When most people book a flight, they pay attention to the price and the airline, but probably don’t give a thought to the model of airplane that will be transporting them across the world. But it turns out, the type of plane you fly in can make a huge difference in overall sleep, comfort and even jet lag. In this episode, hosts Jon and Saskia discuss the hidden features to look out for in modern airplanes and how to take advantage of them. And stick around until the end to learn about our lesser known destination of the month: The Maldives of Mexico.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:11):
You're listening to the Globetrotters podcast,the show dedicated to bringing you fresh and
diverse perspectives from traveling enthusiasts all overthe world. This is the layover our
monthly travel show in which we investigateall things travel, update you on the
latest travel news, and occasionally we'lllook into a questionable TikTok Trendlord two so
you don't have to our lesser knownlocation today will be a much more affordable,
(00:34):
but equally as beautiful alternative to theMaldives, So stick around until the
end if you want to hear aboutit. I'm your co host John Oto
and I'm Saskia have funny and onour last episode we talked all about budget
travel and more specifically budget long termtravel. We invited Brian Carlson on the
(00:55):
show. Brian spent six months inSoutheast Asia, where he managed to travel
to eight countries for less than fivethousand dollars. As impressive sounding as this
is, this kind of trip iscommon than you might think. In fact,
Southeast Asia is a classic backpacker destinationfor many good reasons beautiful culture,
delicious food, nature, but it'salso very affordable and safe. You probably
(01:22):
already know this if you've been listeningto the podcast for a while, but
I also spent several months in SoutheastAsia as a young in so anyway,
in the last episode, Brian andI chopped it up over our extreme budgeting
strategies slash obsessions in Southeast Asia andit was a good time. Was that
nostalgic for you Sasia to have thatconversation with Brian? Yeah, I definitely
(01:44):
got a little carried away talking aboutmy own experiences, which made me a
little self conscious because I don't reallylike to do that, to be honest,
on the podcast, But it wasso much fun, so I hope
that translates to a good listen.Yeah, and one thing Saskia didn't mention,
she's also a source Brian did this. Listen to the episode if you
want to know how to do thisreally affordable or just hit us up on
(02:05):
the podcast, like on Instagram andyou can reach out to her to ask
her for some travel trips regarding SoutheastAsia. But in this episode, we're
going to start off with some ofthe latest travel headlines. Last month,
I brought up the fact that thenational government of Peru had closed down Machu
Pichu for tourists due to the civiland rest brought on by the political climate.
Yesterday, the Inca Citadel was finallyreopened for tourists and locals. That's
(02:29):
a big deal. Yeah, definitely. In other news and somewhat surprising for
me, the US government has stronglyadvised against traveling to Mexico during spring break
and just in general, due tothe increased threats of crime and kidnapping against
tourists. The US listed their highestwarning levels for areas inside of Guerrero,
Golima, Mitua, gan Sinaaloa,Damaulipas. I'm not sure if I said
(02:53):
that correctly, and Sacatecas. Yeah, and so can you explain what are
those areas for someone who's not familiarwith those regions? Is that like a
lot of Mexico, is it?I mean, if you look at Mexico
on the map, it's one ofthe longest countries I think on the globe,
like excluding India and maybe China.But for a lot of people,
I think that's just going to soundlike Mexican states that I'm listing the most
(03:15):
popular destination that I can name fortourists that resides in one of those states
is Acapulco. Are you familiar withthat? M Yeah, So how much
of the country is not under thistravel advisory from the US government. So
if I'm not mistaken, I wantto say Mexico has thirty five states.
(03:36):
Let me go ahead and confirm thatthirty two states. So I was close
and only five of them. TheUS is advising against travel. But most
tourist destinations like Tuloom, you know, Mexico City, Juanna Huato, which
was in an episode before, mostof the big tourist destinations are conflict free.
I should say, get to know. And I learned something new today.
I did not realize that Mexico hadso many states, and you know,
(04:00):
it just goes to show how bigof a country it is as well
and how much there is to seethere. I personally can't wait to go.
I still haven't been, can youimagine. Yeah, Sassia decided to
go on a bachelor rep party insteadof going down with co host Maxim myself
down to Mexico City. But toeach their own. Yeah, I'll get
there someday, all right. Soone of the headlines that caught my eye
(04:21):
this month was about the Boeing sevenfloor seven airplane, which officially and that's
because Boeing officially announced that they stoppedproduction this month. The last plane left
the factory in December. And now, if you just happened upon this episode
and or you're not an airplane nerdlike me, you might be wondering why
(04:44):
this is a big deal me andeveryone else. Yeah, I had to
convince John that this is an episodethat we should do. But yeah,
it's because most of us, Ithink, actually don't pay attention to the
types of airplanes were flying on.Instead we look more at the airline.
But the seven seven is a particularlybig deal because it revolutionized flying and travel
as we know it. Before theseven four seven, flying was a luxury
(05:09):
reserved for the very rich and businessmen. And you know, at the time,
I believe when it came out innineteen sixty nine. Before then,
flying costs at least three hundred dollars, which now might seem like an okay
price to fly across the Atlantic,for example, but at the time that
(05:29):
could be the price of a newcar. Wow. Yeah. So the
seven for seven had greater fuel efficiencyfirst of all, and because it doubled
the seat capacity, it cut thecost per seat for the airlines, so
that meant cheaper overall air affares forcustomers. And actually this really surprised me,
John, because I consider myself alittle bit of a plane nerd.
(05:50):
Like I said, do you knowhow many seats the first seven four seven
could fit? Can you guess?Like what would be your guess? I'm
gonna say twenty four twenty four?Oh wait man, uh yeah, that
is way off. You know what, you know what, I'll give you
another guest shot, hire shot.Hi. Okay, I'm gonna do twelve
(06:10):
square, one hundred and forty four. Okay again, No, Actually that
was more. That was closer tothe planes that were flying at the time
in the fifties and sixties. Theseven four seven, the very first model,
could carry up to three hundred andsixty six passengers in a three class
configuration, so like first class,business class economy three hundred and sixty six.
(06:32):
Now, if it was all economy, just imagine, which doesn't you
know, it's not typical. Butif it was all economy, it could
carry up to five hundred and fiftypeople. So that was huge. This
is nineteen sixty nine, you know, and it completely changed everything, and
you know, since then, they'vebeen so ubiquitous that the seven for seven
has been called the Queen of theskies. Actually, it was the very
(06:55):
first plane to be called a jumbojet, a word that I haven't heard
since the nine since I was akid. Yeah, and I just wanted
to insert a quick comment. Ihave to say that through this exercise,
through researching this episode, I've learnedso much, an absurtainly amount about airplanes,
and I'm really excited about this one. So I'll let you carry on.
I just needed to insert that.No, no, you do well
(07:17):
to cut me off, because I'lljust get carried away. All right.
So, chances are if you've flowna long haul flight, as in like,
let's say over eight hours, Iwould consider a long half flight.
Would you say that's correct? Yeah? Anything above five from me? Right
right. If you've flown a longhaul flight, chances are you've flown in
a seven four seven or one ofits various spinoff models. Because here's the
(07:41):
thing. The seven four seven modelsthat we are flying in today are variations
of that original model. And astechnology progress, you know, Boeing added
fuel efficiency, updated systems, etc. And so, for example, you
might have heard of the most infamousseven four seven lately, which was the
seven four seven Max, which madeheadlines for unfortunate But you know, that's
(08:07):
just one of the various spinoff modelsof that plane. But overall, the
design of the plane, the lookof it, the fuselage as an outer
shell of it, has remained largelythe same. Just for our listeners when
you're talking about the seven forty seven, just because I don't want there to
be any confusion, you're talking abouta plane type, like a family of
(08:28):
airplanes, right, it's not onespecific airplane. There was the initial design,
so it'll be like, you know, the initial look of the plane,
and I'll tell you how you canactually know if you're flying in one
very easily without even having to lookit up. But yeah, so then
what happens is the airline, insteadof redesigning a whole new airplane, they'll
come out with updated versions with anew type of engine or a new type
(08:52):
of system, and then they'll nameit something else. So you had the
seven four seven one hundred, thenthe seven four seven two hundred, then
the seventh course seven R S orsomething, and then the Max. So
you know, these planes that we'reflying in Now, the seven four sevens
that you would have flown in inyour life, they wouldn't have been that
original model, but rather the updatedversions of a seven four seven. A
(09:16):
reasonable question one of our listeners canbe asking is, look, a plane's
a plane. Why does it matterif I'm paying for X amount dollars to
get me to location B? Andthe truth is you should care because it
makes a big difference in regards toespecially for economy class, in regards to
how much space you get, theTV screens, windows, the type of
sleep you get. I think evenone of the topics that SASKA is going
(09:39):
to get into is how airplane modelscan combat jet lags. So definitely something
to pay attention to going forward.Yeah, exactly. And actually I don't
know if you knew this, John, but basically, when you book any
flight, you will be able tosee what type of airplane it is before
you book the ticket. It willtell you in small print this is the
(10:01):
seven four seven, you know,two hundred or whatever. So you actually
have more control over this than youmight think. I'll give you a little
backstory. My dad is super intoairplanes, and that's kind of why I've
always been into it. So youknow, obviously I flew a lot as
a kid because my parents are fromdifferent countries. Is very lucky to always
be flying, and my dad reallymade it a fun experience for us.
