Travel & Vacation Tips - Episode #242 of CloudFocus Weekly

Machine transcript generated in 2026 from the episode audio (Whisper speech-to-text with automatic speaker separation). Speaker labels are automatic and may be wrong in places. Timestamps shown every few minutes.

00:10 Jason Atwood: This is the 242nd episode of CloudFoam's Week of April 2016. This episode is titled Travel and Vacation Tips. CloudFocus Weekly is brought to you by Clone This User. This is the worst! Clone an existing Salesforce user with a clickable button by the desktop or on Salesforce 1 mobile. Really? Available free on the AppExchange or clonethisuser.com. By the way, I'm going to face that one and join me.

Justin Edelstein: Justin Elsey. So by the way, I've been here the whole time. I haven't left. yeah. Since the last episode,

Jason Atwood: I really was. You were trying to throw me off by doing a meme, which I showed you.

Justin Edelstein: Which whatever, because I'm so up in the memes. first things first. Second. I gotta text you the other day from you. That was that... Sorry for your loss. Yeah.

Jason Atwood: And I was like... That's weird, because I don't know I lost anything. And he's like, I know you were a big fan. That's right. And It was right. And it was very weird to get like a text from somebody basically giving me condolences for something I didn't know. Anyway, it was for Prince.

Justin Edelstein: And so, RIP Prince. Sorry, I've been tweeting a little bit about it recently. But how thoughtful of me.

Jason Atwood: That's a little weird. To text you. I'm not one of those people who feels like that. Celebrity deaths just in time. Oh the sound disappeared that celebrity deaths are sort of I don't take it too personally Because I don't know them.

Justin Edelstein: I'm like maybe pour a little out for you a little grapefruit Would you come to my funeral your oh the cell way went worse your funeral? Yeah, do a funeral yes, would you a mitzvah you do a show?

Jason Atwood: What was that funeral?

Justin Edelstein: Okay. It's not getting appropriate. Okay.

Jason Atwood: Yeah You do a funeral funeral.

Justin Edelstein: That's The way it works. All right Well, you happen quick though. You wouldn't have much time to think I would go I would die today. I might be in the ground tomorrow. I'm not a fan I'm just not a fan of funerals. But anyway, so who is a fan of funerals Did you say vodka? Bobca. Vodka? Yeah. Vodka, vodka flavored vodka. Or vodka flavored vodka.

Jason Atwood: Yay, you said it wrong the first time. Oh, so I was going to do a little side note. I've been recently, I could make this one my 17th day, I've been recently moving our domains from GoDaddy, and he doesn't even know this, like this is what's funny, from GoDaddy to Google. So Google has like a Google domains The process is...

Justin Edelstein: Isn't it just GoDaddy in the background?

Jason Atwood: No. It used to be. No, it's Google. Google has their own registry now. Google's side is pretty good, right? Of course, it's very clean, like not a lot of stuff on GoDaddy. GoDaddy's the worst. It's the worst. But also the prices, Google's prices are good and they give you privacy for free. Like, Google GoDaddy charges you to like $20 a year for privacy.

03:22 Justin Edelstein: Whereas, what does that even mean?

Jason Atwood: Meaning that you can, when they woke up your domain, like if you looked up, actually go ahead the look up, who is a KONUS user, and you'll see it's-- a You'd be like, quick to check out, do you want this? Do you want email?

Justin Edelstein: No. Summer is coming right? I don't think we don't have to know coming summer is coming right? We're not cottomers coming We don't have notes although I think Pre-release pre-release notes are out right, but we haven't reviewed them I've been sent an interesting like thing to look at in

Jason Atwood: The release notes the normal, I mean average Americans, 60% of Americans don't have passport. Oh really? Do you have a passport? Of course. So you're a percent already. I'm in the topUTF. I'm in the top. I'm in. I'm in the top 12% already. I'm in the top 12% already. I'm in the top 12% already. I-12 times a year between business and pleasure at least. Yeah. You travel a bunch. At least once a month. And you know we have a...

06:24 Justin Edelstein: To So yes This is your thing you're leading. Yeah. All right Well, then maybe because usually I lead these things and ask you a bunch of questions But this is I don't know this is your thing.

