Blog - foXnoMad

This Free App Is The Fastest Way To Get Through U.S. Immigration

dulles airport

After a long flight there’s nothing less fun than waiting in a long immigration line at passport control. There is however a way to speed up the entire process using an app provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Here’s how to use Mobile Passport Control (MPC) to skip the long lines.

How MPC Works

MPC is a free app available for iOS and Android created by the U.S. government. The MPC app lets you digitally fill out a customs declaration form, upload a picture of your passport, and your photo of yourself as you would with a passport agent. In this case though the MPC app lets you bypass the manual process of having your passport looked over by an agent.

MPC users have their own separate line and is available for use at over 33 airports and some seaports of entry. (A current total of 48 sites.)

Who Is Eligible?

The MPC app can be used by U.S. citizens, legal residents, Canadian B1/B2 citizen visitors and returning Visa Waiver Program travelers with approved ESTA. This includes most of the European Union citizens, Australian, and Japanese citizens, among several others who are eligible to use MPC after their initial U.S. visit.

Set Up Before You Fly

A lot of people realize there’s a faster way through immigration using the MPC app when the airline staff announce it’s an option. By that time though uploading everything and getting your account created might be too tight, assuming you have an Internet connection at the airport at all. Therefore it’s best to set up the MPC app before you take off on your trip and it only takes a few minutes to get everything ready.

Then once you land, find the MPC line, scan the QR code on your phone shown in the app, and enjoy waiting for your luggage. But hey, at least you didn’t spend any unnecessary time looking at people’s back in immigration lines.

The Problem With Boeing Planes

You’ve probably seen the images from Alaska Airlines flight 1282 where a section of the plane was blown out in mid-flight. Fortunately, the plane was able to make an emergency landing and aside from 3 minor injuries nobody else was hurt or killed. Still, this was a brand new Boeing 737 Max 9 – only in service for 3 months before this incident – but since the Max line of planes was introduced, there have been two fatal crashes.

What is going on with Boeing and should you be worried about flying in their planes?

Safe But Less Safe

Previous generations of Boeing 737s have a fatal accident rate of .2 per million flights while the 737 MAX have a 4 in million fatal accident rate, still safe, but twenty times more accident prone. The Boeing 737 line is the most popular passenger plane ever – beginning production in 1968 through the latest generation called MAX which began in 2017. Throughout much of that history Boeing was the dominant jetliner manufacturer. Boeing’s main rival Airbus wasn’t a serious rival to Boeing until the 1990s.

alaska airlines

In the 2000s Airbus overtook Boeing in the narrow body aircraft market and today Airbus has 62% of the share of airliner backlog. Their main advantage: fuel economy.

Savings In The Sky

In the 2010s Airbus starting using a new engine design using with what’s known as high-bypass. Technical details aside, these are engines that are bigger than what was previously being used but 25% more fuel efficient. (And 35% quieter, a nice bonus.) Before this jetliner engines were made to be narrower thinking it would reduce wind resistance.

Over time airlines began gravitating toward these narrower, smaller capacity planes because they saved money on fuel. Those cost savings meant that airlines could run more flights versus the larger Boeing planes which burn more fuel. It’s easier to fill up smaller planes resulting in fewer empty seats. Again, economic benefits.

Boeing Plays Catch Up

Boeing isn’t able to put those newer more fuel efficient engines on their existing larger planes because the wings are too low for them to fit. This leads to the decision to make the Boeing MAX, their version of a narrow body jetliner to compete with Airbus. Building planes takes experience and Boeing didn’t redesign the 737 Max from scratch. The larger more powerful engines being placed on modified existing designs have lead to issues. Boeing had to put the new engines further forward on the wings of the MAX but combined with more thrust they have a tendency to pull the plane up more – in other words give it more lift.

jetliner engine

To compensate, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) was implemented. That’s basically a computer than detects when the nose of the plane might be going up too high and then forces the plane to pitch downward. Boeing engineers allowed the MCAS to be fed information from a single sensor with no redundancy because “they calculated the probability of a “hazardous” MCAS malfunction to be virtually inconceivable.”

