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- [00:00]
A
This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Apple Card takes privacy. Seriously, it's your card, your info, your business. So if your credit card isn't Apple Card, maybe it should be subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch terms and more@applecard.com hello. Welcome to Slate Money Travel, a special episode of Slate Money devoted to travel something. I'm Felix Salmon. I'm here with Emily Peck of Axios.
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B
Hello.
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A
Who's sitting at home in front of her bookshelves. We're doing the bookshelf thing, but Elizabeth Spires of the New York Times has made it all the way into the Brooklyn studios of Slate. Hi, Elizabeth.
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C
Hello.
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A
Was your commute okay in the heat?
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C
It was fine because I was in a car, so.
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B
Ooh, ooh, wait, did you drive yourself?
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C
No, I was worried I was going to be late, so I hopped in an Uber.
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B
Fancy.
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A
We are going to talk this week about checking bags. I think everyone has an opinion on this. I do, too. But, Emily, why don't you bring us up to speed on the debate?
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B
The debate, Felix, is actually quite simple. To check or not to check, that is the question.
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A
All right, let's. Okay, so fine, you've brought us up to speed. Before we, before we go into the pros and cons, let's just have a quick, like, gut check here. In general, do you check or not check?
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B
I like to check. I like. Hillary Fry, the Slate editor, has a whole piece about this debate, and she comes on this on the side of. Of checking bags. And the simple reason is it's nice to be unencumbered by literally your baggage. Right. You just want to be baggage.
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A
Is baggage breezy?
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B
Breezy, yeah. You want to be easy breezy. You don't want baggage. You want to, like, sidle up to the airport bar. If you have time and have no chunky suitcase like that, you have to figure out where to put it and keep an eye on and all that.
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A
It's.
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B
It's a lovely thing to just travel without baggage schlepping all around.
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A
Elizabeth, are you a checker or a carry oner?
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B
It.
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C
It depends on how long the trip is. So if it's less than a week, I will carry on. And then if it's more than that, I usually end up having to check a bag.
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A
But you only check because you have to because you've got that much luggage. Given the choice, you will always not check.
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C
Yeah, also, but because I am the. I've mastered the art of packing almost Nothing. And carrying almost nothing with me. So because I'm a super light packer, the checking is not difficult.
- [02:53]
A
So when you don't check, just to be clear, are you doing that thing that people do where they take a full on wheelie suitcase, which is like the maximum sized thing that you're allowed to bring on the plane, and you bring it on the plane and you put it up in the compartment on top of you?
- [03:10]
C
No, because that annoys the hell out of me. I'm usually taking like a small weekender bag or I have one hard case suitcase that's literally like 18 by 18 inches. It's designed really for a laptop and a couple of things and that easily fits in the overhead, but it can also go under the seat. So. And I'm like a small person, I don't need a lot of stuff.
- [03:31]
B
What are you packing, though? That stresses me out. Another reason, another check in the bring a bigger bag and just check it box is that you can bring more stuff with you and have more options for what to wear. You're on your business trip or your holiday. Because for me, what you just said really freaks me out that you're like, I don't pack a lot of stuff. It's like, well, every time I go someplace, I am like, oh, I didn't bring the right. Whatever it is everyone's wearing.
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A
Everyone needs a pair of espadrilles. I didn't pack my espadrilles.
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B
I didn't pack my espadrilles. Or I have sneakers but no sandals or whatever. So, I mean, how do you deal with that?
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A
I have a broader question for Elizabeth on this one, which is Emily's question, but like broadened out, which is what it sounds to me that you are doing, is a bunch of layers of optimization. You're optimizing for minimizing the amount that you pack, and you're also optimizing for minimizing the amount of time you spend doing things like waiting for luggage at the airport. So you're trying to optimize your travel. And one of the reasons why you pack very little is precisely so that you don't need to check a bag. Because checking a bag is like some kind of an obstacle in your perfectly optimized vacation.
- [04:54]
C
Yeah. Also, if I'm going on a long flight, the last thing I want to do is wait 45 minutes for my baggage. So I just, I enjoy being able to like walk off the plane and just get right in a cab or whatever.
- [05:06]
B
Also, it's stressful waiting for your Bag. Hillary in her column says she enjoys this, like, the suspense of will, will it, Won't it come down the, the shoot? But I, I'm an anxious person and the idea that, like, where's my bag? Where's my bag? Why isn't it come yet? Why hasn't it come yet? And watching people walk away with their suitcases and I'm like, where is it? Maybe I don't see it. Nope. No, it's not there, you know? Ooh. No.