Jason Atwood: Ask me ask me stuff So well, no because I have all the answers you should be asking me Maybe she has just giving you the and the questions to ask me and then I'll ask the other one who's talk Yeah, I like to do I like to talk I don't like this. I like to tickle. I like to takataka. I'm good. So, first of all, so for vacations. What do you do? Talking vacation or business travel? I'm talking vacation. I'm talking vacation. What do you do with Arkus to get yourself ready for vacation?

Justin Edelstein: It depends on how long the vacation is.

Jason Atwood: Alright, so give me the different scenarios. Like if it's a... If it's a long weekend. I don't really do anything. So at Arkus,

Justin Edelstein: If you're running projects, you're sending out status reports on Fridays. That's right. So if you're out on a Friday, you've got to either send out your status reports on Thursday. That's correct. Suck it up and do it on Friday when you're kinda out. Or really that's kinda it. Yeah, so I'll plan for that. I'll plan around that.

Jason Atwood: So you would say, I'd say tip one is that you probably start notifying people glared to know about your sort of where you'll, where you'll be. Yeah for a longer one,

Justin Edelstein: I give like two weeks. Right. Like hey, I'm gonna be out this week from this day to this day. If you need any backup, the person's copied copied on this email. That kind of thing.

Jason Atwood: And that's a good, I'll and say that's why I was kind of thinking is because as, you know, it's been a little GTD, one of the things is when I'm looking ahead in my calendar, I look two, three weeks ahead, that always, I see the vacation in there, I'm like, okay, I got to start planning both on the notification, but also started planning on the, you know, what, when people are asking me about, to do things, I'm, I have to know that there's this block that if you say, well, I need to go live on the X and I'm not going to be there for the acts, I have to say, OK, well, my giving that to somebody else or am I doing it? So some other things,

Justin Edelstein: If a longer extended period of time, put together a Google Sheet. I mean, it sounds crude, but it does the job. Just put together a Google Sheet of the project with links and stuff to all the resources that someone would need, the things in the cloud. Who's covering?. for me some notes for them and I'll try to meet with whoever is covering for me for like a half hour to an hour just to review like hey this is this project this is where they're going yeah this is like these like two weeks like the I'll be out for a week and half to two weeks I'm probably gonna be out like across two weekends put it that way and you know people are going to need to reach out to you about stuff so these are the things to expect from these types of people and you know you can you can pay attention to this stuff this stuff is important but can wait for me to get back right if something really really urgent comes up notify this person because they know exactly what this thing's going to be right and make sure that that is circulated to everyone who needs to know about it.

10:11 Justin Edelstein: Basically everyone whose name is on the sheet who's covering for me. But also make sure that other people are aware like hey here's my I'm going away sheet. Right for this period of time no one exists. If anyone were to for any reason reach out to... You out of nowhere just refer to this because it's got all the notes and links to other things that have notes in them So I try and prepare This is obviously all work stuff try and prepare that way here at work for that type of Trip or vacation right through it now question for you.

Jason Atwood: Yeah, this is a big debate I think when I talk to people about traveling and vacationing. Yeah, like there's kind of two kinds of travel and vacation. There's the, you go dark, which is you're in no communicato. Like there is no communicating with you, out of office is fully on. It says to talk to other people and you're not really going to respond to anything. That's sort of part A. And the other part is, well, I'm away. But, I'm in a place that I will have email and I will probably be checking my email 2, 3, 4 times a day. So if really something comes up, I won't really handle it but I'll be able to like respond and say hey or I'll be able to jump on something or again not really work, work.

Jason Atwood: I guess there's the third but I'll be checking in. more than once a day so it's not like you're waiting 24 hours. And then the last kind is, I'm vacationing. I do this because I like, this is kind of the way I like to do it. I like to go on vacation but then kind of still do some stuff. Like I like to do a little work in the morning and like check in on stuff, couple hours, and then sort of for the rest of the day I'm kind of off. So it's kind of like I'm taking... like I'm doing like two three hours in the morning and then I'm off the afternoon every day which is kind of my favorite and then you go someplace you know that you have good internet or whatever what do you which one do you do I like to go dark you go dark yeah you know that yeah you asked but yeah I asked because yeah I go you go on cruises where you can't really get the stuff and that's like a legitimate I can't on your honeymoon you were definitely dark like there was new you were in Europe, I mean, it depends where you are.

