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Hello Reader,

🧭 Where in the World?

More beautiful train travel this week delivered us to Salzburz (Austria) for a few days and now to Nuremberg, Germany.

We’re traveling on a flexible Eurail Global Pass which gives us up to 10 travel days within two months. Eurail’s Global Pass serves 33 European countries. This, versus a single-country pass, is a good choice for multi-country trips “if you haven't decided on your destination,” says the website. Ha! That’s us!

Once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to use a Eurail Global Pass. The pass is loaded on our phones in the Rail Planner app. We plan each leg of our travel as we go by selecting our train times and saving those to our Trip Planner. (Global Passes do not include seat reservations, which are required on some but not all trains.)

In Eastern Europe we were able to hop on trains without reservations in most cases. Recently, as we’ve moved west and the season is becoming busier, we’ve needed reservations. So, when we arrive in one city, we head to the station ticket office to reserve our seats for the next leg. Yesterday, after arriving in Nuremberg, for example, we reserved our seats for the trip to Strasbourg later in the week.

For reference, first class Global Passes like ours for 10 travel days, for people over 60, cost $557. (Just our next leg to Strasbourg would have cost us each more than $110.) Here’s an easy tool for calculating your Global Pass options.

Despite recent stories about the expense and inconvenience of train travel in Europe, we’re immune from much of that with our Global Passes. Plus, we love the flexibility and the access right to the center of the smaller cities we enjoy visiting.

💸 This Week's Best (BLACK FRIDAY!) Deals in Travel

As promised last week, here are some of the best Black Friday deals we've found.

• UNBOUND MERINO ON SALE. Our favorite travel clothing item, you know it: our Unbound Merino wool T-shirts and hoodies. We’re traveling with multiples, and glad for it. Unbound Merino has only one sale a year, and this is it. Everything is on sale now, store wide, up to 40 percent off. And additional discounts are available with these codes at checkout: BF10 (spend $100, save $10) BF25 (spend $200, save $25); BF35 (spend $300, save $35). You get the idea – and these are on top of the sale pricing. Don't miss this. The Black Friday sale ends November 29. Then, the Cyber Monday sale is Dec 2-3.
• TRAVEL SHOES. Recently, we've both come to love Kizik shoes for travel. They're comfortable slip-ons with support. Get up to 50 percent off with early Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.
• TRAVEL ACCESSORIES. On those long flights, we've found the Trtl sleep neck pillow is the best we've ever tried. We each have them. And now they're on sale for a lot less than we paid for them. We also love these sleep masks, which are contoured so they sit comfortably off your eyes, unlike the freebies the airline might give you.
• TRAVEL ELECTRONICS. First, Apple AirTags are on sale for the lowest price we've seen. If you check bags, and you're not using these, you're taking a much bigger chance than you have to, especially since several airlines have now announced they're using the Apple tracking system themselves to help find lost bags. This is the travel plug adapter we use. We each have one. Is it the cheapest? No. But at 75 watts charging power, it is the fastest. It charges our phones in under an hour, and laptops almost that fast. BTW, you'll need fast cables to take advantage. Get these 100 W cables, that we also use, and are on sale for about 30 percent off what we paid a few months ago. Also, this little gadget, a Bluetooth transmitter, along with our earbuds, is what we're now using for airplane entertainment systems. So much nicer when you're eating or you need to get up to not have to deal with detaching corded earphones.
• SAVE ON TRAVEL. On Black Friday, Booking.com is offering up to 50% off reservations made in their app.
• GET THE BEST TRAVEL DEALS SENT TO YOU. If you sign up for before Black Friday, Daily Drop Pro has their best program discounted from $149 to $99 annually. Our favorite feature of Daily Drop Pro is the unlimited ability to search for flights and hotels points deals. Worth the price if you only make one booking you otherwise wouldn't have known about. And, if you sign up now, they'll also send you a set of packing cubes.
• Check out our Travel Accessories post and our Amazon shop for more suggestions.

And, check out the credit card offer below in our Points and Miles section, for even more Black Friday savings.

✈️ Points and Miles News

As usual, because of banking regulation, we can't name this card here, but I think we can tell you that there's no annual fee, and you'll get an immediate $200 gift card just for signing up. No minimum spend! If you're a frequent user of a certain online retailer, and you don't have this card, you're really missing out on some great benefits.

🗞️ Travel News From Around the Web

• Delta Airlines is unbundling their fares even further, so you can get exactly the features you want. Business class, but without lounge access, or early boarding, for example. Pretty soon, flying with them is going to be like ordering your special coffee at Starbucks.
• And even better news from Delta: Starting December 1, Delta will start serving Shake Shack burgers as a meal choice in First Class flights over 900 miles. You have to request the meal in advance on the Fly Delta app.
• Not exactly travel news, but, if you're like us and "of a certain age" in the U.S. you're probably getting a lot of mail about Medicare plans. Here's some help to sort through it all.

🧳 Our Latest Posts

While we’re working on new posts from Europe, we’re also seeing a bump in interest in Japan. Here are two posts, including one about Shirakawa-go, Japan, named one of Travel + Leisure’s most beautiful small towns around the world.

📖 What We're Reading

Now a third of the way into Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley, Kris is hooked on the story of a small group of individuals plucked from various points in history to the present, and the individuals who are helping them bridge the gap. Kris is marveling at the humor and the evolution of the not-so-reliable narrator.

Tom's still lurching through The Fallen Sparrow, by Dorothy B. Hughes, and often chuckles out loud at the hard-boiled 1940s language. (It's only $1.99 on Kindle, btw.)

For our previous recommendations, check out this list.

❝Travel Quote of the Week❞

We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. – George Bernard Shaw

Happy travels,

Kris and Tom

​ Tom Bartel and Kristin Henning ​Travel Past 50​ ​ Connect with us: Facebook, Threads, Instagram, ​ Join our Facebook community.

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