airport.

4. Dishonest baggage handlers can force open a zippered bag with a pen, steal your stuff and reseal the zipper, and you wouldn’t realize until you got home or to your hotel. You can buy a gadget that locks the zipper to the handle. A thief can penetrate the zipper but can’t reseal it, so you’d know it was breached and could report it immediately.

5. Keep your cell phone out of sight when not in use—in restaurants, bars, or on your flight when you leave your seat or fall asleep. One guy woke up to find his phone gone, used the FindMyPhone app on his laptop, and heard the phone ringing in a woman’s purse ten rows back. He was lucky, but better to stash it.

6. On a plane, place your carry-on in the overhead bin across the aisle from your seat so you can see if someone tries to remove something from your bag. Put valuable items inside under clothing rather than in outside zippered compartments, or at least make them tougher to reach by placing them in the bin so they can’t be accessed without taking the whole bag down.

7. In hotels, make sure your door clicks securely behind you and use the front desk safe instead of the in-room one if it doesn’t seem secure. Thieves often enter open hotel rooms when the maid is inside, pretending the room is theirs, so never leave valuables in plain sight. There are portable safes made of stainless steel mesh that fit inside a backpack and can be secured to the furniture. The only way to crack it open is with wire cutters, which thieves are unlikely to carry.

8. Always lock all rental car doors to stop thieves from reaching in and stealing your stuff.

9. Use covered luggage tags so your information—like your home address—is not exposed. Place a card with an emergency number and email address inside your wallet and luggage in case they’re lost or stolen. Pick a number someone is sure to answer.

10. Don’t use free WiFi sites to log into banking or other personal accounts or any sites requiring you to give credit card information. Many are scams.

11. Buy tote or messenger bags that have detachable straps so you can loop them through your chair at a restaurant.

12. Before you get in a taxi, find out approximately what it costs to get to your destination and discuss it with the driver before he starts the meter. Sometimes a dishonest cabbie will insist that you gave him a smaller bill than you did, showing you that denomination and demanding more. Solution: When you hand him the money, say, “This is a 50,” and get him to acknowledge it.

Find more tips and security products for sale at Coffey’s site, corporatetravelsafety.com.

What I Learned River Rafting Through the Grand Canyon

Sometimes you don’t know what you’re capable of until you’ve done it. Like surviving a 200-mile river rafting trip through the Grand Canyon, for instance. The 9 day journey—which was run by Outdoors Unlimited—involved braving massive rapids, hiking through the high desert, and living at the bottom of America’s most gobsmacking geographic landmark. I walked out of that canyon with a deep tan and a massive sense of accomplishment, as well as the following hard-earned lessons.

The weather is unpredictable: Welcome to the land of fire and ice, said our guide, and it didn’t take long for me to grasp what he meant. Temperatures in the Grand Canyon range from 60 to 115 degrees, and the river water averages a brisk 48 to 50 degrees. Cotton became my biggest frenemy—the slow drying material is great for evaporative cooling, but if the sun disappeared behind a cloud I’d rapidly find myself blue-lipped and shivering. On the other hand, there were windy desert nights where I felt like I was trying to sleep in a giant, infernal hairdryer.

Always pitch a tent: As we’ve just established, the weather is unpredictable. While you can and should sleep in the open under the stars (and, by the way, prepare to see more stars than you’ve ever seen in your life), you’ll be glad to have shelter nearby when it starts raining at 3am. If you do get caught in the rain without a tent, your best bet is to employ a move known as the Burrito, which involves wrapping yourself in a tarp or groundsheet and pretending not to notice that the foot of your sleeping bag is getting damp.

Tie everything down: Grand Canyon rapids are huge, which means it’s very likely you’ll end up going for a surprise swim at some point. Make sure you have straps on your sunglasses, a chinstrap on your hat, carabiners on your water bottles, and that your GoPro or camera is secured. It’s also not a bad idea to have some kind of cord attached to your personal soap bar in case your husband loses it in the river on the second day.

Respect the river: Like all adventure sports, the thrill of whitewater rafting is not without its risks. We ran more than 50 rapids without incident, but on a particularly difficult one 6 people were thrown out of their raft. Nobody was in the water for more than a minute and for many it was the trip’s most dramatic highlight. However, one person was so traumatized that it was 24 hours before they could pick up a paddle again, and unfortunately another injured their knee so badly they couldn’t walk for days.