Jason Atwood: Obviously, if you're traveling to Massachusetts and you're going to go stay in someone's house, it's like, well, you know, they have good internet. I'm, I'm not really dark, dark, you know, it's all about my intention.

Justin Edelstein: Like, am I going away? You mentioned Massachusetts. I go there and I work from there often in the summertime, but. on vacation,

Jason Atwood: I like to be away, and what I'd... Go ahead, I'd say, what's the last vacation you didn't take your laptop? I did not take my laptop. Did you take it when you ran the cruise? No. You didn't? Okay. No... Did you take your laptop to London?

Justin Edelstein: Yes. Yes, because I thought I might need it. Right. Right. I thought I might need it to look a look stuff up while in the Airbnb. It's been once and my wife reminded me of this. Also London was just a long weekend.

13:24 Jason Atwood: Yeah, Thursday, Friday, Monday type of thing. Yeah. I think you actually came back maybe Sunday. I did.

Justin Edelstein: It's a YM believe that it would be a reason I can back Monday but I'm going to Friday's like Friday's for Monday I think about it just in case I needed it for like in the in the apartment that was staying at yeah I definitely did I think I won

Jason Atwood: One vacation in the last four years, I didn. Bring my laptop because a laptop is not just work like this. Other things on my laptop that I do that I like to have my laptop with R. I might not take it out very often. Like I was in Bermuda a while ago and we were there was no way to watch some like Hulu like you can't with who knows Netflix. There's really no way to watch it on the TV because I couldn't figure out... There was no way to connect it up, but I had my laptop. And so we watched, you know, the rainy day and we watched, you know, some Netflix shows.

Justin Edelstein: So I like to go. I go dark. I put the out of office on. I do. However, I get a lot of email that is. clutter email so sorry success community but like a lot of success communities 55 of them on Sunday morning a lot of that stuff so I will go in like once a day and just delete a lot of emails or mark them all red or something. But I try not to open emails from anybody. Like if I see that somebody sent me an email, like I'm like, I don't want, I don't want to open it because I don't want to trip. Like them knowing that I opened it. Because you know, if somebody's opened your email when, when. they're out of office if you send them a second email and you get the out of office.

Justin Edelstein: So I don't like to do that. So I try not to do that unless it says like urgent, urgent, urgent, check this email and it's like from you or someone like that.

Jason Atwood: To me it's easier to stay on top of it during again, personal preference. I like to stay on top of it. Like I'd rather go through and... Check email four or five times a day. Check in the morning. Check it before one. Check in the afternoon because then I can just stand and I'll just flag things. I want nothing to do with it. I just want to delete the stuff

Justin Edelstein: That's just going to suck my time when I do get back to it. That way, instead of going through 600 emails, I'm going through 100 emails. 100 because I could tell you like Only one out of every five emails I even get are like real a lot of it's just crud So I just turn that stuff off then I should before I go away But there's so much of it that I wouldn't even know where to go to start turning it off Like I I'm in a lot of groups and send me every every notification Like every email after that that you could like going that'd be really good But run it against the success community because that's where a lot of the emails come from But anyway, yeah, I prefer to go dark. I prefer to just try and relax and not think about it as much as possible.

16:41 Justin Edelstein: And one of the things that I also do, particularly for vacations, is I try to end my vacations and come home on Saturdays. Right. So you have a rebound day. So I have my Sunday rebound, get back into it day. and I'll often use that Sunday to pound through all the emails, get through all the updates, do a weekly review or something, because I'm not doing that on my vacation. Well, that's interesting. Yeah, I'm just not. So I will do a weekly review, it doesn't matter where I am, when I am. I mean, I haven't... I'm off, like I'm not even thinking about anything.