(10:24):
Like I looked forward to it somuch, you know, eleven hour flights
were my favorite. And you know, anytime we get on a plane and
my dad would be like, Okay, well this is the you know,
this is the A three fifty orsomething, and it's like, this is
why it's awesome, and look athow cool it is, and you know,
and so I never like, I'mactually really grateful for that because it
(10:46):
kept a lot of wonder for mein flying. And my dad is one
of those people who will specifically sometimesbook one ticket over another based on the
airplane model, and I'll tell youwhat model that is laid. And I
think through doing this, you know, one of the first things that I
did once I knew we were goingto do this episode, I ended upcoming
(11:09):
flight, you know, in Novemberto Bali, and the first thing I
did was look at the type ofairplane that I was going to be at.
I had my fingers crossed for aDreamliner. I didn't get it,
but I think It's going to beone of those things that going forward,
if I find two relatively similar pricesfor a flight, I'll look at what
type of aircraft is carrying me.Yeah, so let's get into some of
(11:31):
our findings. You were looking intocomfort overall. So what did you find
out about the most comfortable airplanes?Putting me on the spot, I here,
I thought Saskia was going to carrythe conversation with airplanes. I am
not an airplane aficionado. Is thathow you say that? But I did
my best research and this is whatI came up with. When considering the
best commercial airplanes in terms of juststraight up comfort. Two names kept creeping
(11:56):
up, and that's the Airbus Athree eighty and the A three fifty.
And as I mentioned before, peoplelistening, you might think that's one model
over maybe two models over. Howdifferent can it be? And the truth
is a lot. The Airbus Athree eighty has a much wider cabin width,
which allows for economy class to havemore leg rooms, so you're able
to stretch and just generally be morecomfortable compared to let's say A seven forty
(12:22):
seven. Yeah, and I'm goingto jump in here on the A three
eighty, you might actually recognize thename of this plane. If you don't
recognize any other name of any otherplane, you might recognize this one because
it actually made a huge big deal. What was it ten years ago or
fifteen years ago, maybe twenty yearsago when it first launched, I can't
remember, but this was basically knownas the plane that could carry the most
(12:46):
passengers ever. And you know,so if you thought five hundred and fifty
people was a lot, the Athree eighty can carry six hundred and forty
four people in a two tiered class. So say you have like business and
economy, and if it were technically, if it were a single class,
you could carry eight hundred and fiftythree. So it was kind of known
(13:07):
as like the eight hundred person plane. And if you've ever flown on it,
I mean it's hard not to noticehow massive it is. John,
have you ever flown on one?Yeah, And it's only because I had
to do the Google images usually,Like I said, I've never paid attention
to this type of thing, andafter looking it up on Google Images,
(13:28):
I've actually flown on one more thanonce. Yeah, I know that sometimes
they're very specific about which airlines canhave it like for the three eighty.
I think it's like British Lavanza AirFrance Singapore, which is the time that
I flew to Russia and that's whenI was on one. Yeah, so
the eight three eighty, if youlook out the window, if you're sitting
(13:50):
by the wing, and you lookout the window as it takes off,
you will see the wing flap.Like I'm not even joking. This shocked
me because you know, I'm alwayslike my dad told me about it,
so I was looking out for it. The wings are huge and all this
stuff. So I got on oneand I was like, I hope he
really talks like that, but hetotally does. And then I looked out
(14:13):
the window and I was like this, First of all, the wind is
so big, and then when itstarts moving and taking off, it bounces,
so it looks like you're taking offin a giant bird, which is
like crazy. In that last rendition, it kind of sounded like your dad
is is Bruce Wayne like Batman,Like, oh no, sorry, he's
(14:35):
more British. He's like it's amazing, you know. He'll be like he's
got like a slight British accent,so it'll be like, it's so amazing.
The wings are so great and big, you know, so much space,
and it's quieter, you know,beautiful. Anyway, there's some like
the Airbus A three eighty. Oneof the most famous ones is the ETHID
and the Emirates Airline that flying conjunctionwith that plane. Because if you've ever
(15:00):
looked at luxury flights or long distanceflights, you might have seen some that
have those you know, first classcabins that you can take a shower,
full privacy suites and a full loadedup bar on the flight. And it's
more often than not going to beon an airbus A three eighty. Yeah,
and there are also much quieter it'sthe quietest cabin on an airplane.
(15:22):
And the thing is, if you'reon a really long haul flight that's constant
sound, the like loud humming soundis actually extremely tiring. You know,
it's very stimulating to your brain.So like the quieter it can be the
better. And I'll say this,I invested on the great set of headphones
to have that noise cancelation. Buteven with like AirPod, Airmax or whatever,
(15:46):
you're still hearing that sound. Itstill breaks through, So it does
get to me. And one morething I want to say about like comfort
versus cost. That was going tobe another angle that we wanted to tackle
this from to see if a specifictype of aircraft is generally cheaper than another.
And it was really hard to trackthis down for the most part.
(16:07):
It kept asking me if I wantedto buy an airplane. So thank you
Saska. Now I'm getting all theseads to become a pilot and you know,
purchase a plane. But for thoseliving in the United States, you've
probably heard of Spirit Airlines and Frontiers. Unsurprisingly, these are the cheapest airlines,
with Spirit being the cheapest, andthey operate in the all Airbus fit
fleet. Unfortunately, the A threeeighty is not in their arsenal as of
(16:30):
yet. Well, this is thething is that you know, this plane
made a lot of headlines because itwas actually revolutionary in terms of comfort,
efficiency costs. Because you know,the airline is able to put more people
inside a plane, they're able tomake more money. But apparently it didn't
do very well. Airlines weren't purchasingit enough, and so they actually discontinued
(16:52):
it a couple of years ago andstopped making it as well, interesting sort
of. All the ones that areout there are the last one, which
is kind of interesting. But it'smy dad's favorite airplane and he will go
out of his way to fly onthem. However, I will say I
do agree that they're one of themost comfortable planes in terms of sound and
all that, But personally, myability to sleep on the flight hinges on
(17:18):
being able to lean on the window. Like I'm one of those people that
always has to sit by the wallso I can lean over and sleep.
And the problem with the A threeeighty is that basically the wall curves really
far away from the seat, sothere's kind of a gap, and so
you actually can't really lean up againstit, so like all your stuff will
(17:40):
slide down into the crack and it'stoo far away. And I'm sure so
I realize, like, actually,this is not a great plane for me
because and it just sounds like sucha first world problem, Oh my god,
but it's true. Okay, ifyou're a wall sleeper, A three
eighties might not be for you.Just saying, quick life hack, just
bring a jacket with you, abig puffy jackets stuff fit in there and
(18:00):
WALLA done. And I want totake this opportunity to branch off. Since
we're speaking about discontinued planes. Haveyou ever heard about the supersonic transport?
Yes, but it might be outof context, but go ahead. Okay,
So a little backstory here the sevenfour seven, And remember I told
(18:22):
you I was going to tell youhow to identify one. So the seven
four seven has this really telltale humpon the top of its like fuselage,
like a whale. It's got likea little whale hump. And that's actually
because the cockpit for the pilots isabove the cabin area, so that the
plane can be converted into a cargoplane. And the reason they wanted to
(18:45):
be able to convert it into acargo plane because everybody thought that the seven
for seven would be surpassed by supersonicair travel. Yes, so supersonic air
travel or it's been referred to assupersonic transport, which sounds like a total
Star Wars thing, and to behonest, it is kind of a Star
Wars thing. So if you didn'tknow, in the sixties there was this
(19:08):
plane you may have heard of,the Conquered. It was actually a passenger
plane that was developed. You couldfly from New York to London in three
and a half hours, and theplane would be able to go up to
speeds to mock two, which,to be honest, I don't even know
what that means. John, Maybeyou know what MOK two means. It's
(19:32):
roughly a thousand, five hundred andthirty four miles per hour. I would
have to do the conversions for metersfor our friends overseas or not in the
US. Yeah, so it's fast. It's fast as hell. Actually,
I want to show you what itlooks like. And while she's bringing that
up, you know you said itwent mock too, right, Yeah,
yeah, I guess. Mack oneis defined as the speed of sound,
(19:55):
so this is going twice as fastas the speed of sound. And the
reason it got its name supersonic wasbecause it broke the sound barrier. It
would actually make a super loud noiseand that was a problem because a lot
of countries prevented it from flying overthem, So the plane was restricted to
(20:15):
flying over oceans and certain routes becauseof the sound. Because of the sound
it would make, it was soloud it made a supersonic boom. Can
you imagine that sounds a little ridiculousto me. But I guess if you're
living constantly near where one of theseplanes would be flying or through their route,
I guess you can't get a littlebit annoying. Yeah, countries outlawed
(20:37):
them, pretty amazing. And we'llgo ahead and post this clip on YouTube.