Clean is a relative term: Wet wipes, hand sanitizer and camping soap are essential, but it’s important to recognize at the outset that while you can get clean-er, you cannot really get clean. The murky brown river is where we wash our bodies and our dishes, but it’s also where we urinate and dump the camp’s wastewater. (And get drinking water, once it’s been properly treated.) The cleanest you’ll ever feel on this trip is right after you rinse off in a waterfall, which you’ll have the opportunity to do almost daily. But don’t kid yourself: you’re still as grubby as the rest of us.

Dehydration can ruin your day: It goes without saying that when you’re spending time in the desert, you need to make sure you’re drinking plenty of fluids. But I’m saying it anyway because, as I discovered on two separate occasions, it’s surprisingly easy to become dehydrated even when you’re being vigilant. Guzzling gallons of water simply doesn’t cut it, you have to supplement with electrolyte drinks or risk getting sick on the river—not an ideal scenario when your bathroom consists of an army surplus ammo tin with a toilet seat attached.

The canyon is an outdoor classroom: Our guides were constantly schooling us, both on and off the river. While hiking down the many side canyons that branch off the main one, we learned about the geological mystery of the Great Unconformity and about the Ancestral Puebloan Indians who lived in the area more than a thousand years ago. I now know the difference between a petroglyph and a pictograph, and can identify at least two constellations in the night sky. And given a piece of duct tape, I will de-cactus a pair of pants with the brusque efficiency of a Russian bikini waxer.

There’s no “i” in “all forward:”Paddling isn’t about brawn (much to my relief), it’s actually about teamwork. The boat moves most effectively when everyone paddles as a unit, taking each stroke in unison and following the guide’s precise instructions. If you slack off or flex too hard, you will be immediately identified as the weak link since everyone else will have to compensate. And being an uncooperative A-hole will come back to haunt you when you’re running low on sunscreen and beer on day 7 of the trip.

River guides are a special breed: It’s a singular type of person that eschews job security and a steady paycheck, and chooses instead to wear the same pair of shorts for a week and get regular fungal foot infections. These guys love what they do, and to be a guide on the Grand Canyon, they have to be really good at it too. River guides are imminently capable people who possess technical river skills, leadership and communication skills, medical and culinary training, a great way with people and a damn good attitude. They also tell terrible jokes and have an extensive mental inventory of time-wasting games.

It’s not an easy trip, but we had it easy: When John Wesley Powell mounted an expedition to explore the unmapped canyon in 1869, he spent three months running the river in a wooden oar boat, nearly drowning and starving along the way. While we had all the benefits of modern technology (such as drops that will magically turn a bucket of silty river water into purified, drinkable H2O), we also had guides that catered to our every need. And we ate better than most of us are accustomed to at home. We’re talking fresh coffee, fruit and yoghurt, and a hot breakfast every morning; and three-course dinners featuring things like tuna steaks and burgers each night. Sure, we were dirty, tired, and my entire body was covered in heat rash. But this was backcountry glamping, if such a thing exists, and our suffering was of the most pampered sort.

Photo Credit: Ariel Jankelson

The 614-Word Endorsement: Hotel Rewards Programs

For many travelers, high airfare can totally scuttle a trip. Added atop the price of hotels, the cost of a vacation can trump all hopes of getting away.

Many frequent flyers have already signed up with a program to redeem airline points, but rarely realize that the cost of a week’s stay at a hotel can easily surpass the cost of getting from Point A to Point B. We had the chance to visit sunny San Diego last weekend to kick off the launch of Hilton HHonors’ “Stop Clicking Around” campaign, and learned a thing or two about hotel rewards and why they’re actually more cost-effective than using airline loyalty programs or booking sites that boast flight + hotel combo deals.

Sure you can snatch a seat on a plane before your points expire, but the combination of rising airfares, reduced flight capacities and scarcer award seat availability makes airline points a pain in the ass. Claiming hotel rewards offers far more flexibility and value than we thought.

Many hotel programs offer points that don’t expire or have blackout dates, unlike a number of airline loyalty programs, and others let you stay virtually anywhere, even at competitor hotels.

Contrary to popular belief, third parties don’t always offer lower prices. Last year, 57 billion Hilton HHonors points (or more than 1.6 million free nights) went unearned because guests “clicked around” looking for sweet deals—you know, those sites that boast awesome prices if you click through a million pop-up pages to compare costs.

To put it simply: There are few restrictions with hotel rewards programs, which makes directly booking from the hotel sites or mobile apps, well, leisurelier—the way vacationing should be. First, it’s worth noting that most hotel programs allow you to freely transfer points to several airline mileage accounts, while transferring points from airlines to hotels is less common and more complicated (you have to transfer A LOT of miles to earn a hotel stay). You can actually redeem your hotel rewards for most avenues of transportation—cruises, car rentals, rail lines. That said, redeeming hotel rewards for hotel rooms will still get you the most bang for your buck. Many hotel programs offer points that don’t expire or have blackout dates, unlike a number of airline loyalty programs, and others let you stay virtually anywhere, even at competitor hotels.