Jason Atwood: I was actually saying, there's an actual example of where I won't... Like, I'm going camping. And I'm like, I won't do a little camping because that's like, but I'll do it either. I'll do when I get home or I'll do it before I go. All right. Let's talk some stuff. So one thing I would say, I'd say just game changer for me in travel in the last whatever. One of my theories is, and this has been, that took me about 10 years to get here, is to become very... So I pick your brand and stick with it. So one of the things I do is I only stick within a couple brands for travel. Meaning I fly in one airline and I try to stay in one hotel because they start to add up and I used to just fly whatever I could get, whatever.

Jason Atwood: I'm like, no, now the brand loyalty is high because... I've seen that it pays me back. So I only fly Delta pretty much exclusively, unless I absolutely can't get there. Same here. And then I end up staying at these Hyatts because- That's not the same for me. Yeah, well, I do because even when I go to someplace, like when I go to someplace local, I'm like, I just know the brand. I know that when I walk in and say I'm a Hyatt, whatever, I get a better level of treatment. So I'm not just another guy. They have my profile. And it's worked out for me a couple times that I got to do stuff that they were like, oh, Mr. Atwood, you know, it's good to see you. And oh, well, let's put you in this room or this room or this room or give you this.

Jason Atwood: And one time they gave me a credit at the local, you know, restaurant. It's like, because I'd gotten bumped off a plane. I was like, it wasn't their fault. I got bumped off a plane. So... And to me it doesn't really matter, it's just about do you trust the brand. Like some of these hotel chains, I don't trust the chain. I think that they're gonna be, you know, walk up and be bad. Other things I do that recently, and I know I did it and then you did it and everybody, I even had my wife go do it, was TSA Pre. And my wife has it as well. Yeah. I A, I don't know why it took me so long. I feel like an idiot for all the years I didn't have it. Like it was the easiest...

Jason Atwood: It's the greatest thing ever. It was, it's the greatest thing ever. We should stop talking about it. Right, because we don't want other people to do it. Yeah. You guys shouldn't use TSDS. It's the worst. It's the worst. It's very expensive. It's terrible.

19:42 Justin Edelstein: It takes at least a hundred years to get it. And they just... I mean big brothers just all over you. Yeah all over you want nothing to do don't do it but it's it's the greatest it's changed the way you walk right through. You don't have to take your shoes off Don't take your laptop out.

Jason Atwood: Don't do anything There are times where I walk in and there is a it came coming back from chicago I walked through and the chicago one in it and there was nobody in the TS. I just, it was a straight pass. No stop. Like I didn't have to stop.

Justin Edelstein: So good. it is amazing. I also love not having to take anything out of that. No shuffling.

Jason Atwood: You TS Agron is crazy, but it's still one-third the time of the regular. Oh yeah.

Justin Edelstein: Because... No shoes, no laptop, you don't have to question anything. You don't just walk through the a thing. Just go. Just go.

Jason Atwood: Yeah, it just, and the way I put it too, because I think it's $80 for five years. $80 for five years. I would say $80 a year. Yeah, a year. I would play more than that. Or a time. I always say, if you're standing there and you see this huge line, you see a TSC line. Here's my credit card. Right, swipe it. Give me through there. Okay.

Justin Edelstein: They don't do the random selection anymore either.

Jason Atwood: No, with the $44,000 app. It's over. Done.

Justin Edelstein: Right. Random selection is done.

Jason Atwood: So what, relent, so like, all right, so we travel a lot, or not a lot a lot, but enough. So what apps do you use? Like, what's your, like, what's your go-to apps?

Justin Edelstein: I don't have any. Okay, good. You're good. No, I mean good job. I'm just kidding. Well, I don't have like a go-to app I do have let's see. So I use I do fly Delta. So I use their fly Delta app. Yeah to do everything You know checking in I throw the the thing into my wallet, the boarding pass. I use it to check on upgrades and things of that nature. So, yeah, Delta, great. It's a good app, too. Let's see, I have Evernote, which I have like a packing list. Yes, which has. broken into kind of sections like clothing, tech,

Jason Atwood: Question stuff like that. When are you packed for a trip?