The Federal Aviation Administration also agreed and did not adequately inform pilots about the MCAS in their manuals. Unfortunately in the case of Lion Air Flight 620 in 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines 302 in 2019 that lead to two fatal crashes, killing 346 people. Boeing was later charged with fraud and ordered to pay compensation of 2.5 billion dollars for concealing information from the FAA.

Failures For Dollars

There were failures on the part of Boeing and the FAA, who overruled their own engineers in the regarding the 737 MAX 8 and there have been well documented quality control issues with the MAX 9 (the plane involved in the Alaska Airlines incident). A U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure report also pointed to the FAA’s practice of delegating some of its inspection functions to Boeing’s own engineers, noting that this structure “creates inherent conflicts of interest that have jeopardized the safety of the flying public.”

The grounding of the MAX 8 cost Boeing 21 billion dollars. Still, the 737 MAX 8 and 9 still have 4500 orders combined so far but it seems like Boeing’s push to make a profit – which that haven’t done since 2019 – has lead to cutting corners in their race to compete with Airbus. Travelers can only hope there are no more accidents before oversight of Boeing, investigations, and changes both to personnel and production are implemented.

Why I Travel (A Personal Story)

suriname amsterdam

I wasn’t sure I would ever write about this but after a few decades I realized that’s the point of the story.

When I was 15, I received a phone call that would change how I viewed being alive. On a beautifully monotonous sunny summer day, I was outside with friends doing nothing worth a mention. Not a care in the world. Some of the best moments of life are those so dully blissful you would never remember them otherwise.

We would pop in and out of our apartments like feral badgers to get water, food, and cool off for a moment before heading back into the wild. On one such water trip, a family member casually mentioned getting a phone call. A friend of a parent had died, there might be a funeral, and maybe I would want to go. Details at this point were murky. I vividly remember an internal monologue about why should I care about some old people? Old people died. Who cares? I had no interest in going to a funeral. There were more important things on my schedule like sitting outside and doing nothing. Life was for me or any perception of it, casually predictable.

When the next phone call came in, it was for me. Again, old people died. Not close friends barely in their 20s at least I thought, until that call. For most of us, death is something distant – a future event that happens at the “end”. End of how we roughly sketch our lives to look like from an early age. I went to the funeral confused as I slowly came to the realization that our existence begins and ends randomly.

This death was not a grand assassination like in the Godfather or some heroic sacrifice to save people from a burning building. Hey, we all draw our stories differently. Maybe yours is in a rocking chair surrounded by loved ones or running through a tomato garden chasing grand kids. But I’m afraid to tell you we don’t get to write the final chapter.

An accident. The details are unimportant but that’s the mundane of it. People cried at the funeral. In Islamic tradition you’re placed in a white sheet and buried. You can see the outline of the body under the cloth as people carry you to a hole in the ground. It is not glamorous or spiritual nor is it special. I wish it were but that day I learned it won’t be when I die. Or when you die. It happens and then you become a series of biological processes until eventually, there’s nothing left to decay. The end.

You don’t get to control that part of the story but if you’re one of the lucky ones – you have some control over the middle parts. Since that day, I have told myself I might die today, every morning. Because dying is not something we’re guaranteed at age 80 or 90 and I’m sure even then, I’ll want a few more years. Ceasing to exist can happen at any moment and for any number of stupid reasons.

skiing

Some people are so scared of dying that it prevents them from living. Any day could be our last and I try to remember that as much as I can. There have been stretches I’ve forgotten that fact and it’s often when I’m least happy. So, I try to live and do and see as much as I can while I’m here and capable. (Make no mistake though, I’m quite apt at focusing on self-indulgence at the expense of more important things like people – hey, we’re all a work in progress.)

Speaking of people, be kind to them and understand where they come from. Don’t be mean, bring people up, don’t put them down. Make a small positive impact on someone they might pass along to someone else. It’s how I honor my friend – by doing all the things she didn’t get to do and living the lessons I didn’t know I was learning. I never got to say how much of a big sister she was to me. I was shy and nerdy (not much change there) but learned to be bolder and make little adventures where you can. Enjoy life. Like I said, small positive impacts.

When I die, nobody should come to the funeral and be able to say he didn’t have a good life. Feel free to use my skull as a soccer ball for all I care. There should be a party for me and I hope for you too. A party to say that you, despite all the bullshit the world throws at you – and there is a heaping galactic ton of it – were able to make the most of existence.