Also, there’s a ton of flexibility when searching via hotel reward programs. Hilton HHonors, for example, has more than 4,600 properties across 100 countries and territories. When you go online to book, you can filter results to search hotels based on points required instead of prices, just like you do with your airline miles. The difference is, however, that you don’t need to decide how to use all your points upfront. While you can’t redeem airline miles at gate check-in, you sure as hell can decide to use your points at any point during your stay in a hotel—on meals, room upgrades, late check-outs—right over the phone from your white linen bed.

Likewise, no booking site will help you cover the cost of Wi-Fi or redeem points for cell roaming charges during your stay, private dining experiences or concerts. Hotel rewards program members reap the benefits of a gamut of special offers that cut extra costs for which they hadn’t accounted. And most hotel programs are also free to sign up.

We’re not saying you have to bid farewell to that $59 annual venture rewards fee you keep spending on your Capital One card. We know, the two miles per every $1 spent is quite nice when your rent is electronically billed to your account, which also makes earning those 40,000 bonus miles for spending $3,000 in the first three months disgustingly easy. We’re just saying, there’s alternative cheap ways to travel, friends, and you might want to explore ’em.

The 628-Word Endorsement: Hotel Rewards Programs

For many travelers, high airfare can totally scuttle a trip. Added atop the price of hotels, the cost of a vacation can trump all hopes of getting away.

Many frequent flyers have already signed up with a program to redeem airline points, but rarely realize that the cost of a week’s stay at a hotel can easily surpass the cost of getting from Point A to Point B. We had the chance to visit sunny San Diego last weekend to kick off the launch of Hilton HHonors’ “Stop Clicking Around Campaign,” and learned a thing or two about hotel rewards and why they’re actually more cost-effective than using airline loyalty programs or booking sites that boast flight + hotel combo deals.

Sure you can snatch a seat on a plane before your points expire, but the combination of rising airfares, reduced flight capacities and scarcer award seat availability makes airline points a pain in the ass. Claiming hotel rewards offers far more flexibility and value than we thought.

Many hotel programs offer points that don’t expire or have blackout dates, unlike a number of airline loyalty programs, and others let you stay virtually anywhere, even at competitor hotels.

Contrary to popular belief, third parties don’t always offer lower prices. Last year, 57 billion Hilton HHonors points (or more than 1.6 million free nights) went unearned because guests “clicked around” looking for sweet deals—you know, those sites that boast awesome prices if you click through a million pop-up pages to compare costs.

To put it simply: There are few restrictions with hotel rewards programs, which makes directly booking both accommodation and flights from the hotel sites or mobile apps, well, leisurelier—the way vacationing should be. First, it’s worth noting that most hotel programs allow you to freely transfer points to several airline mileage accounts, while transferring points from airlines to hotels is less common and more complicated (you have to transfer A LOT of miles to earn a hotel stay). You can actually redeem your hotel rewards for most avenues of transportation—cruises, car rentals, rail lines. That said, redeeming hotel rewards for hotel rooms will still get you the most bang for your buck. Many hotel programs offer points that don’t expire or have blackout dates, unlike a number of airline loyalty programs, and others let you stay virtually anywhere, even at competitor hotels.

Also, there’s a ton of flexibility when searching via hotel reward programs. Hilton HHonors, for example, has more than 4,600 properties across 100 countries and territories. When you go online to book, you can filter results to search hotels based on points required instead of prices, just like you do with your airline miles. The difference is, however, that you don’t need to decide how to use all your points upfront. While you can’t redeem airline miles at gate check-in, you sure as hell can decide to use your points at any point during your stay in a hotel—on meals, room upgrades, late check-outs—right over the phone from your white linen bed.

Likewise, no booking site will help you cover the cost of Wi-Fi or cell roaming charges during your stay, or offer you private dining experiences or free concerts. Hotel rewards program members reap the benefits of a gamut of special offers that cut extra costs for which they hadn’t accounted. And most hotel programs are also free to sign up.

We’re not saying you have to bid farewell to that $59 annual venture rewards fee you keep spending on your Capital One card. We know, the two miles per every $1 spent is quite nice when your rent is electronically billed to your account, which also makes earning those 40,000 bonus miles for spending $3,000 in the first three months disgustingly easy. We’re just saying, there’s alternative cheap ways to travel, friends, and you might want to explore ’em.