Justin Edelstein: Depends on the length of the trip so tough question. Let's use this week as an example. Today's Monday. I'm Wednesday morning. I have a Wednesday morning, 9 30 a.m. flight to San Francisco. Yep. So Wednesday, 9 30. God. JFK or JFK? Probably leave it like 7 30. Yeah. I know there's a little traffic probably in there. Jeff is. Yeah. I might even leave earlier. I'm not sure. We'll see. So will you pack the night before? Yeah, I'll probably pack. tomorrow night. I almost never, unless it's a... I usually pack the day of but because I'm very good at packing yeah, I don, ever forget stuff the only time I forget stuff is like little tech gadgety doodads that are just in the wrong

23:04 Jason Atwood: In the wrong bag Computer bag, you know just swap them. You don't have that in your checklist.

Justin Edelstein: I Don't I should I should add because I I now have two computer bags and One is like the travel bag and the other isn't I think I had to grab stuff out of The travel one to put into the other one so it never made its way back in and whatever doesn't matter It's funny

Jason Atwood: Cuz my travel bag is like

Justin Edelstein: Fully stocked and it never comes out of that bag like nothing comes out of that bag. I know there's certain things that travel with like have one of those USB chargers as for ports, I have a lightning cable and I'm watching a bull right here just for your traveling me and like that stuff is all good so one of those stuff itself like I'm using ever go but I'm just I'm not really having to do anything, I'm just reassuring myself that, oh okay I have that, I have that, I have that, oh let me make sure that's in the back, yep, it's okay, it's there. And in my Evernote, I have a lot of things that I, that are kinda cues to

Jason Atwood: Do in advance, cause there's some things you can't do five minutes before you leave, like if you wanna download a lot of movies or update your podcast or... Yeah, I definitely do all that stuff the night before. So you wanna get like your- things ready Amazon

Justin Edelstein: Prime's changed the game on that one now that you can download stuff another right so and TiVo yeah I don't have that I don't have that box that's so good allows for that but Amazon Prime now with the downloads you can just download a whole season of something or like three movies they don't have the greatest movies but

Jason Atwood: There's an article the other day that they have more movies in their collection now than Netflix does. Yeah, but they're crappy movies. They're crappy. But they have Showtime.

Justin Edelstein: Maybe HBO. No, they have Showtime. They have Showtime in there too?

Jason Atwood: Yeah, I was watching Don Cheadle, that movie. That show is on. Also lies. They have like the first four seasons on download. Wow. Yeah, I mean it's embarrassing like that show that's

Justin Edelstein: What you should not watch on a plane watch it like yeah I try to watch one of those shows on a plane once one of the Amazon shows I was trying to watch transparent. Yeah, I'm a little interesting and we were watching it and all of a sudden There's some nakedness and we're like looking around Like, alright, and then there's more nakedness, and we're like, yeah, we probably should not watch this song playing. So one of my wife's favorite movies,

Jason Atwood: And it's not, it's not, it sounds worse than it is, but it's a very funny movie, is understatement, make a porno? Yeah. And it's really not as bad as you think it is, but there are like one or two scenes that are like... Maybe not even yeah one one or two scenes anyway So she was watching it on her iPad and she noticed that someone was just like staring so she had to stop Like can't watch that movie anymore Yeah, definitely downloading all the stuff especially podcasts. I like to load up on all the podcasts make sure I've got them all I'm a big one of my tips is I always bring my passport and My reason is that I like to have a backup ID because if someone steal my wallet or if I lose my wallet or something.

26:36 Jason Atwood: I at least have another ID I can go with and I think passport is just a better ID to have when you're traveling. Like so I don't have to take my theory is if I'm doing all that in the line stuff, my passport sits with my like phone and I can just go phone passport. I don't have to deal with pulling out the wallet and having to worry about that piece. Right. So I always take my passport.

Justin Edelstein: Me too I always I always travel with my passport

Jason Atwood: I also am a big like to me it all starts at at the it when it starts I use TripIt I really like it although I think Google is getting so much better someone is telling me that Google does all the things that TripIt does it's on my calendar my trip is on my calendar Yeah, that Delta,

Justin Edelstein: The Delta, the flights are on my calendar.