It's something that we're starting to doso you guys can get better visuals
of what we're talking about. Fromtime to time these were flying. You
could book a cabin a seat onone of these up until two thousand and
three, which I had no ideaabout. I don't know, did you
no? But I mean they wouldhave been before I started buying flights.
(21:00):
You would have probably been more likelyto fly on the one of your dad.
To me, it looks like aduck or a geese, like a
lame duck just has this beak thatis just going down. I'd love to
talk to whoever designed this thing.But okay, so I'm glad you bring
up this beak. The nose isa super sharp tip designed to streamline the
air and travel at supersonic speeds.But then because the tip was so long,
(21:26):
the pilots couldn't see the runway,so they had to tilt it down
every time they were taking off andlanding, and so that's why when in
images where it's taking off and landingand stuff, the nose is kind of
pointed down like a duck. Doyou know how much it would have cost
(21:47):
to have been a passenger on oneof these planes, because it sounds like
it goes much faster than what we'renormally flying on today because of how expensive
it was because first of all,is using more fuel, and second of
all, because it got so hot, it took a special kind of maintenance
essentially to maintain them. So Ithink for every hour of flight it needed
(22:08):
like twenty two hours of maintenance orsomething. And on top of that,
the roots were limited. Like Isaid, you know, the airlines were
able to charge a lot more becauseit was so much faster, but it
wasn't financially viable. So that's ultimatelywhy it got discontinued. As for the
price of a seat, what Iread was about twelve thousand dollars one way,
(22:32):
twelve thousand one. Okay, yes, at that point you might as
well just you shell out for aprivate plane and fly with a few buddies.
Yeah, But it was for peoplewho either were enthusiasts or who valued
their time more than their money,because you know, even if you're renting
a private jet, it can't getyou there this fast. You know,
this would cut the flight time inhalf. It was also considered a luxury
(22:56):
experience, you know, it wasYeah, I can imagine small all space
because it was meant to be superefficient, but you know, you'd get
served five star meals and all thisstuff. And yeah, so everybody thought
that this was going to be theplane of the future, and it turns
out the seven for seven became theplane of the future. So I thought
that was like a really cool justsegua yeah, total, totally, such
(23:19):
a cool fact in segue. AndI hope you looked this up if you
haven't seen it, because it blewmy mind. I was like, I
didn't even know, I didn't evenknow that you could fly on one of
these and that for so long andthat this was real. And I will
say this so in defense of anythinga modern today, for like first class
or even economy, the seats onthe Concorde don't look any type of special.
(23:42):
It's just regular seats. And so, you know, getting back to
this whole topic about the seven fortyseven and then being discontinued. What is
the next best thing? What isthe future queen of the skies? Now,
if I'm not mistaken, they're saying, well, Boeing seems to think
it's going to be the seven sevenseven X, which I didn't look into
(24:04):
too much, to be honest,did you, No, not at all.
And my issue with this is,you know, I really hope it
doesn't turn into developing future airplanes whilesacrificing space and like, you know,
just general comfort to economy class liketrying to squeeze in more seats. I
hope it doesn't get to that.Well, yeah, that's the thing.
(24:26):
But interestingly, sometimes bigger is notonly more comfortable, it's also more efficient.
If I'm mistaken, the A threeeighty was the most efficient plane ever
made in regards to emissions per passenger. So in my mind, it's a
real shame that it was discontinued,because you know, it does have a
lot of positives to have bigger planesand less trips overall, you know.
(24:48):
Yeah, And so that's what Iwas going to get at. And so
I guess you're saying that it's alittle more environmentally friendly to have a bigger
plane because it carries more people,thus less need for more flights, lessing
for more flights, but also literallymost efficient per passenger. So your carbon
footprint in an A three eighty presumablyis less than your carbon footprint and any
(25:11):
other plane, given that the planeis mostly full. Well. Yeah,
and then that's the general complaint againstyou know, the ultra wealthy who are
flying around in private planes. Therewas an interesting image after the super Bowl
that just happened about a week agoin which there was a ship storm caused
by all these people flying out oftheir private airplanes following the super Bowl.
(25:33):
Yeah, it was a post thatwent viral on Reddit, if I'm not
mistaken, and then it got spreadall over the internet and it showed how
they were like four thousand more flightsthan usual from was it Colorado, No,
it's Arizona, from Arizona during thesuper Bowl. And it was basically
just saying that, like, youknow, a lot of wealthy people have
(25:56):
flown their own private jets just forthe Super Bowl, and a lot of
people are quite upset about it.And I also want to bring up a
point that unfortunately, you know,having a big plane like the A three
eighty made it harder for the airlinesthat have them to fill them because there
are more seats to fill. Andso as a result, if you have
one airline with one three A threeeighty leaving every day on one route,
(26:19):
and then another airline with two smallerplanes that make up the same capacity at
different times of the day, it'slikely that that second airline has the upper
edge because they have two different departuretimes therefore can attract more people. So
I could imagine a scenario in whichyou know that one A three eighty is
half empty, but those two smallerplanes from that other airline going the same
(26:44):
place are both full or at leastseventy percentful, and that airline would be
making more money. So yeah,yeah, And then it brings up another
question which I don't think you're goingto have the answer. We're not experts
in this, but with that playa role in why some flights more expensive,
like usually the middle of the dayflights tend to be the most expensive
as opposed to like a red eyeor the planes that leave at five AM.
(27:08):
I don't know, but I thinkmore options equals more time departures equals
more chance that you're going to geta prospect of customer over your rival who
just has one departure that day.Like it's just it's a simple math,
you know, so I could see. But unfortunately it goes against what all
the environmentalists are telling us to do, which is scale down and you know,
(27:33):
if we're gonna fly fill up planesmore, you know, D growth.
I don't know if you've heard ofthis whole D growth kind of liked
influencing has been a big thing,and ecology and stuff lately is like this
idea that we need to just doless and be more efficient. Part of
that is filling up our planes.So that's just food for thought. But
I think there's one more thing thatwe really haven't talked about yet, specifically
(27:57):
one more plane. And we can'tnot talk about this plane, in my
opinion, because it is a verynoticeable plane in my opinion, when you
get into it, and it hassome things that no other planes have,
and that would be the Dreamliner.Is it the seven eight seven D?
John? Why didn't you kick thisone off by telling us what you found
(28:19):
out about the Dreamliner, what's specialabout it before reading about it. I've
actually been on one more than onceagain. And one of the distinctive features
of the Dreamliner is your instead ofclosing a physical window shade, you can
actually press a button on the windowthat allows you to make it darker at
(28:41):
any time in the day. Yeah, and that's something that if I'm not
mistaken, it's not on any otherplane. And something else that's distinctive about
the Dreamliner and that you might noticeis it's got these really crazy lights.
Like it's got really nice lighting.That's more important than you might think.
In fact, I'll show a picture. And while we're talking about the windows,
(29:03):
the one feature that I didn't knowthe cabin crew gets to control is
they can actually override your system.So if you want to be able to
see outside and be that asshole whileeveryone has their shade down, they can
actually mainly override the system and makesure everyone has it off or on.
Yeah, exactly, And that's kindof huge. I don't know if you've
(29:25):
heard about mobile phones and how bluelight can affect your sleep, and so
that's why they say not to lookat a screen or a phone before you
go to sleep in the case offlying. I mean, even just that
one sunbeam from that one bleep asshole, but their window open can actually like
(29:45):
disrupt your sleep pattern, and sothey'll change from switching off the lights.
This very dim like warm color,and warm colors are shown to like I
guess, not affect your sleep asmuch or allow you to sleep better.
I mean, you know, justa good way to think about this is
like blue light is mimics daylight,whereas a warm light mimics like candlelight or
(30:07):
firelight. It's more conducive to sleep, so they can when it's time to
wake up, they can also turnon this blue light and let the light
shine through the windows, and thatcan help you adjust to the next time
zone that you'll be in. Andreading through one of the articles like this
does seem kind of like an airplaneof the future or kind of this luxury
(30:30):
airplane, but I was shocked toread that it comes out on a lot
of lists as a plane to avoiddespite all of its new features, and
one of the reasons being it's thatit uses A three three three configuration and
economy, and the cabin's just alittle too narrow, smaller than the A
three eighty, so it really squeezesyou in the middle. If you're flying
(30:52):
economy. Yeah, it's interesting.I mean, obviously different people have different
opinions and priorities. I mean personallyas a small pon that might affect me
less, for example. But youknow, when we look up comfort,
one thing that we found and jetlags specifically, one thing that we found
a lot of information on was thatthe pressure inside the airplane can really determine
(31:15):
how tired or jet lagged you feel. And that's because and I read this
stat I'm not sure if this isone hundred percent true, but it stood
out to me. The cabin ofsome older types of aircraft is equivalent to
being eight thousand feet or more upa mountain. If you've ever had altitude
sickness, you'll know why altitude cabinsare pressure. Yeah, and it is.