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C
I'm also really impatient, like my 10 year old. And I have the same level of patience and attention span for things that are really tedious. So if I have to sit and wait for 30, 45 minutes, I just lose my mind.
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A
So, so Elizabeth, just give me, give me some numbers here. When you're saying, like, if you're on a long flight, you don't want to wait for your bag and you want to just walk off the plane, it strikes me that you can't walk off the plane if you're on a long flight because you have to go through all of the immigration meshuggahs anyway.
- [06:05]
C
I'm not talking about international flights. I'm talking about, like, New York to la.
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A
Okay, so New York to LA is the one where you don't want to, you want to be able to just walk off the plane. So my feeling is that there are two pieces of technology that solve a bunch of these problems. And my sympathies are more with Emily than they are with Elizabeth. My feeling is that we shouldn't always be trying to optimize stuff and that an optimized life is a suboptimal life in some weird kind of paradoxical way.
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C
Oh, my life is not optimized in most areas, Felix.
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A
So why are you trying to optimize your travel like this?
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C
As I find travel, the process of travel, a little bit stressful. Like, I hate the sort of security aspect of going to an airport. And so I want to basically get stuff that I know is going to stress me out, out of the way. But I am not generally an optimizer. I just think that travel specifically is one of my sourcebots.
- [07:08]
A
This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Did you know Apple Card is designed to help you pay off your balance faster with smart payment suggestions? And because fees don't help you, Apple Card doesn't have any. So if your credit card isn't Apple Card, maybe it should be subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch. Variable APRs range from 18.24% to 28.49%, based on creditworthiness rates as of July 1, 2025 terms, and more at applecard.com the two pieces of technology that I want to talk about. One is an actual piece of technology, which is the Apple Airtag. And I find Apple Airtags to have been, like, a surprisingly underappreciated and yet also kind of revolutionary piece of technology. And throwing them in every piece of luggage that you either check or don't check is just a wonderful way of putting your mind at ease and always knowing where everything is. And I find that it really does do a great job of relieving anxiety. And besides, you know, if you do start wondering, where's my luggage? And it's not coming out, and then it turns out to be a thousand miles away at the airport you left it at and didn't make it onto the plane, like, it's very easy to work that one out without having to wait for the very last piece of luggage. And you can, you know, go to your hotel and call the airline and work it out from the hotel.
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C
But that Hillary would have no dramatic tension at the baggage.
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B
That was the most puzzling part of the column. I just was like, wait a minute, what is she saying?
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A
I like it. I vibed with that one. I was like, yeah, the excitement. If it's next bag going to be my bag. It's a little mini. Yeah, that. That little endorphin rush you get when you finally see your bag. It's an endorphin rush. I'm into it.
- [09:01]
B
I did relate because I like the feeling of the satisfaction of, like, oh, now I see my bag. And that does. You're right, it does feel good. And it reminds me of when I get my laundry out of the dryer and I match up the socks. I was just telling my daughter the other day, oh, I love when the socks again, like, they found each other.
- [09:18]
A
They found each other, exactly. I love that. But there's. There's another piece of technology which is not really technology technology, but it's something which is much underrated if we are living in a world where there are all manner of ways that airlines charge us extra for things. They often charge us extra to check a bag. They charge us extra for extra legroom. They charge us extra if you don't have extra, but you're just sitting close to the front of the plane. Which, by the way, is also this, like, optimizing thing that people are like, I need to get off the plane more quickly. There's, they, you know, there's all of the money you spend in there, but there's just a bunch of random ways in which money leaves your wallet whenever you're traveling. And I would like to propose that in that, in that context, there's a way that money can leave your wallet that is not a huge amount of money and is totally worth it, which is just pack the bag and send it on ahead of you so it's waiting for you in your hotel room when you arrive. This is not hard. There's a bunch of different services that will do this. Luggage, free my baggage, who knows? There are millions of them. And it's easy. And it normally costs maybe 40, 50 bucks. It's not a huge amount of money. And all of your anxiety just dissipates. You get to walk onto the plane with just your handbag or whatever. And, and it's, and you don't need to worry. Like, even if you check a bag, you still have all of the hassle involved in schlepping it to the airport. Schlepping it from the airport. Just get rid of all of that. I'm like, send your luggage in advance.