Jason Atwood: That it does that but that even Apple does now too. It throws those in your calendar. But what it doesn't do what I like about TripIt is it creates a subscriber calendar. So what I do is I give that to my wife. So when I plan trips, she then gets it. She sees it on her calendar. So I don't have to say, Oh, here's my flight. I used to back in the dizay, I used to like send out an email like, here's my flight, here's my hotel,

Justin Edelstein: Here's what I'm making. I just got one of those from my dad two days ago. What? Like what do you, yeah. Here's my itinerary. Right.

Jason Atwood: Thanks dad. And what you can do in TripIt is you can just click print and so you can even send a PDF to someone. Like if they, because not everybody subscribes to your calendar. I really like that. And then for apps. I'm trying to think like the ones that I kind of use at times. Do you know it's really great while you look at apps?

Justin Edelstein: So Google Maps. Yes. I know Google Maps. Now allows you, or has been allowing you for a little while now, to pinpoint a location. Yes. And then. Zoom out or in you'd probably want to zoom out to a certain Radius around that location and download that map. Yes locally so that you don't need data So if you're traveling At the great tag the country or and you don't have international data, which is a whole other thing that we should mention but if you're you can go to Google Maps and you can Think about getting international data plan Because not everywhere has just Wi-Fi Automatic and you know what if you want to get an uber because you're in the middle of nowhere You want to be able to get the uber yep? And the same goes with the Google map if you didn't download it offline You're like how do I get home from here or you can just get it home and pay the $300 bill You're going to hate life if that happens.

29:44 Jason Atwood: Well a couple new ones. There's actually a TSC, TSA, not Bribe. It's called MyTس. It allows you to see the wait lines at certain airports. Because one of yeah is I go into each one of my apps, again you're doing this on a, whenever you're walking around or, a couple days before I go and all the way to, I'm going to use for some purpose, like if I'm going to Hyatt, I go into the, I go into the Delta app, I go into, what's the one we use, Way to Ride. the And then I like apps that like watch the flights now again most the apps now like most of the services do that for you now But I used to have one called Actually, they stopped it but it used to read from from trip it So pull down all my?

Jason Atwood: My flights from trip it and then kind of give me alerts if anything changed again most apps now have that built in I'm trying to get another one. I get alerts on my watch when they Yes, when they when boarding yeah boarding

Justin Edelstein: You're now boarding I know I'm standing here after another one out there another fun one bring Fido

Jason Atwood: So it's an app that lists out all the hotels that have that could take I've take my dog once in a while. Alright, what about packing tips? We already did that. Really? Packing tips is just that you have a big Evernote. and check it before you travel

Justin Edelstein: That's kind of it, I mean, you know, know the weather where you're going Yep, and that's it, pack accordingly, know if you're gonna go to the gym, if you are great bring extra underwear, and bring sneakers, bring sneakers

Jason Atwood: I'll tell you, I to no longer pack I no longer pack for just the days I'm going,

Justin Edelstein: Because I've got caught once or twice where I had to stay an extra day. shirt.

Jason Atwood: There you go. you The pickle guy down, you know, the all that sort of like loyalty stuff. So I unpack it down to what I need for the trip. So I don't end up taking just stuff that I don't need, you know, the local liquor store, the wine stop, the this, the that. I don't want to take all that with me. I just pull it out and put it at home. Obviously tracking stuff.

33:06 Justin Edelstein: I don't know Guess that's it any other wonderful tips for your travel. Oh my god the zen Oh my god is anyone listening still?

Jason Atwood: No Alright, alright, you're just nasty nasty nasty man All right, well, we've made a ton of picks, so those are good. Again, I think, yeah, I don't know, I made tons. But, all right, so next week we'll come back with more Salesforce-y stuff. This week was sort of a travel thing. If you have good tips, shoot them at us, at Just Dettlestein, at Jason M. Atwood. What's on your Evernote list for your packing list? Yeah, what's on your list? What's on your list? What's on your wall? What's on your list? Facebook.com slash Arcist Inc. Success community, powerless groups. LinkedIn, Google+, remember to always subscribe. Review will be back next week with some more salesiest things, sales forceiest things. Until then, as always, it's Justin J saying, enjoy those cloudy days.