(31:36):
Yeah, yeah, So, Imean, I know that the number
of the stat that you're talking about, and it's seven eighty seven's internal cabin
pressure is the equivalent of being atsix thousand feet, which compared to other
airplanes, they're usually measured at ahigher pressure than you know, about eight
thousand for older conventional aircraft. Yeah. So like some of these newer planes,
(31:56):
like the Dreamliner apparently is made ofcarbon fiber and some other stuff,
and that allows it to be pressurizedat a higher pressure. I always get
confused because lower altitude, you arethe higher the pressure, right, correct,
Okay, Yeah, so they canbe pressurized at a higher pressure,
which is a good thing, andit affects you less than some of the
older aircraft. No, I wasjust gonna say, I mean like six
(32:19):
thousand to eight thousand feet to twothousand foot difference, And it may not
seem like a lot, but toany person that's ever been to Mexico City
or Lake Tahoe or you know anyor even Machu Pichu slash Cusco, that
extra two thousand makes a difference betweenyou being okay and you being sick.
It can come down to a lotof the time, not just the time
(32:40):
difference. I think a lot ofpeople make a big deal out of the
time difference, but a lot ofit is also what your condition was while
you were flying on that ten hourflight. You know, what was the
oxygen level, like some planes havemore fresh air flow from the outside than
other, What was the pressure level, how out was it? You know,
those can be as big as influencersas the amount of sleep you got.
(33:05):
For example, how much water doyou drink. One of my favorite
tips on a plane is to bringelectrolyte tablets and put them in water so
that you stay more hydrated and don'thave to go to the bathroom as much.
So you know, personally, tome, hydration is one of the
many ways I combat jetlag. SoI don't care if I have to go
to the bathroom ten times. Iwould rather be hydrated than you know.
(33:30):
And if you're ever flying with Saskia, you heard her say earlier she prefers
the lung flights, being on thewindow seat and then being extra hydrated.
She she is that personal forces youto get up five times. I go
to the restaurroom a lot, andI love to stay hydrated on flights,
but I always picked the aisle forthat reason. Yeah, yeah, it's
you know, it's a trade off. And yeah, and one really funny
(33:52):
comment. You know, sometimes youread these articles as you're researching, and
you scroll to the bottoms of thecommon section. And one thing that made
me laugh, because I think it'sall so true is what seat you get
and what class you know you're flyingand really determines how comfortable you're going to
be. First class on a fourteenhour flight, you're going to feel a
lot more refreshing than an economy.Well, I mean, like, I
(34:14):
mean, we're here like splitting hairsover what you know, airplane is better,
Which it's true, it's it's it'simportant. But yeah, let's be
real, first class on any airplaneis probably gonna mean that you feel better.
Yeah. Yeah, So to kindof wrap this up, if there
was after doing all this research,if you do have the ability to choose
(34:34):
your aircraft, and let's say timeor flight times were a concern, what
airplane would you pick me? Yeah, I know the other person. I
think I'd probably pick the Dreamliner,just because I think it's a modern plane.
It feels very new every time I'vebeen on it, and very clean.
(34:58):
The design is really nice. Idon't know, call me a sucker
for a design. I just lovegood design. I love the lighting features.
You know. My second pick isthe A three eighty because it's so
nice that it's quieter. But Ialso invested in noise canceling headphones, so
I'm not too bothered about that.But I think the Dreamliner is my favorite.
Yeah, I'll definitely go with Athree eighty for the simple reason that
(35:21):
I have really wide shoulders, sobeing on a you know, on a
Dreamliner, I'm kind of always justlike really scrunched up to make sure I'm
not like touching the other passengers.Yeah, and also I mean entertainment systems.
You know, we didn't actually talkabout entertainment systems, and that's because
airlines kind of switched those out.Doesn't really matter what model the airplane is.
(35:44):
But I do notice that the newerplanes, such as the A three
eighty and the Dreamliner, you know, they were built with this entertainment stuff
in mind, whereas when I wasa kid, so like you know,
in the nineties or early two thousands, most planes didn't have entertainment systems.
It was a really new thing.So they had to add that stuff after
the fact. And when it's notbuilt in, there tends to be more
(36:07):
problems. It's less current. Soyou know, Dreamliners eight three, eighties,
they've got little USB plugs and plugsfor your computer, and you know,
the stuff generally works. So Iwould say that's a bonus. And
so if you stuck with us thislong, I really hope that you took
something from it. And more importantly, that the next time you're looking for
your next flight, you might paya little more attention to what kind of
(36:30):
aircraft vehicle you're flying in, especiallyfor long distance flights. It might be
helpful. Yeah, let us knowwhat your favorite planes are or the ones
you hate the most. You know, I'd love to know that. I'm
not the only one who cares.You probably are, but I think but
I learned something. So if anythingelse, you taught one person something.
(36:52):
But but now, let me moveon to our lesser known destinations of the
week of the month. Really yeah, so earlier it sounded like we were
maybe picking on Mexico a little bitfor the US's warnings against tourism. But
not all places in Mexico are onhigh alert. Like the location I'm about
to mention. And I'm not sureif you've heard of this place before.
(37:16):
Lagoon. No, no, Ihave not heard of this place before.
But it sounds like Paradise. Wellit pretty much is. It's a lake
in Mexico that has earned the nicknamethe Maldives of Mexico. Kind of a
cool little fun fact. The Mayans, who are native to this part of
Mexico called Bacala the lagoon of sevencolors because they claim you can see seven
(37:37):
shades of blue in the water.Ooh, and yeah, I encourage everyone
to look at it. I thinkwhen I was googling it, what besides
the really beautiful blue hues, whatcaught my attention is that there's this it's
called the lake, but it couldvery easily be confused for a river,
or at least some parts of thelake can be confused for a river because
(37:59):
it's this very, very narrow corridorthat stretches pretty far out. Wow,
this looks amazing. Yeah, no, it's absolutely incredible. And so you
know, this location is just situatedtwo and a half hour south of Tuloom,
which is a city that we've coveredextensively in the past. It's a
really famous tourist destination for a lotof Westerners and tourism as a result,
(38:24):
you know, correct, correct,And Bacalard is just an hour north of
the Belizian border. A Lago deBacalad is known for its striking blue cutler
and water clarity thanks to its whitelimestone bottom, which is another very interesting
feature that makes it so unique.I want to go, what do you
say a podcast trip? Let's go, let's go okay, she's going Google
(38:51):
Gaga on this podcast over these pictures. You need to also hit pause if
you're not driving, Google this place. It's fascinating, absolutely fascinating. And
it's like, so, you knowthose bungalows on the water, isn't Bora
Bora famous for those or the Maldives? So I see that the sort of
a similar little huts on the water, which is cool and so okay,
(39:15):
so tell me we sort of introducethis as a cheaper alternative to the Maldives
because the Maldives is not known tobe cheap. It turns out, so
what is the price difference? Shockingto anyone that the Maldives are, you
know, expensive and we're not eventalking about flights here, because depending from
what area of the planet you livein, generally speaking, the Maldives or
(39:38):
Bora Bora is just going to bea very expensive flight. In regards to
the bungalows, you can find thosefor about four hundred a night in the
Maldives and that's going the cheap route. Here in Baccala Lagoon they go for
about two hundred a night, sosimilar experience but half the price. Yeah,
(40:00):
I'm looking this is the Maldives hereand then and these classic huts and
then if you go over to Baccalare, Mexico look very similar. I mean,
you know, I'm sure it's sodifferent in so many ways, but
if you're kind of looking for paradiseand you don't want to splurge on the
Maldives, then this could be agreat option. John, I'm glad you
(40:21):
brought it up. And the lastthing that I'll just go ahead and say
on it. If you're looking atthe pictures, you'll see that you still
get that similar secluded feeling as ifyou were in the Maldives, because I
think that's one of the alluring thingsabout their bora boris you're in the middle
of nowhere right like just this likescenic location. You get that in Bacalad.