- [10:56]
B
I love that. Why doesn't everyone do that? I mean, I guess they don't want to pay 40, $50 on top of already there.
- [11:02]
C
Yeah, I might do that if it were, you know, a very long trip or something. But for two, three day turnaround, there's no point.
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A
The amount of effort involved in schlepping luggage back and forth is the same. I mean, again, like Elizabeth, for you as the optimizer who never packs anything, then you're fine. But like, just think about it. All of that effort you're putting into optimizing and minimizing the amount you pack, you can lose all of that effort and just pack absolutely everything into a massive suitcase and send it ahead of you.
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C
I would argue that I'm spending less effort because I minimalize what I pack. Throw some things in the bag and go.
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B
So you're, you're packing for four nights in la. What are you bringing? Just nothing. Just one outfit. I don't understand.
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C
No, I just, I wear, I bring a lot of stuff that you can sort of go from very casual to a nice dinner day and night. Like a. And I bring like one or two pairs of shoes.
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A
So you're wearing one pair of shoes and you're packing how many more?
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C
Okay, one.
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A
And you can fit that into your little 18 inch by 18 inch laptop.
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B
Case thing and Your little tiny clothes. Because you're tiny.
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A
Yeah. I think this is Elizabeth just, like, gloating that she's short.
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B
Yeah, this is what it is. That's exactly what it is. So, Felix, you always send your luggage ahead, even for a short trip, like, for two nights, you wouldn't do that?
- [12:23]
A
No, for two nights, I just have a shoulder bag. I don't always do anything. I'm not one of these people who has rules about I always check or I always carry on or I always send my luggage in advance. But the one. The one thing I. I pretty much always do do is. Is throw an air tag into everything. Air tags are just the best.
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B
I don't have any air tags. Now I want to buy one.
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C
I don't have one, but I want to get some because we keep forgetting where we park the car.
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A
Yeah, yeah. Air tags are good for locating your car. I keep an airtag in my car. Sometimes it chirps at me. The one in the car. I don't know why it chirps, but yeah, they're great things. And they just take very standard. Those little circular batteries, and they're great. Let's all start sending more luggage ahead of us. I think this is. Of all of the solutions that exist in this, to this problem of to check or not to check, I think this is the least utilized and the one that most people would benefit from.
- [13:24]
B
I don't know. I'm kind of coming around to the idea of packing, like, one outfit like Elizabeth, and just, like, raw, dogging it through my trip. Like, this is all I got. I got this jeans and T shirt, and that's it.
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A
Well, there's also. There's also the Japanese way of doing it, which is you just go into your. The local 7 11, which is a great store in Japan, and buy the T shirt and the pair of trousers or whatever you need for while you're there, and then just leave them where they are and just instead of bringing everything that you need with you, just buy whatever you need when you get it.
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C
I do that with toiletries because there's. It's such a pain to pack them. You just find the nearest CVS and get the travel stuff when you're there, or get them in the airport.
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B
One of the actual good policy maneuvers from the current Trump administration is they. They're getting rid of the rule where you have to take your shoes off. And I was just reading that they're also looking to get rid of the rules around liquids, which is nice.
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A
That would be great.
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B
These are actual great innovations in policy, and I'm very impressed by both and looking forward to them.
- [14:26]
A
The greatest villain of the 21st century is Richard Reeves, the dumb English shoe bomber who tried to bring a bomb onto a plane in his shoe. And he had a bottle of Lucozade. I can't remember. It's all merged into one. But basically there was some dumb guy who tried to blow up a plane with a shoe and then some other dumb guy who tried to blow up a plane with a bottle of Leukozite, and both of them failed. But, like, from that point on, we have caused probably billions of dollars of, like, wasted human time. Looking at people's shoes and looking at people's liquids and getting rid of that would be amazing.
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C
What would the policy have been if he had smuggled the bomb in, like, his pants?
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A
Exactly. Everyone needs to take their pants off.
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B
I don't understand that, because neither of them succeeded, which is good. We didn't want them to succeed. So why do we have to have a policy? Obviously, whatever policies the airplanes had or the airport had was fine and caught these people, so why did they need to step it up even more?
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A
Exactly, Exactly.
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B
It's a travel show. We're not talking about counterterrorism measures.
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A
It's a travel show. So, yeah, guys, try to be Zen about all of the security theater. And, yeah, just don't stress too much about your luggage. It's not worth stressing about.