Your life may stop at 22, 43, or who knows when. It’s kind of funny when you think about it, just how absurd this all is. You are here and then you are not. An infinite amount of time passed before you were born and much longer will pass after you die. So if you are fortunate enough to be here for a while with the rest of us, have fun when possible. Make little adventures where you can. If all of history can pass and every atom since then bumping into one another can lead you to reading this, if that infinitesimally small collection of events got you here? Well, then you shouldn’t think anything you can dream up is impossible.

I once read about a culture who believes you don’t die as long as you’re remembered in the memories of other people. So strive to have a long existence. Life is contagious. Live it and it shares itself with others.

Ridge’s Carry On Is Pricey Luggage Built To Last

Ridge have ventured from building metal, minimalist wallets to luggage that places a premium on durability. The Ridge Carry On (that’s the rather bland name) is a hard shell roller with a conventional design that’s been beefed up for rugged luxury.

Solid State

The Carry On comes in a nice set of choices from Royal black, Alpine navy, to Basecamp orange, personally my favorite. It’s bright – easy to find at the luggage carousel if you decide to check it in but isn’t as neon as it looks like on the Ridge website. This is more of a fuller orange that stands out but isn’t tacky looking. The polycarbonate shell is matte so there are no reflections or fingerprints to worry about and also makes the carry on more scratch resistant

All around Ridge have accented the Carry On with black bumpers around the exterior and anodized aluminum corner guards. It stands 20.5 inches (about 52 centimeters) high and is 14 inches (35.5 centimeters) wide.

ridge carry on

Ridge have used weatherproof zipper lining – these are YKK zippers one of the more durable manufactures – the lining also being black adds a nice contrast to the over all look of the ridge carry on. Weatherproofing here is IPX3 rated, which means the carry on can a spray of water but isn’t waterproof. For rainy days though even if you check this bag and it’s sitting on a tarmac, it should provide a good amount of protection for the contents.

Keep On Rolling

The Ridge Carry On moves along 4 sets of double solid plastic wheels that are roll fairly well but occasionally still do that thing a lot of 4 point rollers do where it takes a second to align the wheels when changing directions. The wheels are thick and feel sturdy making it easy to move around on relatively flat surfaces. You can also roll the carry on at an angle on steeper inclines or less even pavement.

The handle has three height settings and a unique honey comb rubber grip that’s easy to hold – this thing isn’t going to slip out of your hands any time soon. The handle is smooth and clicky when it gets set and collapses nicely back into the body of the Carry On when not needed.

ridge carry on luggage

The Ridge Carry On isn’t a revolutionary design but raises the bar on the quality of parts and materials of a typical 4 point roller. The corner guards, slightly thicker shell, and use of heavy plastics in the wheels are some of the things that set it apart from luggage with similar body shapes and design. The use of those materials though does come with two other carry-ons though: price and weight.

Calculating Costs

The Ridge Carry On costs about twice as much as some other 4 point rollers you’ll find in this size and shape. Ridge are hoping that their investment in the build will mean while you’re paying more upfront for their Carry On, it’s luggage that will last you many years. The second price of the design choices Ridge have made with the Carry On is the weight. It’s 3.4 kilograms or 7.6 pounds, which is about a pound or half a kilogram heavier than similar hard shell rollers this size. Fortunately you probably won’t have to weigh the Carry On for many flights depending on where in the world you are but the weight is something you’ll want to keep in mind for both airlines limits as well as lifting the carry on into overhead compartments.

The Carry On is spacious enough for a 2 week trip. There’s enough storage for clothes, jackets, extra shoes, and most people, the Ridge Carry On will let you travel without having to check a bag. I could see this going well with a backpack for your laptop and other electronics so if you pack wisely that could be your entire luggage set up.

The Ridge Carry On is a bit pricier than some of the competition but if you travel frequently and find that you’ve had to replace your roller more than you’d like or you want to jump into the world of freedom that is not having to check a bag, then you might want to take a look at the Ridge Carry On.

How To Use eSIMs When Traveling

This post was sponsored by BNESIM who provide eSIMs in over 200 countries. [What is this?]