But also if you want to goout and explore, you're a little
(40:44):
bordering of like the beach life.You can also drive out about an hour
out and you start getting into areasor senotes that you can go and explore
or hike around. And I'm justpulling this up on the map and you
can see it's at the very bottomof Mexico, right above Belize and Guatemala,
(41:07):
so it's very very south, almostnext to the border, so food
for thought. If you're looking foras similar experience as the Maldives but you're
balling on the budget, consider aboutthe Love Lagoon. We'll be sure to
post up some pictures on our storieson the gram and put this clip up
on YouTube to make it more accessiblefor anyone. Yeah, actually might I
might go there. I have toplan a trip, all right. Well,
(41:30):
if you've made it this far,thanks so much for listening. This
is the Globe Charters Podcast. Youcan find us at Globe Charters Podcast on
Instagram, Globe Chrotters Podcast on Facebook, at globetrot Pod on Twitter, at
our website www dot gts podcast dotcom. Feel free to reach out to
us. What did you think ofthe episode? Let us know. We
(41:50):
do genuinely want to hear from you, so yeah. Editing on this podcast
was done by Sassia Hadvani. Musicon this podcast by Thin Blue Collective and
find their music on band Camp andSpotify. Until next time,
You're listening to the Globetrotters podcast,the show dedicated to bringing you fresh and
diverse perspectives from traveling enthusiasts all overthe world. This is the layover our
monthly travel show in which we investigateall things travel, update you on the
latest travel news, and occasionally we'lllook into a questionable TikTok Trendlord two so
you don't have to our lesser knownlocation today will be a much more affordable,
(00:34):
but equally as beautiful alternative to theMaldives, So stick around until the
end if you want to hear aboutit. I'm your co host John Oto
and I'm Saskia have funny and onour last episode we talked all about budget
travel and more specifically budget long termtravel. We invited Brian Carlson on the
(00:55):
show. Brian spent six months inSoutheast Asia, where he managed to travel
to eight countries for less than fivethousand dollars. As impressive sounding as this
is, this kind of trip iscommon than you might think. In fact,
Southeast Asia is a classic backpacker destinationfor many good reasons beautiful culture,
delicious food, nature, but it'salso very affordable and safe. You probably
(01:22):
already know this if you've been listeningto the podcast for a while, but
I also spent several months in SoutheastAsia as a young in so anyway,
in the last episode, Brian andI chopped it up over our extreme budgeting
strategies slash obsessions in Southeast Asia andit was a good time. Was that
nostalgic for you Sasia to have thatconversation with Brian? Yeah, I definitely
(01:44):
got a little carried away talking aboutmy own experiences, which made me a
little self conscious because I don't reallylike to do that, to be honest,
on the podcast, But it wasso much fun, so I hope
that translates to a good listen.Yeah, and one thing Saskia didn't mention,
she's also a source Brian did this. Listen to the episode if you
want to know how to do thisreally affordable or just hit us up on
(02:05):
the podcast, like on Instagram andyou can reach out to her to ask
her for some travel trips regarding SoutheastAsia. But in this episode, we're
going to start off with some ofthe latest travel headlines. Last month,
I brought up the fact that thenational government of Peru had closed down Machu
Pichu for tourists due to the civiland rest brought on by the political climate.
Yesterday, the Inca Citadel was finallyreopened for tourists and locals. That's
(02:29):
a big deal. Yeah, definitely. In other news and somewhat surprising for
me, the US government has stronglyadvised against traveling to Mexico during spring break
and just in general, due tothe increased threats of crime and kidnapping against
tourists. The US listed their highestwarning levels for areas inside of Guerrero,
Golima, Mitua, gan Sinaaloa,Damaulipas. I'm not sure if I said
(02:53):
that correctly, and Sacatecas. Yeah, and so can you explain what are
those areas for someone who's not familiarwith those regions? Is that like a
lot of Mexico, is it?I mean, if you look at Mexico
on the map, it's one ofthe longest countries I think on the globe,
like excluding India and maybe China.But for a lot of people,
I think that's just going to soundlike Mexican states that I'm listing the most
(03:15):
popular destination that I can name fortourists that resides in one of those states
is Acapulco. Are you familiar withthat? M Yeah, So how much
of the country is not under thistravel advisory from the US government. So
if I'm not mistaken, I wantto say Mexico has thirty five states.
(03:36):
Let me go ahead and confirm thatthirty two states. So I was close
and only five of them. TheUS is advising against travel. But most
tourist destinations like Tuloom, you know, Mexico City, Juanna Huato, which
was in an episode before, mostof the big tourist destinations are conflict free.
I should say, get to know. And I learned something new today.
I did not realize that Mexico hadso many states, and you know,
(04:00):
it just goes to show how bigof a country it is as well
and how much there is to seethere. I personally can't wait to go.
I still haven't been, can youimagine. Yeah, Sassia decided to
go on a bachelor rep party insteadof going down with co host Maxim myself
down to Mexico City. But toeach their own. Yeah, I'll get
there someday, all right. Soone of the headlines that caught my eye
(04:21):
this month was about the Boeing sevenfloor seven airplane, which officially and that's
because Boeing officially announced that they stoppedproduction this month. The last plane left
the factory in December. And now, if you just happened upon this episode
and or you're not an airplane nerdlike me, you might be wondering why
(04:44):
this is a big deal me andeveryone else. Yeah, I had to
convince John that this is an episodethat we should do. But yeah,
it's because most of us, Ithink, actually don't pay attention to the
types of airplanes were flying on.Instead we look more at the airline.
But the seven seven is a particularlybig deal because it revolutionized flying and travel
as we know it. Before theseven four seven, flying was a luxury
(05:09):
reserved for the very rich and businessmen. And you know, at the time,
I believe when it came out innineteen sixty nine. Before then,
flying costs at least three hundred dollars, which now might seem like an okay
price to fly across the Atlantic,for example, but at the time that
(05:29):
could be the price of a newcar. Wow. Yeah. So the
seven for seven had greater fuel efficiencyfirst of all, and because it doubled
the seat capacity, it cut thecost per seat for the airlines, so
that meant cheaper overall air affares forcustomers. And actually this really surprised me,
John, because I consider myself alittle bit of a plane nerd.
(05:50):
Like I said, do you knowhow many seats the first seven four seven
could fit? Can you guess?Like what would be your guess? I'm
gonna say twenty four twenty four?Oh wait man, uh yeah, that
is way off. You know what, you know what, I'll give you
another guest shot, hire shot.Hi. Okay, I'm gonna do twelve
(06:10):
square, one hundred and forty four. Okay again, No, Actually that
was more. That was closer tothe planes that were flying at the time
in the fifties and sixties. Theseven four seven, the very first model,
could carry up to three hundred andsixty six passengers in a three class
configuration, so like first class,business class economy three hundred and sixty six.
(06:32):
Now, if it was all economy, just imagine, which doesn't you
know, it's not typical. Butif it was all economy, it could
carry up to five hundred and fiftypeople. So that was huge. This
is nineteen sixty nine, you know, and it completely changed everything, and
you know, since then, they'vebeen so ubiquitous that the seven for seven
has been called the Queen of theskies. Actually, it was the very
(06:55):
first plane to be called a jumbojet, a word that I haven't heard
since the nine since I was akid. Yeah, and I just wanted
to insert a quick comment. Ihave to say that through this exercise,
through researching this episode, I've learnedso much, an absurtainly amount about airplanes,
and I'm really excited about this one. So I'll let you carry on.
I just needed to insert that.No, no, you do well
(07:17):
to cut me off, because I'lljust get carried away. All right.
So, chances are if you've flowna long haul flight, as in like,
let's say over eight hours, Iwould consider a long half flight.
Would you say that's correct? Yeah? Anything above five from me? Right
right. If you've flown a longhaul flight, chances are you've flown in
a seven four seven or one ofits various spinoff models. Because here's the
(07:41):
thing. The seven four seven modelsthat we are flying in today are variations
of that original model. And astechnology progress, you know, Boeing added
fuel efficiency, updated systems, etc. And so, for example, you
might have heard of the most infamousseven four seven lately, which was the
seven four seven Max, which madeheadlines for unfortunate But you know, that's
(08:07):
just one of the various spinoff modelsof that plane. But overall, the
design of the plane, the lookof it, the fuselage as an outer
shell of it, has remained largelythe same. Just for our listeners when
you're talking about the seven forty seven, just because I don't want there to
be any confusion, you're talking abouta plane type, like a family of
(08:28):
airplanes, right, it's not onespecific airplane. There was the initial design,
so it'll be like, you know, the initial look of the plane,
and I'll tell you how you canactually know if you're flying in one
very easily without even having to lookit up. But yeah, so then
what happens is the airline, insteadof redesigning a whole new airplane, they'll
come out with updated versions with anew type of engine or a new type
(08:52):
of system, and then they'll nameit something else. So you had the
seven four seven one hundred, thenthe seven four seven two hundred, then
the seventh course seven R S orsomething, and then the Max. So
you know, these planes that we'reflying in Now, the seven four sevens
that you would have flown in inyour life, they wouldn't have been that
original model, but rather the updatedversions of a seven four seven. A
(09:16):
reasonable question one of our listeners canbe asking is, look, a plane's
a plane. Why does it matterif I'm paying for X amount dollars to
get me to location B? Andthe truth is you should care because it
makes a big difference in regards toespecially for economy class, in regards to
how much space you get, theTV screens, windows, the type of
sleep you get. I think evenone of the topics that SASKA is going
(09:39):
to get into is how airplane modelscan combat jet lags. So definitely something
to pay attention to going forward.Yeah, exactly. And actually I don't
know if you knew this, John, but basically, when you book any
flight, you will be able tosee what type of airplane it is before
you book the ticket. It willtell you in small print this is the
(10:01):
seven four seven, you know,two hundred or whatever. So you actually
have more control over this than youmight think. I'll give you a little
backstory. My dad is super intoairplanes, and that's kind of why I've
always been into it. So youknow, obviously I flew a lot as
a kid because my parents are fromdifferent countries. Is very lucky to always
be flying, and my dad reallymade it a fun experience for us.
