Traveler wait in a long security line at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana Wednesday, May 7, 2025. Allen J. Schaben | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images The Transportation Security Administration will let many travelers leave their shoes on at U.S. airport checkpoints, ending a roughly 20-year-old rule, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem…
Summer is upon us once again and you know what that means: way more people at the airport and all of them in front of you in the TSA line. The agency says it's "ready for the additional passenger volume"—but are you? Whether or not you've traveled by air recently, we've got some helpful pointers,…
An Instagrammer says he figured out how to get full-size bottles of water past Transportation Security Administration checkpoints. "Here's the greatest travel hack of all time," Mitchell Dante Saron says in an Instagram Reels post dated February 16. Then Saron, an Olympic fencer whose usual videos feature extended gazes at his Olympic-level abs, takes his…
Every travel blog and morning TV show seems to have unpacked every last detail about Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro, Alabama. The store where your luggage might wind up for sale if your airline loses it has been generously covered over the years. A somewhat sad bazaar for dashed vacation dreams past and present, Unclaimed Baggage…
This post was originally published in December 2022 and contains updated information. The deadline for all Americans to be using Real I.D., the strengthened identification format that was announced in 2005 during the George W. Bush administration after the security disasters of September 11, 2001, has been affirmed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Americans…
Here's another reason to hope that the social media trend of posting photos of artfully arranged airport security trays remains back in 2024 where it belongs. Turns out that using those bins as a canvas for self-expression was stomach-churningly disgusting. Seems like there's a metaphor in there somewhere. In a recent TikTok video, uniformed…
A blessing and a curse for travelers to and from Boston is that the city’s international airport is pretty much smack-dab in the middle of the action. Buttressed against the Atlantic Ocean, the entirety of downtown and the greater metropolitan area radiates in a circle from Boston Logan. Not coincidentally, the city has some of…
The AAA, which tracks travel patterns, predicts nearly 8 million people will fly this upcoming holiday season. And 7.99 million of them will be in front of you, slowing down the security line with their bad packing choices. There's no call for that. Unlike some national security forces we've encountered on our travels, the…
With no fanfare, and with little public comment, one of the most dreaded aspects of air travel got faster, less intrusive, and far more pleasant. I’m talking about airport security, believe it or not. And it’s about to improve even more in the very near future. (No joke.) Last weekend, I welcomed David Pekoske, the…
Needing to catch a flight after your ID has been lost or stolen is a scenario stressful enough to panic the coolest of cucumbers, especially if you're away from home and don't have quick access to backup forms of identification. If you've taken a trip to Las Vegas, say, and misplaced your wallet after a…