There is a lot of confusion about eSIMs, what they are, how to use them, and whether or not they’re better than physical SIM cards. The short of it is eSIMs are a very convenient way to get mobile Internet when you’re traveling using a provider like BNESIM.

What Is An eSIM?

Let’s start with physical SIM cards – piece of plastic and gold insert into a smart phone to identify it to a particular mobile network. A valid SIM card gives you access to AT&T, or T-Mobile, or whichever network carrier it’s tied to. So even though there are mobile networks and signals all around you, the SIM in your phone is the key to a particular network. Most newer phones though are capable of using electronic SIMs, or eSIMs.

bnesim

With a physical SIM card when you want to switch mobile networks you need to get another physical SIM card for that other network – then you have to swap it out with the one you were using before. eSIM essentially fill the same role as SIM cards, except it’s all digital and done right on your phone.

Using BNESIM To Stay Connected

The most straightforward way to use eSIMs when traveling (and avoid expensive international roaming fees) is to download an eSIM provider app. BNESIM is available on iOS as well as Android and essentially is an online store for eSIMs. Before your next trip you would search for the country you’re heading to, let’s say Ireland, and then purchase one of several plans. You can get a 7 or 30 day mobile data package as a one-time purchase or choose a lifetime plan so any unused data doesn’t expire, good if you know you’ll be visiting a particular country again soon.

BNESIM

There’s also the option of a subscription which gives you a discount of around 35% and is useful for countries where you’re going to be staying for longer periods of time.

eSIM And Go

Once you’ve selected a particular plan and purchased it, the BNESIM app makes installing the eSIM very simple. You just need to tap the install eSIM button and after a few minutes of digital magic, your eSIM is installed. This is basically the digital equivalent of swapping out a physical SIM card except you can load multiple eSIMs and don’t have to worry about losing any of them.

After the eSIM has been installed (you can schedule when it is activated, ideally the day you arrive in the country you’re visiting) simply turn it on from your phone settings, make sure data roaming is activated, and if you’re SIM/eSIM from home isn’t needed, disable that line while you’re abroad.

Installation of an eSIM for a foreign country or activation doesn’t have to be done in that country either. I find it’s easier to have things set up beforehand but so long as you have a wifi connection you can get all the eSIMs you like. And that’s pretty much it. For the most part when traveling eSIMs are a much easier, less expensive way to stay connected. You can get the amount of data you need, add more credit if you run out, and do all of this right on your phone without having to go to a physical shop. A service like BNESIM puts the store in your pocket and can keep you connected in the places you’re headed to next, with a lot less hassle, time, and money.

Best Travel Tech Gifts Under $30

organic beanie

Shopping for people who travel frequently can be difficult as they tend to be minimalist, picky, and seem to have everything they already need. As someone who fits into that category, these are some things that have changed how I travel and become useful gear that doesn’t take up a lot of space across various price points.

For The Carry-On Only Warrior: $12

Going through security at airports means having to take out your sprays, gels, and other containers, even if they’re under the weight limits. The Ogato 3 pack of clear, easy-close pouches is perfect for small toiletries.

Tropical Traveler: $14

Small and powerful, Sun Bum makes a vegan, roll-on SPF 50 sunscreen which happens to be under the limit for most carry-on gels.

Romantic Road Writer: $21

A good notebook is the best tool for writing ideas, sketching, and connecting with your thoughts when traveling. Aside from the creative benefits of writing on paper versus digital jotting, the rugged Moleskin notebooks are perfect places to drop in receipts, postcards, and other small physical media.

Fingerprint Fighter: $25

This is the stuff they use in Apple stores to clean products and an iKlear kit will keep your screens and keyboards looking like showroom new too.

Digital Detection: $29

Airtags are incredibly useful for tracking the location of your things. Don’t believe it? You will after experiencing the power of knowing your luggage was actually packed on your plane before every single flight. Thanks Airtag.

Sale

Useful and durable don’t have to mean expensive, like the foXnoMad organic beanie, on sale now. For travelers, small gifts are a compliment and hopefully some of the 5 items above will make you their favorite gift giver this year.

About Anil Polat

foxnomad aboutHi, I'm Anil. foXnoMad is where I combine travel and tech to help you travel smarter. I'm on a journey to every country in the world and you're invited to join the adventure! Read More

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