(10:24):
Like I looked forward to it somuch, you know, eleven hour flights
were my favorite. And you know, anytime we get on a plane and
my dad would be like, Okay, well this is the you know,
this is the A three fifty orsomething, and it's like, this is
why it's awesome, and look athow cool it is, and you know,
and so I never like, I'mactually really grateful for that because it
(10:46):
kept a lot of wonder for mein flying. And my dad is one
of those people who will specifically sometimesbook one ticket over another based on the
airplane model, and I'll tell youwhat model that is laid. And I
think through doing this, you know, one of the first things that I
did once I knew we were goingto do this episode, I ended upcoming
(11:09):
flight, you know, in Novemberto Bali, and the first thing I
did was look at the type ofairplane that I was going to be at.
I had my fingers crossed for aDreamliner. I didn't get it,
but I think It's going to beone of those things that going forward,
if I find two relatively similar pricesfor a flight, I'll look at what
type of aircraft is carrying me.Yeah, so let's get into some of
(11:31):
our findings. You were looking intocomfort overall. So what did you find
out about the most comfortable airplanes?Putting me on the spot, I here,
I thought Saskia was going to carrythe conversation with airplanes. I am
not an airplane aficionado. Is thathow you say that? But I did
my best research and this is whatI came up with. When considering the
best commercial airplanes in terms of juststraight up comfort. Two names kept creeping
(11:56):
up, and that's the Airbus Athree eighty and the A three fifty.
And as I mentioned before, peoplelistening, you might think that's one model
over maybe two models over. Howdifferent can it be? And the truth
is a lot. The Airbus Athree eighty has a much wider cabin width,
which allows for economy class to havemore leg rooms, so you're able
to stretch and just generally be morecomfortable compared to let's say A seven forty
(12:22):
seven. Yeah, and I'm goingto jump in here on the A three
eighty, you might actually recognize thename of this plane. If you don't
recognize any other name of any otherplane, you might recognize this one because
it actually made a huge big deal. What was it ten years ago or
fifteen years ago, maybe twenty yearsago when it first launched, I can't
remember, but this was basically knownas the plane that could carry the most
(12:46):
passengers ever. And you know,so if you thought five hundred and fifty
people was a lot, the Athree eighty can carry six hundred and forty
four people in a two tiered class. So say you have like business and
economy, and if it were technically, if it were a single class,
you could carry eight hundred and fiftythree. So it was kind of known
(13:07):
as like the eight hundred person plane. And if you've ever flown on it,
I mean it's hard not to noticehow massive it is. John,
have you ever flown on one?Yeah, And it's only because I had
to do the Google images usually,Like I said, I've never paid attention
to this type of thing, andafter looking it up on Google Images,
(13:28):
I've actually flown on one more thanonce. Yeah, I know that sometimes
they're very specific about which airlines canhave it like for the three eighty.
I think it's like British Lavanza AirFrance Singapore, which is the time that
I flew to Russia and that's whenI was on one. Yeah, so
the eight three eighty, if youlook out the window, if you're sitting
(13:50):
by the wing, and you lookout the window as it takes off,
you will see the wing flap.Like I'm not even joking. This shocked
me because you know, I'm alwayslike my dad told me about it,
so I was looking out for it. The wings are huge and all this
stuff. So I got on oneand I was like, I hope he
really talks like that, but hetotally does. And then I looked out
(14:13):
the window and I was like this, First of all, the wind is
so big, and then when itstarts moving and taking off, it bounces,
so it looks like you're taking offin a giant bird, which is
like crazy. In that last rendition, it kind of sounded like your dad
is is Bruce Wayne like Batman,Like, oh no, sorry, he's
(14:35):
more British. He's like it's amazing, you know. He'll be like he's
got like a slight British accent,so it'll be like, it's so amazing.
The wings are so great and big, you know, so much space,
and it's quieter, you know,beautiful. Anyway, there's some like
the Airbus A three eighty. Oneof the most famous ones is the ETHID
and the Emirates Airline that flying conjunctionwith that plane. Because if you've ever
(15:00):
looked at luxury flights or long distanceflights, you might have seen some that
have those you know, first classcabins that you can take a shower,
full privacy suites and a full loadedup bar on the flight. And it's
more often than not going to beon an airbus A three eighty. Yeah,
and there are also much quieter it'sthe quietest cabin on an airplane.
(15:22):
And the thing is, if you'reon a really long haul flight that's constant
sound, the like loud humming soundis actually extremely tiring. You know,
it's very stimulating to your brain.So like the quieter it can be the
better. And I'll say this,I invested on the great set of headphones
to have that noise cancelation. Buteven with like AirPod, Airmax or whatever,
(15:46):
you're still hearing that sound. Itstill breaks through, So it does
get to me. And one morething I want to say about like comfort
versus cost. That was going tobe another angle that we wanted to tackle
this from to see if a specifictype of aircraft is generally cheaper than another.
And it was really hard to trackthis down for the most part.
(16:07):
It kept asking me if I wantedto buy an airplane. So thank you
Saska. Now I'm getting all theseads to become a pilot and you know,
purchase a plane. But for thoseliving in the United States, you've
probably heard of Spirit Airlines and Frontiers. Unsurprisingly, these are the cheapest airlines,
with Spirit being the cheapest, andthey operate in the all Airbus fit
fleet. Unfortunately, the A threeeighty is not in their arsenal as of
(16:30):
yet. Well, this is thething is that you know, this plane
made a lot of headlines because itwas actually revolutionary in terms of comfort,
efficiency costs. Because you know,the airline is able to put more people
inside a plane, they're able tomake more money. But apparently it didn't
do very well. Airlines weren't purchasingit enough, and so they actually discontinued
(16:52):
it a couple of years ago andstopped making it as well, interesting sort
of. All the ones that areout there are the last one, which
is kind of interesting. But it'smy dad's favorite airplane and he will go
out of his way to fly onthem. However, I will say I
do agree that they're one of themost comfortable planes in terms of sound and
all that, But personally, myability to sleep on the flight hinges on
(17:18):
being able to lean on the window. Like I'm one of those people that
always has to sit by the wallso I can lean over and sleep.
And the problem with the A threeeighty is that basically the wall curves really
far away from the seat, sothere's kind of a gap, and so
you actually can't really lean up againstit, so like all your stuff will
(17:40):
slide down into the crack and it'stoo far away. And I'm sure so
I realize, like, actually,this is not a great plane for me
because and it just sounds like sucha first world problem, Oh my god,
but it's true. Okay, ifyou're a wall sleeper, A three
eighties might not be for you.Just saying, quick life hack, just
bring a jacket with you, abig puffy jackets stuff fit in there and
(18:00):
WALLA done. And I want totake this opportunity to branch off. Since
we're speaking about discontinued planes. Haveyou ever heard about the supersonic transport?
Yes, but it might be outof context, but go ahead. Okay,
So a little backstory here the sevenfour seven, And remember I told
(18:22):
you I was going to tell youhow to identify one. So the seven
four seven has this really telltale humpon the top of its like fuselage,
like a whale. It's got likea little whale hump. And that's actually
because the cockpit for the pilots isabove the cabin area, so that the
plane can be converted into a cargoplane. And the reason they wanted to
(18:45):
be able to convert it into acargo plane because everybody thought that the seven
for seven would be surpassed by supersonicair travel. Yes, so supersonic air
travel or it's been referred to assupersonic transport, which sounds like a total
Star Wars thing, and to behonest, it is kind of a Star
Wars thing. So if you didn'tknow, in the sixties there was this
(19:08):
plane you may have heard of,the Conquered. It was actually a passenger
plane that was developed. You couldfly from New York to London in three
and a half hours, and theplane would be able to go up to
speeds to mock two, which,to be honest, I don't even know
what that means. John, Maybeyou know what MOK two means. It's
(19:32):
roughly a thousand, five hundred andthirty four miles per hour. I would
have to do the conversions for metersfor our friends overseas or not in the
US. Yeah, so it's fast. It's fast as hell. Actually,
I want to show you what itlooks like. And while she's bringing that
up, you know you said itwent mock too, right, Yeah,
yeah, I guess. Mack oneis defined as the speed of sound,
(19:55):
so this is going twice as fastas the speed of sound. And the
reason it got its name supersonic wasbecause it broke the sound barrier. It
would actually make a super loud noiseand that was a problem because a lot
of countries prevented it from flying overthem, So the plane was restricted to
(20:15):
flying over oceans and certain routes becauseof the sound. Because of the sound
it would make, it was soloud it made a supersonic boom. Can
you imagine that sounds a little ridiculousto me. But I guess if you're
living constantly near where one of theseplanes would be flying or through their route,
I guess you can't get a littlebit annoying. Yeah, countries outlawed
(20:37):
them, pretty amazing. And we'llgo ahead and post this clip on YouTube.
It's something that we're starting to doso you guys can get better visuals
of what we're talking about. Fromtime to time these were flying. You
could book a cabin a seat onone of these up until two thousand and
three, which I had no ideaabout. I don't know, did you
no? But I mean they wouldhave been before I started buying flights.
(21:00):
You would have probably been more likelyto fly on the one of your dad.
To me, it looks like aduck or a geese, like a
lame duck just has this beak thatis just going down. I'd love to
talk to whoever designed this thing.But okay, so I'm glad you bring
up this beak. The nose isa super sharp tip designed to streamline the
air and travel at supersonic speeds.But then because the tip was so long,
(21:26):
the pilots couldn't see the runway,so they had to tilt it down
every time they were taking off andlanding, and so that's why when in
images where it's taking off and landingand stuff, the nose is kind of
pointed down like a duck. Doyou know how much it would have cost
(21:47):
to have been a passenger on oneof these planes, because it sounds like
it goes much faster than what we'renormally flying on today because of how expensive
it was because first of all,is using more fuel, and second of
all, because it got so hot, it took a special kind of maintenance
essentially to maintain them. So Ithink for every hour of flight it needed
(22:08):
like twenty two hours of maintenance orsomething. And on top of that,
the roots were limited. Like Isaid, you know, the airlines were
able to charge a lot more becauseit was so much faster, but it
wasn't financially viable. So that's ultimatelywhy it got discontinued. As for the
price of a seat, what Iread was about twelve thousand dollars one way,
(22:32):
twelve thousand one. Okay, yes, at that point you might as
well just you shell out for aprivate plane and fly with a few buddies.
Yeah, But it was for peoplewho either were enthusiasts or who valued
their time more than their money,because you know, even if you're renting
a private jet, it can't getyou there this fast. You know,
this would cut the flight time inhalf. It was also considered a luxury
(22:56):
experience, you know, it wasYeah, I can imagine small all space
because it was meant to be superefficient, but you know, you'd get
served five star meals and all thisstuff. And yeah, so everybody thought
that this was going to be theplane of the future, and it turns
out the seven for seven became theplane of the future. So I thought
that was like a really cool justsegua yeah, total, totally, such
(23:19):
a cool fact in segue. AndI hope you looked this up if you
haven't seen it, because it blewmy mind. I was like, I
didn't even know, I didn't evenknow that you could fly on one of
these and that for so long andthat this was real. And I will
say this so in defense of anythinga modern today, for like first class
or even economy, the seats onthe Concorde don't look any type of special.
(23:42):
It's just regular seats. And so, you know, getting back to
this whole topic about the seven fortyseven and then being discontinued. What is
the next best thing? What isthe future queen of the skies? Now,
if I'm not mistaken, they're saying, well, Boeing seems to think
it's going to be the seven sevenseven X, which I didn't look into
(24:04):
too much, to be honest,did you, No, not at all.
And my issue with this is,you know, I really hope it
doesn't turn into developing future airplanes whilesacrificing space and like, you know,
just general comfort to economy class liketrying to squeeze in more seats. I
hope it doesn't get to that.Well, yeah, that's the thing.
(24:26):
But interestingly, sometimes bigger is notonly more comfortable, it's also more efficient.
If I'm mistaken, the A threeeighty was the most efficient plane ever
made in regards to emissions per passenger. So in my mind, it's a
real shame that it was discontinued,because you know, it does have a
lot of positives to have bigger planesand less trips overall, you know.
(24:48):
Yeah, And so that's what Iwas going to get at. And so
I guess you're saying that it's alittle more environmentally friendly to have a bigger
plane because it carries more people,thus less need for more flights, lessing
for more flights, but also literallymost efficient per passenger. So your carbon
footprint in an A three eighty presumablyis less than your carbon footprint and any
(25:11):
other plane, given that the planeis mostly full. Well. Yeah,
and then that's the general complaint againstyou know, the ultra wealthy who are
flying around in private planes. Therewas an interesting image after the super Bowl
that just happened about a week agoin which there was a ship storm caused
by all these people flying out oftheir private airplanes following the super Bowl.
(25:33):
Yeah, it was a post thatwent viral on Reddit, if I'm not
mistaken, and then it got spreadall over the internet and it showed how
they were like four thousand more flightsthan usual from was it Colorado, No,
it's Arizona, from Arizona during thesuper Bowl. And it was basically
just saying that, like, youknow, a lot of wealthy people have
(25:56):
flown their own private jets just forthe Super Bowl, and a lot of
people are quite upset about it.And I also want to bring up a
point that unfortunately, you know,having a big plane like the A three
eighty made it harder for the airlinesthat have them to fill them because there
are more seats to fill. Andso as a result, if you have
one airline with one three A threeeighty leaving every day on one route,
(26:19):
and then another airline with two smallerplanes that make up the same capacity at
different times of the day, it'slikely that that second airline has the upper
edge because they have two different departuretimes therefore can attract more people. So
I could imagine a scenario in whichyou know that one A three eighty is
half empty, but those two smallerplanes from that other airline going the same
(26:44):
place are both full or at leastseventy percentful, and that airline would be
making more money. So yeah,yeah, And then it brings up another
question which I don't think you're goingto have the answer. We're not experts
in this, but with that playa role in why some flights more expensive,
like usually the middle of the dayflights tend to be the most expensive
as opposed to like a red eyeor the planes that leave at five AM.
(27:08):
I don't know, but I thinkmore options equals more time departures equals
more chance that you're going to geta prospect of customer over your rival who
just has one departure that day.Like it's just it's a simple math,
you know, so I could see. But unfortunately it goes against what all
the environmentalists are telling us to do, which is scale down and you know,
(27:33):
if we're gonna fly fill up planesmore, you know, D growth.
I don't know if you've heard ofthis whole D growth kind of liked
influencing has been a big thing,and ecology and stuff lately is like this
idea that we need to just doless and be more efficient. Part of
that is filling up our planes.So that's just food for thought. But
I think there's one more thing thatwe really haven't talked about yet, specifically
(27:57):
one more plane. And we can'tnot talk about this plane, in my
opinion, because it is a verynoticeable plane in my opinion, when you
get into it, and it hassome things that no other planes have,
and that would be the Dreamliner.Is it the seven eight seven D?
John? Why didn't you kick thisone off by telling us what you found
(28:19):
out about the Dreamliner, what's specialabout it before reading about it. I've
actually been on one more than onceagain. And one of the distinctive features
of the Dreamliner is your instead ofclosing a physical window shade, you can
actually press a button on the windowthat allows you to make it darker at
(28:41):
any time in the day. Yeah, and that's something that if I'm not
mistaken, it's not on any otherplane. And something else that's distinctive about
the Dreamliner and that you might noticeis it's got these really crazy lights.
Like it's got really nice lighting.That's more important than you might think.
In fact, I'll show a picture. And while we're talking about the windows,
(29:03):
the one feature that I didn't knowthe cabin crew gets to control is
they can actually override your system.So if you want to be able to
see outside and be that asshole whileeveryone has their shade down, they can
actually mainly override the system and makesure everyone has it off or on.
Yeah, exactly, And that's kindof huge. I don't know if you've
(29:25):
heard about mobile phones and how bluelight can affect your sleep, and so
that's why they say not to lookat a screen or a phone before you
go to sleep in the case offlying. I mean, even just that
one sunbeam from that one bleep asshole, but their window open can actually like
(29:45):
disrupt your sleep pattern, and sothey'll change from switching off the lights.
This very dim like warm color,and warm colors are shown to like I
guess, not affect your sleep asmuch or allow you to sleep better.
I mean, you know, justa good way to think about this is
like blue light is mimics daylight,whereas a warm light mimics like candlelight or
(30:07):
firelight. It's more conducive to sleep, so they can when it's time to
wake up, they can also turnon this blue light and let the light
shine through the windows, and thatcan help you adjust to the next time
zone that you'll be in. Andreading through one of the articles like this
does seem kind of like an airplaneof the future or kind of this luxury
(30:30):
airplane, but I was shocked toread that it comes out on a lot
of lists as a plane to avoiddespite all of its new features, and
one of the reasons being it's thatit uses A three three three configuration and
economy, and the cabin's just alittle too narrow, smaller than the A
three eighty, so it really squeezesyou in the middle. If you're flying
(30:52):
economy. Yeah, it's interesting.I mean, obviously different people have different
opinions and priorities. I mean personallyas a small pon that might affect me
less, for example. But youknow, when we look up comfort,
one thing that we found and jetlags specifically, one thing that we found
a lot of information on was thatthe pressure inside the airplane can really determine
(31:15):
how tired or jet lagged you feel. And that's because and I read this
stat I'm not sure if this isone hundred percent true, but it stood
out to me. The cabin ofsome older types of aircraft is equivalent to
being eight thousand feet or more upa mountain. If you've ever had altitude
sickness, you'll know why altitude cabinsare pressure. Yeah, and it is.
(31:36):
Yeah, yeah, So, Imean, I know that the number
of the stat that you're talking about, and it's seven eighty seven's internal cabin
pressure is the equivalent of being atsix thousand feet, which compared to other
airplanes, they're usually measured at ahigher pressure than you know, about eight
thousand for older conventional aircraft. Yeah. So like some of these newer planes,
(31:56):
like the Dreamliner apparently is made ofcarbon fiber and some other stuff,
and that allows it to be pressurizedat a higher pressure. I always get
confused because lower altitude, you arethe higher the pressure, right, correct,
Okay, Yeah, so they canbe pressurized at a higher pressure,
which is a good thing, andit affects you less than some of the
older aircraft. No, I wasjust gonna say, I mean like six
(32:19):
thousand to eight thousand feet to twothousand foot difference, And it may not
seem like a lot, but toany person that's ever been to Mexico City
or Lake Tahoe or you know anyor even Machu Pichu slash Cusco, that
extra two thousand makes a difference betweenyou being okay and you being sick.
It can come down to a lotof the time, not just the time
(32:40):
difference. I think a lot ofpeople make a big deal out of the
time difference, but a lot ofit is also what your condition was while
you were flying on that ten hourflight. You know, what was the
oxygen level, like some planes havemore fresh air flow from the outside than
other, What was the pressure level, how out was it? You know,
those can be as big as influencersas the amount of sleep you got.
(33:05):
For example, how much water doyou drink. One of my favorite
tips on a plane is to bringelectrolyte tablets and put them in water so
that you stay more hydrated and don'thave to go to the bathroom as much.
So you know, personally, tome, hydration is one of the
many ways I combat jetlag. SoI don't care if I have to go
to the bathroom ten times. Iwould rather be hydrated than you know.
(33:30):
And if you're ever flying with Saskia, you heard her say earlier she prefers
the lung flights, being on thewindow seat and then being extra hydrated.
She she is that personal forces youto get up five times. I go
to the restaurroom a lot, andI love to stay hydrated on flights,
but I always picked the aisle forthat reason. Yeah, yeah, it's
you know, it's a trade off. And yeah, and one really funny
(33:52):
comment. You know, sometimes youread these articles as you're researching, and
you scroll to the bottoms of thecommon section. And one thing that made
me laugh, because I think it'sall so true is what seat you get
and what class you know you're flyingand really determines how comfortable you're going to
be. First class on a fourteenhour flight, you're going to feel a
lot more refreshing than an economy.Well, I mean, like, I
(34:14):
mean, we're here like splitting hairsover what you know, airplane is better,
Which it's true, it's it's it'simportant. But yeah, let's be
real, first class on any airplaneis probably gonna mean that you feel better.
Yeah. Yeah, So to kindof wrap this up, if there
was after doing all this research,if you do have the ability to choose
(34:34):
your aircraft, and let's say timeor flight times were a concern, what
airplane would you pick me? Yeah, I know the other person. I
think I'd probably pick the Dreamliner,just because I think it's a modern plane.
It feels very new every time I'vebeen on it, and very clean.
(34:58):
The design is really nice. Idon't know, call me a sucker
for a design. I just lovegood design. I love the lighting features.
You know. My second pick isthe A three eighty because it's so
nice that it's quieter. But Ialso invested in noise canceling headphones, so
I'm not too bothered about that.But I think the Dreamliner is my favorite.
Yeah, I'll definitely go with Athree eighty for the simple reason that
(35:21):
I have really wide shoulders, sobeing on a you know, on a
Dreamliner, I'm kind of always justlike really scrunched up to make sure I'm
not like touching the other passengers.Yeah, and also I mean entertainment systems.
You know, we didn't actually talkabout entertainment systems, and that's because
airlines kind of switched those out.Doesn't really matter what model the airplane is.
(35:44):
But I do notice that the newerplanes, such as the A three
eighty and the Dreamliner, you know, they were built with this entertainment stuff
in mind, whereas when I wasa kid, so like you know,
in the nineties or early two thousands, most planes didn't have entertainment systems.
It was a really new thing.So they had to add that stuff after
the fact. And when it's notbuilt in, there tends to be more
(36:07):
problems. It's less current. Soyou know, Dreamliners eight three, eighties,
they've got little USB plugs and plugsfor your computer, and you know,
the stuff generally works. So Iwould say that's a bonus. And
so if you stuck with us thislong, I really hope that you took
something from it. And more importantly, that the next time you're looking for
your next flight, you might paya little more attention to what kind of
(36:30):
aircraft vehicle you're flying in, especiallyfor long distance flights. It might be
helpful. Yeah, let us knowwhat your favorite planes are or the ones
you hate the most. You know, I'd love to know that. I'm
not the only one who cares.You probably are, but I think but
I learned something. So if anythingelse, you taught one person something.
(36:52):
But but now, let me moveon to our lesser known destinations of the
week of the month. Really yeah, so earlier it sounded like we were
maybe picking on Mexico a little bitfor the US's warnings against tourism. But
not all places in Mexico are onhigh alert. Like the location I'm about
to mention. And I'm not sureif you've heard of this place before.
(37:16):
Lagoon. No, no, Ihave not heard of this place before.
But it sounds like Paradise. Wellit pretty much is. It's a lake
in Mexico that has earned the nicknamethe Maldives of Mexico. Kind of a
cool little fun fact. The Mayans, who are native to this part of
Mexico called Bacala the lagoon of sevencolors because they claim you can see seven
(37:37):
shades of blue in the water.Ooh, and yeah, I encourage everyone
to look at it. I thinkwhen I was googling it, what besides
the really beautiful blue hues, whatcaught my attention is that there's this it's
called the lake, but it couldvery easily be confused for a river,
or at least some parts of thelake can be confused for a river because
(37:59):
it's this very, very narrow corridorthat stretches pretty far out. Wow,
this looks amazing. Yeah, no, it's absolutely incredible. And so you
know, this location is just situatedtwo and a half hour south of Tuloom,
which is a city that we've coveredextensively in the past. It's a
really famous tourist destination for a lotof Westerners and tourism as a result,
(38:24):
you know, correct, correct,And Bacalard is just an hour north of
the Belizian border. A Lago deBacalad is known for its striking blue cutler
and water clarity thanks to its whitelimestone bottom, which is another very interesting
feature that makes it so unique.I want to go, what do you
say a podcast trip? Let's go, let's go okay, she's going Google
(38:51):
Gaga on this podcast over these pictures. You need to also hit pause if
you're not driving, Google this place. It's fascinating, absolutely fascinating. And
it's like, so, you knowthose bungalows on the water, isn't Bora
Bora famous for those or the Maldives? So I see that the sort of
a similar little huts on the water, which is cool and so okay,
(39:15):
so tell me we sort of introducethis as a cheaper alternative to the Maldives
because the Maldives is not known tobe cheap. It turns out, so
what is the price difference? Shockingto anyone that the Maldives are, you
know, expensive and we're not eventalking about flights here, because depending from
what area of the planet you livein, generally speaking, the Maldives or
(39:38):
Bora Bora is just going to bea very expensive flight. In regards to
the bungalows, you can find thosefor about four hundred a night in the
Maldives and that's going the cheap route. Here in Baccala Lagoon they go for
about two hundred a night, sosimilar experience but half the price. Yeah,
(40:00):
I'm looking this is the Maldives hereand then and these classic huts and
then if you go over to Baccalare, Mexico look very similar. I mean,
you know, I'm sure it's sodifferent in so many ways, but
if you're kind of looking for paradiseand you don't want to splurge on the
Maldives, then this could be agreat option. John, I'm glad you
(40:21):
brought it up. And the lastthing that I'll just go ahead and say
on it. If you're looking atthe pictures, you'll see that you still
get that similar secluded feeling as ifyou were in the Maldives, because I
think that's one of the alluring thingsabout their bora boris you're in the middle
of nowhere right like just this likescenic location. You get that in Bacalad.
But also if you want to goout and explore, you're a little
(40:44):
bordering of like the beach life.You can also drive out about an hour
out and you start getting into areasor senotes that you can go and explore
or hike around. And I'm justpulling this up on the map and you
can see it's at the very bottomof Mexico, right above Belize and Guatemala,
(41:07):
so it's very very south, almostnext to the border, so food
for thought. If you're looking foras similar experience as the Maldives but you're
balling on the budget, consider aboutthe Love Lagoon. We'll be sure to
post up some pictures on our storieson the gram and put this clip up
on YouTube to make it more accessiblefor anyone. Yeah, actually might I
might go there. I have toplan a trip, all right. Well,
(41:30):
if you've made it this far,thanks so much for listening. This
is the Globe Charters Podcast. Youcan find us at Globe Charters Podcast on
Instagram, Globe Chrotters Podcast on Facebook, at globetrot Pod on Twitter, at
our website www dot gts podcast dotcom. Feel free to reach out to
us. What did you think ofthe episode? Let us know. We
(41:50):
do genuinely want to hear from you, so yeah. Editing on this podcast
was done by Sassia Hadvani. Musicon this podcast by Thin Blue Collective and
find their music on band Camp andSpotify. Until next time,
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